Jurassic World: Rebirth? What could possibly go wrong

"What could possibly go wrong" is the opening line of countless monster and disaster movies. Human hubris and a disregard for cautionary voices are the ingredients from which disasters arise. This is particularly true of Jurassic Park and runs through the seven films with changing human casts that the franchise has now produced.

The first appearance of the dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster was the brainchild of a quirky billionaire who thought it would be a good idea to clone the giant monsters, which have fortunately since become extinct, and exhibit them in a theme park. Nobody wants to listen to the skeptic. We all know how that turned out.

More than thirty years and six films later, we can state the following: The human species has only a limited capacity to learn from its mistakes. Otherwise, the protagonists who populate this franchise in a changing cast wouldn't keep making the same stupid mistakes. What could possibly go wrong?

So now the rebirth. This has already happened with another very popular horror franchise – and didn't go down particularly well with the fans. In fact, "Jurassic World Rebirth" has more in common with "Alien: Resurrection" in places than just the German distribution title. That's not necessarily a compliment.

"Jurassic World – Rebirth" picks up the story five years after "Jurassic World: Dominion". Dinosaurs now only live on Earth in a zone around the equator, with isolated specimens still living in human settlements. But the dinosaurs are not doing well – Who could have guessed that today's Earth climate might be a little too cold for the predatory giants of the Cretaceous period.

A few specimens still live on a small island in the Pacific. They are the result of genetic experiments that unscrupulous scientists used to breed new attractions for the theme park. What remains are those that are "too ugly or too dangerous". What could possibly go wrong?

And so the rebirth takes its course: some pharmaceutical company thinks it's a great idea to extract valuable genetic material from the DNA of some dinosaurs to cure cancer or something. Unfortunately, this only works if the samples are taken from living specimens.

So the naturally completely unscrupulous pharmaceutical manager (Rupert Friend) hires a scientist (Jonathan Bailey) and a couple of mercenaries (Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali) to travel to the forbidden island to take the samples. What could possibly go wrong?

The first thing to go wrong is the sailing trip of an irresponsible father (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) with his daughters, one of whom has her stoner boyfriend in tow. Rescued from distress at sea by the mercenaries, they all end up on the island with the dinosaur mutants. From then on, things start to go wrong.

Jurassic Park is a franchise that tells the same story every few years – and is therefore very successful: the last three films in the series have each grossed over a billion dollars worldwide. The dinosaurs draw old and new fans to the movies in droves. And "Jurassic World – Rebirth" also delivers reliably in the dinosaur department.

The fact that all the protagonists usually behave rather idiotically and therefore end up on the menu of the islanders is part of it. Nevertheless, this seventh rehash seems rather lackluster: screenwriter David Koepp (who also wrote the first two parts) didn't come up with more than a few old clichés for his story and its characters.

And then there's Scarlett Johansson. We see her as a "tough cookie" determinedly trudging through the jungle and saving the day. Somehow she always remains Scarlett Johansson in the jungle and doesn't manage to step back behind her role. You have to admit that the script doesn't give her much room to develop, but her acting range is limited.

At 130 minutes, Jurassic World - Rebirth remains within the time frame for such a blockbuster – and is nevertheless lengthy in places. This is mainly due to the stranded family of sailors, whose only function seems to be to introduce annoying kids and defiant teenagers into the story. This is the cold exploitation logic of Hollywood: every target group must feel addressed. The billion-dollar box office proves them right.

It's all a bit of a shame, because somewhere beneath this highly polished blockbuster surface lies a straightforward little monster movie – without any annoying teenagers. Director Gareth Edwards has already made an unconventional contribution to the genre with "Monsters". Perhaps he could have contributed more to this franchise with a better script and less economic pressure.

In the end, the realization remains: sometimes you should just let them rest. This applies to extinct giant predators just as much as it does to outdated Hollywood franchises.

"Jurassic World – The Rebirth" is in cinemas from July 2.

(nie)