Review - JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH

And now…a summer blockbuster film from the “no one asked for it” department.

It’s hard to believe that the original JURASSIC PARK film brought '‘shock and awe” CGI dinosaurs to the big screen 32 years ago. This Stephen Spielberg blockbuster brought in the age (good and bad) of giant CGI summer films. This led to the inevitable trilogy that were still interesting and fun…but definitely followed the law of diminishing returns.

And then…just when you thought you’d seen the last of the CGI dinosaurs of the Jurassic period, the retro/nostalgic JURASSIC WORLD burst onto the scene in 2015 and brought another trilogy of diminishing returns to the screen. And when the final installment (JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION) hit the screens with a thud, one could safely assume that we had seen the last of this series.

But…the suits at Universal noticed one thing - over $2.2 billion in Worldwide Box Office for the series.

So…whether we like it or not…we get another installment of “humans getting eaten by dinosaurs” - JURASSIC WORLD: REBIRTH where Scarlett Johansson (BLACK WIDOW) leads yet another group of human food onto yet ANOTHER island that INGEN was using for dinosaur genetic manipulation.

This Gareth Edwards (the best Star Wars film, ROGUE ONE) effort has quite a bit going for it…an interesting (enough) premise that is well (and simply) laid out, engaging stars in Johansson, Jonathan Bailey (Fiero in WICKED) and 2x Academy Award winner Mahershala Ali (GREENBOOK) who all earn their paychecks trying to bring some depth to thinly written characters who’s main role is to look up in “shock and awe” at CGI dinosaurs and CGI that REALLY, REALLY works (for the most part), especially a water attack on a boat.

And…there is a young girl in peril, Audrina Miranda (in what looks to be her Major Film debut) who makes a pet of a young dino that is “just so cute”, but Edwards knows how to pull back just in time to keep it from getting annoying.

However…this film commits many critical errors:

1). It gives work to the worst actor in the business today, Ed Skrein (MIDWAY), who comes clamoring onto the screen with such a one-note performance that he might as well wear an “eat me” sign on his back.

2). Unfortunately, that performance isn’t the worst one of the film. Rupert Friend (COMPANION) plays the villain of the piece that does everything but twirl his mustache and tie Johansson to the railroad tracks.

3). The CGI in this film is great…EXCEPT…for a scene towards the end of the film where they either ran out of time, money or interest (probably all 3). My kids can make a better CGI scene on their phones than what was foisted on us at the end.

4). Everyone in this film is WAY TOO PRETTY! The couldn’t throw a bone to “weathered” character actors like Danny Trejo, Dale Dickey or even good ol’ Shea Wigham? Nope. They broke open the Ford Modeling Agency books and said…”if they look good, they probably will taste good to the dinosaurs”.

5). NONE of the main characters are worth rooting for (I’m looking at you Johannson and Bailey), though Ali tries really, really hard to give us some sort of better character than the weakly written character he was given by veteran screenwriter David Koepp (let’s go with the Tom Cruise THE MUMMY), while a quartet of the players in the “B” story are much more interesting and worth our while. Here’s an idea, let’s do a film focusing solely on these characters!

And, finally, this film committed the CARDINAL SIN of these types of movies: the dinosaur-to-humans getting eaten ratio is waaaaaay too low!

So, come for some very good dinosaur CGI, but you’ll have to wade through all the sins of the film to find the few gems.

Letter Grade: B-

6 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)