By Randal C. Hill
Do we really need yet another Jurassic Park film? In this case, the answer is an emphatic “yes”!
“Jurassic World Rebirth” is the sixth sequel to Michael Crichton’s original “Jurassic Park,” a movie franchise begun in 1993 that has appeared to be wearing thin—until now.
In the story, the few surviving Jurassic Park dinosaurs now live in a remote island jungle. Covert operations expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) is recruited by a pharmaceutical company to collaborate with paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and team leader Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) to undertake a top-secret mission to infiltrate the island, the site of the now-closed Jurassic Park research facility.
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The crew’s goal is to locate the three largest remaining species of these treacherous beasts from land, sea and air and obtain DNA samples from them, as their DNA holds the key to a revolutionary drug capable of saving millions of lives—and making big pharma wealthy beyond imagination.
Along the way, the band encounters a civilian family who have survived a shipwreck after an attack by marauding aquatic beasts. Both groups find themselves stranded on the tropical island that is home to the mutated dinosaurs that have thrived in isolation for decades. As the teams draw closer to danger, they come face-to-face with a shocking discovery that has been hidden from the world for decades.
There are deeper issues at play here. The group’s members are forced to examine their own values, and ethical and moral questions arise as well and concern everything from genetic manipulation to scientific overreach.
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“Rebirth” breathes new life into something that, as with the dinosaurs, appeared to be headed for extinction. It pays homage to its predecessors but also enters new thematic territory, including humanity’s place in nature.
Director Edwards Gareth has labeled “Rebirth” an “action/horror” feature. “There’s something very primal about dinosaurs,” he says about the fear element that thrums throughout the tale. “We’re mammals with millions of years of embedded instinct that tells us that some giant creature at some point is going to chase us and try to kill us.”
The Universal Pictures offering opens July 2.
