Jurassic Park enters its third era with Jurassic World Rebirth, and we’ve finally seen footage from the July movie in its first trailer. And…yeah! It’s looking good. It’s looking like if the director of Monsters made a Jurassic World movie. For good reason.
Set five years after 2022’s abysmal Jurassic World Dominion, this seventh movie in the franchise appears to be a new attempt at a fresh start, with an entirely new cast and director Gareth Edwards helming the project. It stars Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey as a team of action-paleontologists, sent to what might be Isla Sorna (it’s referred to in the trailer as the research island for the original park) to recover DNA from the three largest dinos living on the island. Why? For a miracle drug to help humanity.
While there, the team encounters the all-important family of holidayers, whose boat was overturned by naughty aquatic beasties, ensuring we have the essential mix of scientists and civilians the franchise requires.
This attempt to step away from the oh-so cynical nature of the recent trilogy seems a very smart move, and the complete absence of Chris Pratt whistling and pointing at raptors is a great pleasure. Rebirth feels very much like a move to get back to Spielberg’s original vision for the franchise: a few humans trapped on an island with a squillion giant reptiles that want to eat them.
Director Gareth Edwards is probably best known for 2014’s Godzilla and 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but is at his best when working with a far smaller budget on an original idea. 2010’s Monsters, his first movie, remains by far his best (seriously, if you’ve not watched this, grab it with both hands), while 2023 saw him return to his roots with the lower-key sci-fi oddity, The Creator. It’ll be interesting to see if his long absence from enormo-budget filmmaking will have allowed a better focus of his more personal, tell-don’t-show attitude toward threats, when applied to a crowd-pleaser like Jurassic Park/World. The trailer seems positive, to me. Sure, there are loads of dinosaurs, because of course there are, but it all feels more cramped, more claustrophobic, than the bland photography of the three previous films.
We’ll find out if it all comes together on July 2.
.