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Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)
“Rebirth” might be a bit optimistic in that title. The issue with the still-quite-popular Jurassic Park/World franchise is an ongoing lesson in diminished returns. Back in 1993, Steven Spielberg and special effects breakthroughs enchanted audiences on the peril of man’s hubris and the core love and undying appeal of dinosaurs getting to be wrecking machines. Thanks to the marvels of modern big-budget blockbusters, we can bring realistic dinosaurs back to life for perilous adventures in survival, but much like the famous line, the producers eager to crank out a new Jurassic movie every so many years only focused on whether they could and not whether they should. The movies are still significant moneymakers; the worst film in the franchise, 2022’s Dominion, still made over a billion dollars at the global box-office. Just imagine how much that could have raked in if it was actually, you know, good. Jurassic World touched upon the nature of diminished returns through satire, that audiences that were once wowed by the very presence of real dinosaurs have grown bored and need more to capture their flagging interest. Since then we’ve had a movie about dinosaurs eating the rich in a haunted house-style horror-thriller and a nostalgic-heavy conclusion that was more about giant locusts and far less about dinosaurs cohabitating with mankind. The interesting storyline (man co-existing with dino) has been there for multiple movies, and yet the producers keep neglecting that glorious potential. Now here comes Jurassic World: Rebirth, another attempt to keep this franchise chugging along with more mediocre sequels that have fleeting moments of popcorn thrills. Ultimately, it’s a bit more of the same, and like the characters in this world, I too am growing restless.
There are two groups of characters that we follow. The first is a clandestine science team funded by a large pharmaceutical company looking to create the next big drug as a result of studying dinosaur blood and tissue. This is the familiar movie world of quippy security experts and ex-CIA agents and panicky scientists thrust into danger in the field. The other group is a family going on a sailing trip through… dinosaur-infested waters for some reason. The first group is on a mission. The second group is just trying to survive, and possibly for the teen daughter’s boyfriend to grow on her skeptical father.
Rather than reinvention, Rebirth is once again more of the same old same old. There can still be intrigue and spectacle from simply interacting with living dinosaurs brought to life by the best special effects money can buy, so the Jurassic movies will never be without some level of primal appeal. There are some fun moments and sequences throughout Rebirth, but it’s hard to stitch together the whole movie from these minor pieces. I think the premise could have worked. The team on the mission has to track down and retrieve blood from the three biggest dinosaurs by habitat: one by land, one by sea, and one by air. There’s some flimflam excuse that these creatures have the biggest hearts and therefore the live blood they extract blah blah, but it doesn’t really matter. The premise of having to track three of the biggest dinos in different terrains makes for an episodic but varied structure that is easy to follow and engage with. All along the way, we know what the total number needs to be and the progression provides mini-climaxes. It’s just that the retrieval of all of these is completed before Act Three. That’s right, it’s all done before the movie is supposed to get really climactic and intense. The land dino isn’t even a challenge, more just an attempt to recreate the majesty of when we first saw those plodding apatosaurs in 1993. This feels like a mistake, and each of the dino retrievals should be getting moderately harder to succeed. There should be escalation so that each one feels more like an accomplishment with the team getting better not worse.
So what could be Act Three? Well you see, dear reader, this is yet another new island. I can already hear you asking how many islands there are, and the answer is however many the studio needs. This island could have been nicknamed Monster Island because it was the dinosaur experimentation labs. Here’s where the InGen scientists threw darts at a board and said, “What if you mixed a [anything] with a raptor?” That seemed to be their go-to for these sequels. We’re introduced into mutant T-Rex in the opening, presented like a monster lurking in the shadows, and then we come back to our giant lab-designed monstrosity. Except this is the silliest looking dinosaur mutant. I laughed out loud when I saw its full form. It made me think of the xenomorph and human hybrids from Alien Resurrection. Its head is so bulbous like he’s part mushroom, but there’s no contours or anything menacing like spikes or something evolutionary useful. It’s just a big goofy head. This is the kind of dinosaur that would be made fun of by the other dinosaurs who snicker when his considerable back is turned. It has larger forearms but walks with them like a hunched gorilla. A T-Rex was already frightening because of its size, as evidenced during one of the movie’s better sequences where a normal T-Rex chases after the beleaguered family in a raft. This just made the T-Rex’s head comically oversized, like somebody glued a shower cap on this guy. This guy has a bigger head but it doesn’t mean bigger brain. It makes for a rather perfunctory and silly ending fighting against a disappointing dino Frankenstein. We shouldn’t have held our expectations too high considering this mutant’s lab breakout all stems from a lone Snickers candy wrapper getting loose.
