Three years after the not so successful that was Jurassic World Dominion, the franchise is back with another attempt at bringing dinosaurs to the big screen, this time with Scarlett Johansson leading the charge instead of Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard who are thankfully nowhere to be seen, because even though we all love good old Star Lord, Owen Grady didnt work for him last time. Gareth Edwards takes over directing duties and tries to inject some fresh blood into this tired formula but honestly after sitting through this movie I'm wondering if maybe its time to just let these prehistoric beasts stay extinct. The movie sets up this whole expedition to remote equatorial regions where they need to extract DNA from three massive dinosaurs for some kind of medical breakthrough that could cure heart disease, which sounds cool in theory but the execution is just as messy as you would expect from the seventh movie in this series. The magic that made the original Jurassic Park so special back in the 90s is completely gone here, replaced with generic action sequences and characters that feel more like placeholders than actual people you might care about. From the very first scene with that ridiculous Snickers wrapper causing a complete security system meltdown, you know this movie is going to test your patience rather than entertain you but somehow I managed to sit through the entire thing hoping it would get better although it got hilarious as it gets more ridiculous.
Rottentomatoes Rating
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The story follows two separate groups that eventually merge together in the most predictable way possible, first we got Johansson's team of mercenaries who are hired to go collect DNA samples from living dinosaurs because apparently the technology that cloned dinosaurs from mosquito blood in amber is not good enough anymore. Then theres this random family sailing through dinosaur infested waters because the script needed more characters to put in danger, even though any reasonable person would avoid those areas like the plague after everything thats happened in the previous movies. The family storyline feels completely glued and has no real purpose other than to give us a cute baby dinosaur that the little girl takes home at the end, which makes no sense since the movie establishes early on that dinosaurs can only survive in equatorial regions due to climate and air quality issues. Johansson does her best with the material but her character Zora is just another tough military woman who shoots things and it really felt like the movie was taking advantage of her Black Widow character on the MCU sucking out of that personality, while the supporting cast including the guy from Wicked and Mahershala Ali feel wasted in roles that could have been played by anyone. The corporate villain played by Rupert Friend is so obviously evil from his first scene that you spend the entire movie waiting for him to betray everyone and when he finally does its about as shocking as finding out water is wet.
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/z3svpjap)
[Source](https://tinyurl.com/z3svpjap)
What really frustrated me about this movie is how it keeps making the same mistakes that killed the previous sequels, mainly focusing way too much on action and spectacle while forgetting to give us characters worth caring about or a story that makes any sense, example what about the damn Dinosaurs, this time around they totally wasted and at the same timer recycle all over again the hybrid species idea. The whole thing about people being bored with dinosaurs is just stupid, like seriously who would get tired of seeing real living dinosaurs walking around but the movie needs this excuse to work so we just have to accept it. The action sequences themselves are decent enough, especially the boat attack scene with the Spinosaurus pack and the final underground chase but they feel disconnected from any emotions or drama because we barely know these people and most of them are either annoying or completely forgettable, yes there were some tense moments but they were so predictable that almost none of them work, the literally use an entire family as punching bag. Edwards does manage to create some real tension during the horror influenced moments, specially when they are hiding and running away from the mutated dinosaur in the facility but these scenes are too few and far between to save the overall movie, also they were so damn dark that reminds me of Godzilla 1998 where you only see the damn feet of the thing. The movie also suffers from terrible pacing issues, jumping between the two storylines without any real rhythm and spending way too much time on exposition dumps where characters explain their tragic backstories to build sympathy we never actually feel, by the time all the characters finally meet up on the island, you realize the movie has wasted most of its runtime on a setup that doesn't pay off in any way.
The technical aspects are a mix of yeah and nay with some impressive practical effects work but also plenty of bloated CGI moments that makes the dinosaurs look like expensive video game characters rather than living breathing creatures, thats they hole point, make you feel or think this are real creatures but not only they look out of a video game but some very cartoon ish, some of them even reminds me that old TV show from the 90s, Dinasours with the baby Sinclair, damn Im old. The sound is probably the movies strongest element with some cool tension moments and creating this jump scares and tension even when the visuals fall short but even that cant overcome the fundamental problems with the script, lack of context and character development. Something that got me thinking is why would some of the characters be amaze like of example Dr. Loomis who gets some amaze to watch some of this Dinasours when they were in fact all around the world, its like they trying to push the same or similar effects of the first movies, but its hollow because we have seen this exact same scene played out multiple times across six previous movies. What made that moment special in 1993 was that it was the first time anyone had seen dinosaurs brought to life with such realistic effects, now its just another CGI spectacle in a world over saturated with them. The mutations and genetic engineering subplot could have been interesting if the movie actually explored the science behind it or the ethical implications but instead it just serves as an excuse to create more dangerous monsters for the characters to fight, is it Jurassic Park or Monster Park?.
When I think about this franchise as a whole, its clear that everything after the original movie has been going down the hill with no one been able to turn this ship around, yes there has been some small innovations or cool twist here and there but nothing that truly amaze me anymore, the 2015 and 2018 were the last good attempts to this but each sequel feels more desperate and less inspired than the last. Rebirth is definitely better than Fallen Kingdom and Dominion, thats just my opinion, as both were both complete disasters, but thats such a low bar that even going over it doesnt really count for anything, Im not asking for new Dinosaurs but a better drama and more context would help a lot, probably if they do a TV series that connects with the movies just as the Monsterverse is doing would bring more sense to this and future movies. The movie feels very very pre fabricated like a corporate product designed by committee to hit specific demographic targets rather than a story someone actually wanted to tell and it shows its so predictable plot twist and generic characters too. At this point I think Universal needs to either give this franchise a long break or completely re imagine it as something darker and more mature because the current approach of making sanitized family friendly adventure movies with dinosaurs has clearly run out of gas, probably just go back to practical instead of full blown CGI. The audience scores will probably be higher than the critics because people love dinosaurs and nostalgia but that doesnt change the fact that this is a very meh movie that adds nothing new or interesting to the Jurassic Universe, yes you can leave the brain at the door, watch the movie and have a good time but its like trying to dumb down yourself, take the movie for what it is, I did gave it a 7/10 on my thread about it but now its more like a 6/10 that not even watching at the theater with all the experience itself would save this movie.
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