On Screen: “Jurassic: World Rebirth”
Jurassic: World Rebirth
Why do people go to the movies? For entertainment. That’s why popular franchises flourish and “Jurassic: World Rebirth” is a box-office hit.
It’s been five years since “Jurassic: World Dominion,” so many of the once-extinct dinosaurs that were let loose around the world have died off, unable to survive in the hostile environment caused by climate change.
Yet when pharmaceutical executive Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) contacts covert ops expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to lead an illegal expedition to an island near the equator where dinosaurs still roam, she’s reluctant — until she’s promised a $10 million payoff. After all, she’s a mercenary.
Krebs’s mission is to extract genetic samples from three of the largest dinosaur species — air, land and sea — so that ParkerGenix can develop a major cardiac medication. For support, he recruits paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and Zora enlists her former partner, Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali).
Sailing from the port of Suriname, they pick up a stranded family whose 45-foot sailboat was capsized by a Mososaurus. There’s Ruben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his teenage daughter Teresa (Luna Blaise), her stoner boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono) and younger daughter Isabella (Audrina Miranda) who adopts a tiny Aquilops dino dubbed Dolores.
But that’s later — after they’ve landed on Isle Saint-Hubert, where the biotech company InGen banished its cloned, crossbred, genetic disasters — hideous mutant monsters — which is why tourism is strictly prohibited.
Crafted by the series original screenwriter David Koepp and directed by Gareth Edwards (“Godzilla”), this seventh installment revolves around the perilous quest to extract DNA testers from the aquatic Mosasaurus, herbivorous Titanosaurus, and flying Quetzalcoatlus — while cinematographer John Mathieson duly chronicles the various participants’ adventures.
What has always distinguished “Jurassic” films is a sense of awe — as if those enormous, exotic creatures were real. And, unfortunately, what’s missing is that initial spectacular sense of euphoric wonder — except, perhaps, when a pair of long-tailed Titanosaurus lovingly entwine their necks while grazing in a verdant field.
FYI: A scene cut from Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” (1993) — showing a CGI Tyrannosaurus Rex swimming after people in an inflatable raft — was repurposed here.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Jurassic: World Rebirth” stomps in with an action-packed, suspenseful 7 — playing in theaters.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.