Jurassic World Rebirth is the seventh chapter in the long-running Jurassic Park franchise, and the movie stands tall as the best installment of the franchise’s 21st-century Jurassic World revival. Jurassic World Rebirth concerns a team of mercenaries and scientists led by Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), who venture on a mission to collect DNA samples from three specific dinosaur species located on Île Saint-Hubert, an abandoned dinosaur research island in the Atlantic Ocean. With the three dinos’ DNA having the potential for a revolutionary new treatment for heart disease, the team sets about on the harrowing mission alongside the shipwrecked Delgado family, whom the team rescued after an aquatic dino encounter of their own.
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Despite a strong $801-million worldwide box office haul, Jurassic World Rebirth has garnered a somewhat mixed reception. However, some key elements of Rebirth demonstrate that it is not only a worthy addition to the Jurassic Park franchise, but the crowning achievement of its Jurassic World era.
Here are the five reasons why Jurassic World Rebirth is actually the best of the Jurassic World movies.
5) Rebirth Returns to the “Dinos on an Island” Premise in a Perfect Way for Jurassic World
From the very beginning of Jurassic Park‘s return to cinema screens in 2015’s Jurassic World, the franchise was visibly tiptoeing towards what had only been shown once in the third act of The Lost World: Jurassic Park — unleashing the dinosaurs into the world of modern man. After Jurassic World’s thriving era as a theme park is brought to an end by the rampage of the Indominus Rex, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom finally set the dinos loose on the world, with Jurassic World Dominion showing them as an active presence that man is gradually learning to adapt to and somewhat contain.
Rebirth goes back to the roots of the Jurassic Park franchise’s foundational premise of a remote island teeming with dinosaurs, and does so in a way that fits with how the franchise has unfolded. As established in Rebirth, the ecological changes to Earth’s topography and atmosphere since the dinosaurs’ original extinction have left the majority of the planet inhospitable to them, forcing the dinos to cluster on islands and in areas of the ocean closest to Earth’s equator, such as Île Saint-Hubert. As a means to re-centralize dinosaurs on an island location, Rebirth pulls a quick but clever tool out that maintains the continuity of the whole Jurassic Park and Jurassic World timeline in a way that actively builds upon both.
4) Rebirth Features Many New Dinosaurs (& Uses Them to Their Full Potential)
Part of what made Jurassic Park so groundbreaking upon its 1993 release was the fact that dinosaurs had simply never been brought to life cinematically with such state-of-the-art and fully convincing visual effects and animatronics. Jurassic Park also made big stars out of several dino species, particularly the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the Velociraptors, with both becoming staples of each movie in the franchise. However, a key strength of the Jurassic Park universe has been the introduction of new dinosaurs to wow audiences in each new chapter, a trend that Rebirth capitalizes upon with a roster of many new (or previously underutilized) dinosaurs.
While dinos like the sea-faring Mososaurus, the seldom seen Dilophosaurus, and Jurassic Park III‘s ruthless Spinosaurus, Rebirth also showcases entirely new dinos like the aerial Quetzalcoatlus and the gargantuan Titanosaurus, both key dinosaurs that the team needs to harvest DNA from on their mission. Other new dinosaurs like the cute and cuddly Aquilops are also featured, along with a new hybrid dinos created for the then-in business Jurassic World, such as the Mutadon and the massive and fearsome Distortus Rex, the latter of whom acts as the final boss dinosaur for Rebirth. Clearly, Rebirth took its mandate for as many new dinosaurs as possible seriously, with the movie delivering gloriously on that promise.
3) The T-Rex Boat Chase Is a Superb Adaptation From Michael Crichton’s Original Novel
Even with an abundance of new or underseen dinosaurs in Rebirth, no Jurassic Park movie would be complete without the ever-terrifying T-Rex, and the franchise’s signature dinosaur drops in for a cameo that is an unforgettable set piece in both the Jurassic Park or Jurassic World movies. The T-Rex enters the story when the Delgado family tries to head to safety on an inflatable raft, with a sleeping T-Rex awakening and giving chase through the rapids. The family fortunately escapes after some seriously close calls with the T-Rex’s snapping jaws, and devoted Jurassic Park fans will immediately recognize this as a big-screen recreation of the raft chase sequence in Michael Crichton’s original Jurassic Park novel.