The characters are also pretty disposable and strictly archetypal. Scarlett Johansson (Fly Me to the Moon) is the lead as our quippiest ex-CIA agent, more or less playing a version of her Marvel persona. She has a slight arc about joining the mission for the money and being convinced by the idealistic head scientist (Jonathan Bailey) to release the medical information to the entire planet. I don’t think this is as hopeful as the characters think because it seems like you’re also making it so plenty more mad scientists have access to dino DNA to make their own at-home Jurassic Parks. The other lead character is played by Mahershala Ali (Leave the World Behind) as the boat captain who provides the movie with the most disposable of characters so that the dinosaurs have something to feed upon. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that the one lost family is gifted a dinosaur baby that they trot around like an adorable puppy. That thing’s going to get extremely big and I don’t know if anybody is going to be able to pick up after it. I wouldn’t say any of these characters are memorable or even that likeable, mostly stars coasting on charm autopilot.
I didn’t know where else to put this but I loathed every time the Jurassic Park musical themes would start to trinkle into a scene, especially since so many of them are perplexing. Why would you insert that familiar theme over this scene? It’s intrusive, tone deaf, and just a bizarre creative choice.
It’s hard to really see the added value of returning veteran screenwriter David Koepp (Black Bag) and new director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, The Creator). This whole enterprise feels a bit like a runaway train rushing to meet its release date deadline. The development needed for a relaunch seems to go by the wayside so that we can squeeze in more set pieces, and I suppose two sets of characters equal always having a new and fraught action sequence we can jump to. It’s just that everything feels so rote and familiar, so much of the same kinds of thrills and chills we’ve gotten from the previous six movies. The most exciting development across these new movies since 2018 has been the reality of humans having to adapt to an Earth with dinosaurs in our ecosystems, and yet this again is hand-waved away in exposition that limits the dinosaurs to a much smaller band of the Earth. Turns out they only really live around the Equator now. Okay, if that’s the case, then tell me a story from that setting. It can still be done. Jurassic Park: Rebirth doesn’t feel like the start of something new or exciting or even promising. It feels like more of the same, sliced and cut up with different actors getting their turn to make frightened faces. It’s not as bad in design or execution as Dominion but Rebirth is no more than more of the same.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Black Bag (2025)
It’s Steven Soderbergh’s second movie of 2025, also with screenwriting vet David Koepp, and this time they’re tackling the spy thriller, centering on a marriage between two spies. Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett play a couple who both have clandestine lives, and when either one ventures into sharing sensitive details, they utter the code “black bag” as a conversation-ender. There’s a mole in the agency and Fassbender is tasked with uncovering the identity of the culprit, but he worries this investigation might ultimately point toward his own wife and then what’s a man to do? Black Bag is one of those more realistic, exacting spy thrillers, which means it’s churning at a very slow pace with minimal stakes before things ratchet up late. The parallels between trust in a marriage and trust in a spy agency are there but never explicitly explored for thematic richness. You know where the ultimate goal is, finding the mole, but every scene plays out more like a couples drama of squabbling, unhappy upper class winos with secrets and grudges. I had to occasionally remind myself, “Oh yeah, these are spies.” I never fully got on board the wavelength of this movie, finding its detached sexy vibe to be more glossy and meandering. The characters just weren’t that interesting to me. I kept waiting for things to pick up, and even when characters are murdered the tension level still feels unchanged. It’s all a little too heavily submerged under the icy tranquil surface for me. Black Bag is a sedate spy thriller presented as sophisticated but comes across a tad too detached and ultimately tedious.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Kimi (2022)
