It seems unlikely that Universal Studios really believe that “public interest has waned” in dinosaurs, given their announcement recently of a new theme park down in Bedford. While no specific rides have been chosen, “Jurassic Park” is one of the studio’s core franchises which “lend themselves to themed rides,” according to Sky News. The seventh motion picture in the series, “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” is showing now at the Montrose Playhouse. A few days ago, I spent an enjoyable two hours at an afternoon screening at an independent cinema while staying in Yorkshire.
A museum exhibition dedicated to the world of dinosaurs, revived on earth thirty-two years ago, is closing due to a lack of visitors. Palaeontologist Henry Loomis, played by Jonathan Bailey, is out of a job; until, that is, he is recruited by Zora Bennett, played by Scarlett Johansson, who does “retrieval and extraction,” meaning that she is “untroubled by any legal or ethical consideration,” in other words, “gets the job done.” The “job” is to collect blood samples from three large, big-hearted, long-living dinosaurs which do their thing along the equator, south-east of the Caribbean. Travel there is banned: “We better not tell anyone then.” The samples are needed by a pharmaceutical company to create a “paleo-coronary-health” drug which will prolong life by twenty years in what will be the biggest development in medicine “in centuries.” The company’s buttoned-up representative Martin Krebs, played by Rupert Friend, is implausibly leading the covert mission to collect them himself. A crew is assembled and the team go to work-“No-one’s dumb enough to go where we’re going!” A family sailing north-to-south from Barbados to Cape Town for one reason or another cross the adventurers’ path and need to be rescued following an encounter with a shark-like dinosaur.
The truth is that we adored dinosaurs many years before “Jurassic Park” first hit the big screen in 1993. In the 1960s, for instance, we met Fred’s pet dinosaur, Dino, in “The Flintstones” (1960–1966). Children often ask for dinosaur toys, know many of their names, can draw and describe them in surpringly granular detail. Museums love exhibitions about dinosaurs’ lives (they most certainly appreciate the revenue). We are more infatuated than bored. And as the fast-approaching LandxSea Film Festival, to be held in the Playhouse in September, plans its program of original work considering (in part) capitalism’s planet-eating consumption, we are reminded that dinosaurs lived on the earth for much, much longer than we are likely to.
The single best reason to go to see “Jurassic World: Rebirth” is the dinosaurs themselves. The technology behind computer-generated imagery (CGI), puppetry, and 3D printing has come on a long way in thirty-two years. Once again, Industrial Light & Magic have proved themselves to be the absolute best in the business: the craftsmanship is exquisite. Their creative teams have generated mind-boggling dinosaurs of all shapes, sizes and, in particular, personalities. Every detail has been considered, from the design of their elegant bodies to the way they move and relate to one another: it’s awesome work. Just to give three examples: the spines and body of Spinosaurus, a semi-aquatic being, are created with real definition and precision; the big beast itself, Tyrannosaurus Rex, appears in a scene with a raft, swimming underwater; a love scene featuring Titanosaurus, a long-necked dinosaur, is surprisingly tender (after the closeup of the gentle caressing of two dinosaurs’ necks, the shot pans out so that we can see hundreds of similar Titanosauri as far as the eye can see, all looking in the same direction). And the dinosaurs react to the jabs of the huge syringe just as we might when having blood taken at the doctor’s surgery.
From the first bars, we can feel the quality of the very large, U.K.-based orchestra playing the musical score, which is by Alexandre Desplat. While much of the music is freshly composed, there are several key moments where the famous, classic, hummable John Williams “Jurassic Park” themes are used with great fanfare and to the clear enjoyment of the artists. Listen out, too, for the play on the “Jaws” theme during the scene where the family capsize.
Dependable Scarlett Johansson, here very much the action hero, leads from the front; but what is unexpected about this movie is that the rest of the screen time is divvied up diplomatically between several co-stars. In particular, decisive Mahershala Ali, playing the transportation and logistics leader, and likeable David Iacono, playing the boyfriend of the daughter of the stranded family, have well-defined, substantial parts. The filmmakers thus ingeniously use the vigour of character development to offset the rather dilute plot (and the very tired old idea of the “wonder drug”).
To nit-pick about the likelihood of first falling from a high rock face and then plunging several metres under the surface of a deep river but not breaking your glasses, or to ask where the team fills its water bottles is to miss the point-after all, this is high fantasy-action and is designed to fill a summer’s afternoon absorbing, entertaining, and thrilling us. Which, by the way, is exactly what Universal Studios want from their new British theme park.
Adam Poole
4th July 2025
If you are interested in viewing this screening, please book your tickets here
