This American science fiction film is about an expedition that was given the task of extracting DNA from prehistoric creatures to help create a medical breakthrough that might save lives.
JURASSIC WORLD. REBIRTH. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, and Rupert Friend. Directed by Gareth Edwards. Rated M (Scenes of threat and peril). 133 min.
Review by Peter W Sheehan, Jesuit Media Australia
The film is written by David Koepp and is a sequel to “Jurassic World Dominion” (2022). It is the fourth “Jurassic World” film, and the seventh instalment in the “Jurassic Park” franchise. Photography for the film was conducted in Thailand, Malta, and the United Kingdom.
The film features the environment of Earth after it became inhospitable to dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. As a result, prehistoric animals were forced to look for and find environments, which once supported them. To explore their existence, Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) is recruited to help lead a pharmaceutical company to assist Dr. Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) locate three large remaining prehistoric animals. Their mission was to extract biomaterials from the animals so as to provide drugs that the pharmaceutical Company believes could save human lives. An island holding the three animals is located, but it happens to be home to mutated dinosaurs that have thrived in isolation for decades. Living among the animals is a huge alien-like Tyrannosaurus Rex, and other vicious animals, which don’t like to be disturbed in any way.
This is a film that captures a resurgence of interest that is currently taking place across multiple Internet programs world-wide that popularly feature prehistoric animals. Some of these programs are narrated by respected truth-searching luminaries like Richard Attenborough, who takes care to recreate animals in his TV programs so as to deliver absorbing presentations of scientific interest.
A film such as this one has a different impact when the animals it features are not what happened in actual fact, as far as Science can tell us. Mutated animals reflected in this film are not animals that lived. They are new animals in new locations, and they predictably behave in highly aggressive, violent ways. Computer-generated imagery for the film has created a world which evidence indicates has not naturally occurred, and this is the first film in the Jurassic franchise that doesn’t include actors who have returned from previous instalments. The imagery created for the film, however, is visually stunning; lush jungles and fierce animals are impressively created for dramatic reasons, and the film pulls out the stops to provide its thrills. In the union of Horror and Thrills that occurs in this movie, thrills ultimately win and solid tension holds, but too often the movie moves into Jaws: Nigersaurus-style to sustain its impact.
Reviewed by Peter W Sheehan, Associate of Jesuit Media