Part COVID character study, part Blow Out murder conspiracy, and part corporate thriller, Kimi is a lean 90-minute thriller that doesn’t overstay its welcome even as it’s constantly morphing. Kimi is the Siri./Alexa-esque personal A.I. assistant device found in millions of consumer homes. Angela (Zoe Kravitz) is an agoraphobic Seattle tech worker who clears the Kimi user problems, and one day she overhears a recording of a woman being murdered, the same woman who accuses the Kimi CEO of assault. The first half of the movie is establishing the crippling anxiety and welcomed routines for Angela as well as the geography of her home, a point that will be more important in the final act. Kravitz is good but too much time is spent analyzing the captured audio and getting her ready to leave. From there, she ventures outside to report the crime, and that’s when powerful people try and abduct or kill her. The movie is brisk and has a constant nervous energy to it, never better than when Angela meets with her shady corporate HR rep (Rita Wilson). However, these killer corporate goons committing don’t seem as scary efficient like in Michael Clayton, so mundanely proficient at ending lives. These guys are more bumbling goons, which takes some of the threat away, though I still relished Angela getting the better of her attackers. For so much buildup about Angela’s terror of the outside world, I was expecting more obstacles relating to her personal agoraphobic fears, but these concerns are dropped too easily once she’s running away from scary bad guys. It’s a thriller that doesn’t exactly transcend its influences and inspirations, but there should still be room for well-made, derivative B-movie thrillers that still know how to entertain. Director Steven Soderbergh and writer David Koepp are genre veterans so even a lesser effort will be effortlessly better than most. Kimi is a narrow but enjoyable thriller that had some room for improvement but still satisfies.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Mortdecai (2015)
It’s not going to be called conventionally appealing, or successfully funny, but Mortdecai is not exactly the colossal unwatchable bomb that critics brought out their knives for in the first month of 2015. It’s a curiosity that has some merit in its failure but it’s hard to lambaste this lark too much because it never takes itself too seriously. Johnny Depp plays Mortdecai, a roguish art dealer who also traffics in stolen paintings. Gwyneth Paltrow is his co-conspirator and wife. Paul Bettany is Mortdecai’s long-suffering manservant always getting into dust-ups or occasionally shot by his master. The weird left turns the comedy keeps taking don’t exactly make the movie better but they save it from being completely unmemorable. Your enjoyment factor will weigh heavily upon your tolerance for Depp in full foppish mode, an effete dandy who struggles with his conflating love of his mustache and his wife’s distaste for it. The entire story is a shaggy dog caper about stolen art that involves the Russian mafia, MI 5, and Nazi gold, and nothing matters. The actors look to be having a good deal of fun, playing dress up and trying on silly accents. I can’t say I laughed out loud but I did occasionally smile at the absurd commitment. I mostly sat wondering how something like this gets made, and then I saw that Depp was one of the producers and that answered that question. Mortdecai may not be worth the invective but that doesn’t mean it’s good.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Premium Rush (2012)
It looks like the silliest movie of the summer, and that includes a film where people travel through the center of the Earth as part of their daily commute. Premium Rush is going to have some inherent silliness given that it’s an action movie about bike messengers, plus there’s the whole title that seems like a time warp to the addled surfer-speak of the early 90s (radical, dude!). There’s just something silly about the world of bike messengers in a technologically advanced world. However, once the film gets started, silliness and all, I got completely caught up in it and went happily along for the ride.
Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a bicycle messenger in New York City. He lives on the speed and rush of the job, riding a bicycle with fixed gears and no brakes. He’s still trying to get in good graces with Vanessa (Dania Ramirez), a fellow bike messenger and his ex-girlfriend. At the end of his shift, Wilee gets one last mission. He’s to deliver a very important envelope by 7:00. That envelope happens to carry a receipt for a very lot of money, which is the equivalent of a bank notice in some criminal circumstances. Police detective Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon) tracks down Wilee and insists that he hand over the package. Monday, you see, has some very deep gambling debts to some very angry people, and he needs that package. Wilee refuses, races off, and Monday gives chase, using his police connections to try and snag the plucky cyclist.
Your presumptions of how silly the realm of bicycle messengers are get dashed quickly when you realize how insanely dangerous this profession can be. These guys, and gals, are speeding through downtown New York City traffic, careening around vehicles, and flying through lights. We see a few high-speed accidents but I wouldn’t be surprised if nearby hospitals have an entire organ donation pile labeled “bike messengers.” Director/co-writer David Koepp (Ghost Town) does a great job of making the audience feel the adrenaline rush of all that speed. You will get swept up in the thrills and forget all about the silliness. For a man who hasn’t directed action before, though written plenty of it, Koepp has a natural feel for developing his action and showcasing the cyclist’s impressive skills. Simply put, this is one movie where the action really speeds along.
The high-speed navigation of New York City is entertaining in and of itself, but Koepp goes one further and places Wilee in a series of dangerous predicaments where he has to determine his next split-second route. He mentally plays out the different scenarios, most of them involving him getting creamed by a car. It’s a fun visual quirk and a great opportunity for physical humor as well since some of the potential outcomes are quite worrisome. Koepp gooses his story with plenty of visual flourishes that gives Premium Rush an added degree of fun. The narrative also jumps back and forth linearly, fleshing out characters and giving us a better sense of how the pieces of the plot all snap together. It’s flashy and fun and thrilling with some great practical stunt work, and that’s more than enough to make you forget any misgivings you may have had with the premise.
Tonally, the film has a nice tongue-in-cheek sense of humor; it’s not enough to be self-aware or veer into meta territory, but it’s a concerted lightness, a springy attitude that further elevates the fun quotient. No more is this sense of humor better realized than with the villainous Bobby Monday. He’s a corrupt cop but he’s also hilariously off, just like every Michael Shannon (Take Shelter) character it seems. He’s a horrible gambler, and even he knows it, but he still comes back to the math-heavy Asian games that he’s not suited for. This character’s entire crazed demeanor has a comic desperation to it, which does temper his predatory danger. But you’ll never know what he’ll say next, or what strange, over-the-top delivery will accompany the next bon mot. In one scene, he complains about the trashy nature of primetime TV, bemoaning that he heard, during the family hour, some kid say “suck it.” He also laments how prevalent the term “douchebag” has become as an insult. It’s these little oddball touches that reminded me of the excellent 2003 action movie The Rundown, specifically Christopher Walken’s whacked out bad guy. Now there’s nothing that approaches the absurd poetry of Walken’s tooth fairy speech, but Shannon and his offbeat rhythms add another level of enjoyment.
I salute Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s rise in Hollywood circles, now among the ranks of spry action heroes. Gordon-Levitt has long been one of my favorite actors, delivering tremendous performances in films like Brick, Mysterious Skin, (500) Days of Summer, and of course last year’s cancer dramedy 50/50. He’s got a natural charisma to him that doesn’t seem manufactured, that isn’t overworked, and he delivers committed performance after committed performance. It’s easy to like this guy and be impressed with his performances. Now, Premium Rush isn’t going to going to shoot to the top of this guy’s resume, but he makes a credible action lead that’s easy to root for. He has an affable, devil-may-care attitude, and flashbacks to his early romance with Vanessa give a peak at how overwhelmingly charming the man can be when he turns it on. I will not admit whether I have a shrine devoted to Gordon-Levitt (or “Jo Go-Lev” as I prefer to call him).