In the book, the scene plays out similarly, with Dr. Alan Grant, Tim, and Lex making their way across a lake on an inflatable raft, accidentally awakening the sleeping T-Rex who then chases them through the lake. Ultimately, a younger T-Rex encroaching upon the carcass of a dino that the T-Rex was eating distracts the pursuing beast and allows Grant, Tim, and Lex to escape. While the boat chase didn’t make it into the first Jurassic Park movie, it is brought to life with major suspense and tension in Rebirth, and was more than worth the long wait to see it realized on the big screen.
2) Rebirth Combines the Best Components of Past Jurassic Park & Jurassic World Movies
Like the makers of the original Jurassic World theme park, the makers of Jurassic World Rebirth have created a hybrid with the movie, one that incorporates elements of the preceding Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies in an effective and organic way. The basic premise of humans trapped on a dinosaur-populated island is a standard element for every movie in the franchise save for Fallen Kingdom and Dominion. Meanwhile, the scientific expedition to the island has its own parallel in the mission of John Hammond’s handpicked team in The Lost World: Jurassic Park that brings them to the island.
The Delgado family’s unexpected trip to a dinosaur-filled island also recalls the Kirbys going on a rescue mission for their son Eric (Trevor Morgan) in Jurassic Park III, while Rebirth also continues to run with the genetically engineered hybrid-dino concept from the preceding Jurassic World movies. Combined with the post-Fallen Kingdom status quo of man being forced to share the Earth with dinosaurs, Rebirth plays as a greatest hits album of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, drawing inspiration from elements of the entire preceding series, putting a new spin on all of them, and assembling a new and rousing dinosaur adventure with the finished product.
1) Rebirth Tells a Great Meta Tale of the Jurassic Park Franchise’s Ups, Downs, and Evolution
Jurassic World was the first installment of the Jurassic Park franchise to step into meta territory, with the creation of the Indominus Rex emerging out of a corporate mandate to add a new attraction to the park to boost attendance. After the debut of the Jurassic World theme park, seeing living, breathing dinosaurs has become equivalent to a normal trip to a zoo, as Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) observes in the Indominus Rex’s creation. Jurassic World Rebirth actively builds on that meta idea by applying it to the Jurassic Park franchise’s own history, with the dinosaur museum of Zora’s paleontologist associate Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) closing down due to declining public interest in dinosaurs, a subtle reflection of the Jurassic Park franchise’s 14-year hiatus after the low-level performance of 2001’s Jurassic Park III.
Once the team makes it to the island, however, the wonder and splendor of living dinosaurs hits again with all the power that the franchise’s own return in Jurassic World did. Even still, it unfolds in a world in which living dinosaurs (and, for the audience, cinematic dinosaurs) are a long-since established fact of life. The awe of the team and the Delgado family at seeing living dinosaurs up close is not one of seeing them for the first time, like in the original Jurassic Park, but of rediscovering the majesty and wonder of the creatures, not unlike audiences around the world have through the Jurassic World movies. Moreover, the horror of man-made dino hybrids like the Distortus Rex emphasizes the folly of trying to control nature, and that, in the words of John Hammond, “These creatures require our absence to survive, not our help.” In a surprising way, Jurassic World Rebirth captures the entire trajectory of the ebbs and flows of the Jurassic Park franchise and its ultimate return — or rather, rebirth — as the most popular and beloved dinosaur franchise of all time.
Jurassic World Rebirth is now available on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, and Fandango at Home, and will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 5th.
What did you think of Jurassic World Rebirth? Let us know in the comments below!
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
