“Jurassic World: Rebirth”: The Cash Grab of The Year

The last entry of the Jurassic Park franchise manages to do the unthinkable: make dinosaurs boring.

There was a time when Jurassic Park was a respectable franchise. Even though monster movies are not my cup of tea, and I was not contemporary to the original films, I held a certain respect for their legacy. But as we know, it is trendy now to take those legacies and walk all over them.

I have not watched any of the previous entries in the franchise, except for some small peeks of the original on TV. And on my way to the theater to watch Jurassic World: Rebirth, I thought maybe that would make the experience more enjoyable, as I would not be able to compare it to anything.

God, I was wrong.

Dinosaurs and Chocolate Bars

The movie starts with a scientist opening a Snickers bar. Yes, you heard me, we start strong, with a loud product placement. It is embarrassing at this point. Netflix doing things like this in one of their cheap streaming movies is one thing, but now we are watching shameless advertisement on a big screen? Has the industry really fallen that low?

So, the wrapper of that Snickers bar gets into the mechanisms of one of the doors and causes the entire lab system to collapse. This, in turn, frees all the mutant dinosaurs that were being created in the facility. One of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. And we are just getting started here.

An Assembly of Inconsequential People

I’ve complained on several occasions about Hollywood’s incompetence when it comes to writing characters, but Rebirth is the worst example of this I’ve seen in a while. They were not even trying.

Basically, Scarlett Johansson’s character is contacted by Rupert Friend’s character to go on a mission to dinosaur island and obtain the DNA from certain live specimens to use in a medicine to treat heart conditions. They convince the guy that was assisting them on their research, a paleontologist played by Jonathan Bailey, to join them. Then they meet Scarlett’s old friend, Mahershala Ali, who is going to take them in their boat, which is the only way to get there.

Then there is a token “latino” family, composed of a clueless dad and his two daughters, one of whom is a kid. The older one is a teenager that is accompanied by her useless boyfriend, and they are both irritating. For some unexplainable reason, this group willingly goes into a boat to the middle of nowhere so they can conveniently be attacked by a dinosaur and saved by Scarlett’s group.

I don’t use the characters’ actual names because I don’t remember them, and they are wholly unimportant. I don’t care, the studio doesn’t care; not even the actors care. The emptiness of these characters is appalling. Alright, it’s an action movie with dinosaurs; maybe it did not require so much depth, but the final result is insulting. Besides, monster movies need to have a great human side. To put it simply, if I don’t care about the humans, then I don’t care if the dinosaurs eat them. And I really don’t care here! In fact, the dinosaurs eating the entire cast would have been way more interesting.

Scarlett Playing Scarlett

Scarlett Johansson’s character, the alleged protagonist, is a woman who does illegal things for money. It’s suggested that she lost someone very dear to her in her last “mission”, and that her job prevented her from being with her family, something she regrets. Does any of that play a part in the story or matter in any way? Of course not! I’m not a fan of Scarlett’s work, but I’ve never considered her a bad actress. She is terrible in this movie. It’s not that her acting is bad; she is not even acting. I swear her face does not move at all, no matter the situation her character is in. She can be having an emotional scene or being eaten by a dinosaur, and her expression remains the same.

The others are not better. Maybe the most likable one is Jonathan Bailey’s character, who is also empty but has some charisma. He is the only one actually excited to see the dinosaurs and the only one whose face expresses something. Of course, Bailey brings the activist moments by criticizing the evil corporations who get rich by making medicines impossibly expensive and manipulating people into getting them. Funny, because five years ago, even the smallest criticism against pharmaceuticals could get you canceled. Now it’s cool again? Wow.

The scenes with the dinosaurs have zero impact. The only one that had a trace of interest for me was the one where they get the DNA from the couple of Titanosaurus (I think?), but it was mainly because the Jurassic Park‘s theme is so incredible it gives me goosebumps.

In short, two hours of nonsense, full of conveniences and actors offering absolutely nothing. And a protagonist who looks like she is waiting to get it all over and done with to get her check. So inspiring. It really makes you believe in the magic of movies.

Box Office

To sum it up, this is not worth a single dime. But believe it or not, a lot of people are willing to pay. The first weekend was very lucrative for Jurassic World: Rebirth, and with only a week in theaters, it has made over $380.000.000 worldwide on a budget of $180.000.000.

And I know that people are entitled to spend their money on whatever they want, but I find it outrageous that movies like this get to succeed. I don’t know if the project will be lucky enough to maintain its relevance for long, because let’s remember that the new Superman movie, as well as The Fantastic Four: First Steps, are coming soon, but even what they did until now is undeserved.

Between this and A Minecraft Movie’s success, 2025 has become yet another year of mediocrity for cinema.