My only major complain with the film is that it becomes a tad repetitious leading into its final act. All of this effort is spent on tracking down a ticket, so you are comfortable with it changing hands repeatedly. The good guys have it. The bad guy has it. And so on. I think the film would feel less repetitious if these changes in ownership didn’t happen so frequently. It feels like nobody can hang on to this thing for more than a few minutes.
For a summer awash in disappointment, it’s nice to come across a modest action movie that’s well-executed and just plain fun. Premium Rush delivers an end-of-summer blast of fun and some neat visual whimsy. Gordon-Levitt carries the film well and the great Michael Shannon punctuates the movie with such entertaining weirdness. I was laughing routinely, getting caught up in the rush of speed, and even coming to enjoy the various silly detours, like when an army of bicycle messengers is called out for action like some gang. This is not a movie to take too seriously, but much like Battleship, it’s a summer formula action movie that sticks to its guns and finds plenty of enjoyment. I never would have thought at the beginning of the summer that an action movie about bike messengers would be one of the most entertaining offerings, but there you have it. Koepp has crafted an enjoyable, thrilling, and just plain fun movie and a fine way to close out the summer.
Now back to my Jo Go-Lev shrine.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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Ghost Town (2008)
It seems the genesis for this flick was like someone asked what The Sixth Sense would be like with jokes (or someone rented Topper and said, “Why not again?”). The idea of a misanthropic man who sees dead people is elevated by the sheer comic genius of star Ricky Gervais. The famous British comedian is better known across the pond for his dry, sarcastic wit and penchant for awkward, pained comedy, but Ghost Town is a great mainstream introduction to the comedic chops of this squat Englishman. The film follows a familiar trajectory and even introduces a romance for the man who loathes other people, but Gervais and co-writer/director David Koepp make it worthwhile and endearing. I could watch Gervais and his beaming co-star Tea Leoni crack each other up for hours. The comedic premise is finely explored (there are more than enough scenes of people looking odd at Gervais talking to himself). The movie tilts toward being a supernatural romantic comedy in the second half but manages to stay snappy and character-driven. It’s a sweet movie with some nice comic jabs that don’t dwell on nastiness. Ghost Town is a charming and engaging light comedy that might cause a few sniffles in between chuckles. I have a warm place in my heart for this movie.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Stir of Echoes (1999)
Another one? Yes and no, you see Stir of Echoes may be the latest supernatural scare-fest released but it proves itself a worthy competitor to The Sixth Sense. Director Koepp, the man among boys when it comes to screenwriting, provides enough eerie chills through the movie without having to go back to the well for any cheap scares much. The direction and unveiling of the story is very well done for the movie’s overall tone.
The meat and bones of this picture is Kevin Bacon. He throws down all the doors and delivers a riveting performance that is most likely his career best. But what about Wild Things you say? Well indeed Kevin showed his bacon in that movie, but in Stir of Echoes he beautifully captures a man breaking down by forces he can’t understand or control. He is magnetic with his character and provides real merit to the film’s compelling case for credibility in The Sixth Sense‘s powerful shadow. Another bright face in the movie is Kathryn Erbe playing Bacon’s suffering and distant significant other. She delivers a rock-solid performance to coexist with Bacon’s descent into madness. She may not get the credit she deserves but she quietly shows her acting prowess in every scene she’s in.
The movie does seem to run out of gas 3/4 of the way through, switching over from mysterious supernatural chiller to run-of-the-mill revenge from beyond the grave scenario. The end is mostly predictable but no less effective. Some of the characters could have been fleshed out better to have more purpose for the finale but I guess you can live with how things are.
In any other given summer Stir of Echoes would be destined to be a critical and commercial success, but then along came The Sixth Sense. True that there are some similar plot points but both movies are worth while complete with some chills themselves. Stir of Echoes does deserve to get more than a look in this new genre that’s being heavily populated by filth. Besides, it’ll allow you a few more people to link to Kevin Bacon whenever a party game arises.
Nate’s Grade: B
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