Last year, when I learned that the Jurassic Park/World franchise would continue with a seventh film, Jurassic World Rebirth, I broke into the Snoopy Dance. I’ve always been a sucker for dinosaur movies, although to be honest, I had to wonder where the series would go after a rather meh Jurassic World Dominion (2022). Quick assessment: while it couldn’t hold a candle to Steven Spielberg’s classic, Jurassic Park (1993), or to the awesome Jurassic World (2015), this entry offered loads of dinosaurs, as well as a kick-ass performance by its star, Scarlett Johansson. Its 2+ hours of run time flew by for me, and that’s always a good sign.
A MITE PREDICTABLE
Here is a quick overview of its somewhat predictable, so-so plot. Three years after the events in Jurassic World Dominion, the public couldn’t care less about the resurrected dinosaurs. Most of them have died off anyway, thanks to this world’s toxic climate. The majority exist on islands along the equator, which are off limits to everyone.
Not exactly a pleasure cruise…
Johansson plays Zora Bennett, a security expert and mercenary who, along with paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis, is hired by corporate asshole Martin Krebs to lead a team on a covert mission. Their purpose is to track down three of the largest remaining dinosaurs and retrieve biomaterial samples from them, which is essential for a new heart disease treatment. Success will, of course, result in, as Krebs says, trillions of dollars. One of these creatures is the aquatic Mosasaurus, and the others are land and air creatures, each of which exists on an island that, 17 years earlier, had been abandoned after one of their cross-breeding experiments had gone terribly wrong.
YA GOTTA HAVE A KID
Once Zora’s team is gathered, they set sail for the island, first tracking the Mosasaurus. They pick up four survivors from a shipwreck caused by one of the creatures: a father, his two daughters, and the older one’s boyfriend. The young one, Bella, provides the “cuteness factor,” although she turns out to be a brave little kid.
T-Rex is always around.
Once all of the characters were gathered, I played a game with myself. I named who would survive, and who would get eaten. Guess what, I scored 100%. I did say predictable, did I not?
But no matter, because the encounters at sea with multiple Mosasauruses, as well as a nasty Spinosaurus or two, were mere appetizers for the carnage that would take place on the creepy, abandoned island, where “normal” dinosaurs and cross-bred “monsters” roamed both on land and in the air.
So, long live the Jurassic Park/World franchise! Will there be a sequel? No word yet, but an $862 million gross says that there more than likely will be one.
Zora and Henry need to look to their right.