At The Movies: Jurassic World Rebirth strips away the bloat for a lean, mean dinosaur heist

Jurassic World Rebirth (PG13)

133 minutes, now showing
★★★☆☆

The story: Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion (2022), dinosaurs are extinct everywhere except for a narrow band around the tropics, because the zone most closely resembles the prehistoric Earth in which they once flourished. Mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) leads a team that includes fellow former soldier Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) and palaeontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey). They have been hired to raid an island to collect biological samples from three of the largest dinosaurs. Their mission is interrupted by a distress call from a family whose sailboat has strayed too close to the danger zone.

If the synopsis sounds familiar, that is because it was meant to be – the seventh movie in the franchise is a deliberate return to roots. And this is a welcome return, not because Jurassic World Rebirth itself is good – as nostalgia trips go, it is merely okay. But it was time for the series to shed its bloat.

In the fourth to sixth films (Jurassic World, 2015; Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, 2018; Jurassic World Dominion), dinosaurs were normalised as theme-park attractions before becoming widespread all over the world.

Sometimes, the creatures were the danger. Other times, an evil corporation was the baddie. The stories became a sprawling, loosely connected set of adventures fronted by an action hero, Chris Pratt’s velociraptor trainer Owen Grady, a character written to be generically likeable and therefore instantly forgettable.

Rebirth reins it all in. The reptilians are now confined to one place because of “science”.

This allows director Gareth Edwards to set up a heist movie – get in, get the goods, get out alive – with a focus on a single group. This he does extremely well, as he has shown in previous character-driven action pieces that include the rebooted Godzilla (2014) and space fantasy Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).

Where it all falls apart lies in the film’s role as a corporate product that must have sequel potential.

This means main characters wear plot armour that protects them from death or serious injury. This reduces the emotional stakes considerably.

Supporting characters with an instantly recognisable feature – an accent, exaggerated machismo or a distinct headband – are marked for a gruesome death. That fact becomes as clear as a face tattoo the moment they appear.

The monster attack scenes are tension-filled, but weakened by questionable computer graphics and character choices that make no sense. Exhibit No. 1 would be the fact that someone would take a tiny sailboat anywhere within a thousand kilometres of a dinosaur island.

As a covert operative who is the perfect yin-yang combination of toughness and empathy, Zora is made believable only by Johansson’s abilities as an actress. Double Oscar winner Ali is also outstanding as her equally capable teammate. Only an actor of his calibre can believably deliver dialogue about grief and heartbreak in one scene, then fight plane-sized raptors in the next.

If Rebirth does well at the box office – and there is no reason to think it will not – viewers are set for at least two more films featuring Johansson and Ali, with Edwards directing. It would be hard to think of three people more capable of carrying the franchise.

Hot take: A competently crafted but predictably safe return to form that succeeds mainly through stellar performances, rather than genuine storytelling innovation.