The Jurassic franchise has been slowly breaking down in the wake of the disastrousJurassic World: Dominion, even though each film still makes boatloads of money.This new film,Jurassic World Rebirth, is meant to be not just a reboot but an entire cleanup jobfrom all the plot threads and character baggage nobody wanted to deal with anymore. On paper,you couldn’t ask for a better director for that job thanGareth Edwards, who’s proven to beone of the more gifted blockbuster filmmakerswhen it comes to capturing large-scale spectacle. Whatever its faults,Rebirthis at least a nice referendum on how far Edwards has come, ashe includes multiple visual references to the monster films that first made him famous, most notablyhis bold reinvention of the Godfather of all film monsters,Godzilla.
Gareth Edwards' ‘Godzilla’ Has An Amazing Opening Scene
If you’ve seen Edwards' 2014 reboot, then you knowyou have that infamous opening scene burned into your memory. We barely know anything about the scientist who has to watch his fellow scientist’s wife get tragically killed after he has to shut her inside a nuclear reactor hallway, left to die. But we’re already so locked into the scene simply because it’sBryan CranstonandJuliette Binocheacting their asses off, as the two looking into each other’s teary eyes as they rage and gradually submit to their fate is the stuff of pure melodrama in the best possible way. Edwards is a director often accused of lacking a firm handle on human emotion, and yet he knocks this scene out of the park by getting out of the way of his two acting legends and giving the scene a strong red-lit color scheme that emphasizes the danger.It’s a sequence so harrowing and gut-wrenching in its forcethatBinoche allegedthatQuentin Tarantinotold her that he cried while watching it. In terms of scenes that rely on human characters, the film never gets better than that, and Edwards seems to remember that when it came to startingJurassic World Rebirth.
Edwards Recreates the ‘Godzilla’ Opening in ‘Jurassic Park Rebirth'
Rebirthopens with a team of scientists working in an InGen lab, engineering genetically enhanced dinosaurs on the island that most of the film will take place on. In a bit of telegraphing that feels like classic 90sDavid Koeppscreenwriting,we know right away which scientist is going to ruin everythingbecause he’s munching on a Snickers bar like he isn’t in the middle of a room full of things that could kill him. He absent-mindedly lets the wrapper fall to the floor, and it pulls aForrest Gumpfeather magic trick and blows its way into a ventilation system that leads to the entire electrical system malfunctioning (okay then). Snicker Boy happens to be the last one to attempt to escape the D-Rex pen, and a lady scientist on the other side of the pen’s door is about to open up the door but realizes the D-Rex has him dead to rights, so she lets him die.Edwards clearly tries to shoot it in the same way he shot theGodzillascene, with foggy red lighting and having a man and woman tearfully look into each other’s eyes as one begs for life and the other submits to the situation at hand. This sequence can’t compare to the other simply because it doesn’t have the intimate character work, and, frankly, these actors aren’t Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche at the top of their games,but you have to respect Edwards for trying.
‘Jurassic Park Rebirth’ Proves Gareth Edwards Hasn’t Forgotten His Origins
This isn’t the only time that Gareth Edwards tries to reach into his bag of monster tricksto spice up scenes inRebirth. We get huge footprints of dinosaurs to build up tension, just like the early scenes ofGodzillawhere all we see of Godzilla or the MUTOs are the tracks they leave behind. The beautiful sequence wherethe trio of protagonists witness two frilled titanosauruses conducting a mating ritual by nuzzling their foreheads together is something that happens in bothGodzillaand in Edwards' debut film,Monsters—inthe climax which reveals that the two big monsters were looking to mate.
“The Nightmare Version of the Giant Lizards”: Gareth Edwards Wants to Bring the Horror Back to ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’
Prepare for scares.
There’s a climactic scene where Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) uses a red flare to attract attention, and the red flare exposesthe D-Rexbehind him, which recalls how red flares exposed just how big Godzilla’s body was. Thankfully,none of these references felt like one-to-one rehashes, and Edwards was able to remix all of them with enough invention that they felt organic to the individual moments that were created and made sense in the context ofJurassic World Rebirth’s very basic story. It’s encouraging to know that Edwards hasn’t forgotten how he started, and one hopes that he’ll continue to nourish his rootsso that he can continue to be an in-demand director for another major blockbuster that needs him.
