Jurassic World Rebirth: There's life in the old dinosaur series yet
NZ Listener Arts & Entertainment Editor Russell Baillie has worked at the Listener since 2017 and was previously the editor of the NZ Herald's TimeOut section.
Jurassic World Rebirth, directed by Gareth Edwards, is in cinemas now.
After the rampaging stupidity of 2022's Jurassic World Dominion, for which I can only hope Sam Neill was paid embarrassment money in his return as paleontologist Alan Grant, my hopes weren't high for this fast-arriving seventh instalment.
Fortunately, it's a fresh start on the cast front. No more of Chris Pratt's dull dino-whisperer or Bryce Dallas Howard's tiresomely kooky gal from Jurassic World amusement park middle management turned pro-ancient species activist.
And a new start on the directing front, too. Brit Gareth Edwards was a DIY special-effects whiz, whose low-budget debut Monsters was a good Jurassic audition piece. He then did wonders with two ancient franchises – Godzilla in 2014 and the Star Wars spinoff Rogue One two years later. Rebirth isn't quite the refreshing surprise that Rogue One was, but it's got a similar vibe of affection for the original series and Edwards clearly likes his big beasties, possibly more than the people running away from them.
Given that much of the action on Rebirth is waterborne, this also feels like a tribute to Spielberg's Jaws, his first monster film from 50 years ago. There's a fair dollop of Aliens DNA in this, too, given the looks of a few mutant dinosaurs and the presence of Rupert Friend as a fiendish big pharma guy funding a mercenary mission to extract blood samples from the biggest of them. The originals lived so long, the theory goes, maybe they have the genetic answer to human heart disease.
But no, you don't come to a seventh Jurassic film for a bad science lesson. You come to crane your neck in awe at the big vegetarian ones and watch our plucky heroes outsmart the carnivores. Rebirth offers plenty of both.
The raiding party is led by Scarlett Johansson's Lara Croft-like mercenary and Jonathan Bailey's idealist paleontologist. He's only there because of waning public interest in ubiquitous dinosaurs means he's out of a museum job. Steering the ship is Mahershala Ali, an old comrade of Johansson's character whose very big boat gets us, eventually, after some Jaws moments at sea, to Île Saint-Hubert, a lush equatorial island chocka with dinosaurs.
Also along for the ride are a yachting family whose trans-Atlantic voyage in a clearly inadequate boat has ended up on the island, where instead they get to go whitewater rafting while being chased by something T. Rex-adjacent.
It's got less digital overload to its visuals than its recent predecessors, though its story, by David Koepp, who wrote the first two Jurassic films, can feel like a videogame – collect those samples and proceed to the next level and repeat. But there's plenty here that's stupidly exciting and has nice echoes of when Neill's paleontologist stared in genuine wonder at what Spielberg had brought to life.
Rating out of five: ★★★
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
1News
5 days ago
- 1News
Biggest piece of Mars on Earth going up for auction in New York
For sale: A 25kg rock. Estimated auction price: $3.3 million to $7 million. Why so expensive? It's the largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth. Sotheby's in New York will be auctioning what's known as NWA 16788 on Wednesday as part of a natural history-themed sale that also includes a juvenile Ceratosaurus dinosaur skeleton that's more than 2m tall and nearly 3m long. According to the auction house, the meteorite was believed to have been blown off the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid strike before traveling 225 million kilometres to Earth, where it crashed into the Sahara. A meteorite hunter found it in Niger in November 2023, Sotheby's says. The red, brown and gray hunk is about 70% larger than the next largest piece of Mars found on Earth and represents nearly 7% of all the Martian material currently on this planet, Sotheby's says. It measures nearly 375mm by 279mm by 152mm. 'This Martian meteorite is the largest piece of Mars we have ever found by a long shot," Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman for science and natural history at Sotheby's, said in an interview. 'So it's more than double the size of what we previously thought was the largest piece of Mars.' ADVERTISEMENT It is also a rare find. There are only 400 Martian meteorites out of the more than 77,000 officially recognized meteorites found on Earth, Sotheby's says. Hatton said a small piece of the red planet remnant was removed and sent to a specialised lab that confirmed it is from Mars. It was compared with the distinct chemical composition of Martian meteorites discovered during the Viking space probe that landed on Mars in 1976, she said. The examination found that it is an 'olivine-microgabbroic shergottite,' a type of Martian rock formed from the slow cooling of Martian magma. It has a course-grained texture and contains the minerals pyroxene and olivine, Sotheby's says. It also has a glassy surface, likely due to the high heat that burned it when it fell through Earth's atmosphere, Hatton said. 'So that was their first clue that this wasn't just some big rock on the ground,' she said. The meteorite previously was on exhibit at the Italian Space Agency in Rome. Sotheby's did not disclose the owner. It was not clear exactly when the meteorite hit Earth, but testing showed it probably happened in recent years, Sotheby's said. The juvenile Ceratosaurus nasicornis skeleton was found in 1996 near Laramie, Wyoming, at Bone Cabin Quarry, a gold mine for dinosaur bones. Specialists assembled nearly 140 fossil bones with some sculpted materials to recreate the skeleton and mounted it so it's ready to exhibit, Sotheby's says. ADVERTISEMENT The skeleton is believed to be from the late Jurassic period, about 150 million years ago, Sotheby's says. It's auction estimate is $6.6 million to $10 million. Ceratosaurus dinosaurs were bipeds with short arms that appear similar to the Tyrannosaurus rex, but smaller. Ceratosaurus dinosaurs could grow up to 7.6m long, while the Tyrannosaurs rex could be 12m long. The skeleton was acquired last year by Fossilogic, a Utah-based fossil preparation and mounting company. Wednesday's auction was part of Sotheby's Geek Week 2025 and featured 122 items, including other meteorites, fossils and gem-quality minerals.
NZ Herald
6 days ago
- NZ Herald
Jurassic World Rebirth: There's life in the old dinosaur series yet
The seventh Jurassic movie, starring Jonathan Bailey and Scarlett Johansson, sees the franchise born again. Photo / Supplied NZ Listener Arts & Entertainment Editor Russell Baillie has worked at the Listener since 2017 and was previously the editor of the NZ Herald's TimeOut section. Jurassic World Rebirth, directed by Gareth Edwards, is in cinemas now. After the rampaging stupidity of 2022's Jurassic World Dominion, for which I can only hope Sam Neill was paid embarrassment money in his return as paleontologist Alan Grant, my hopes weren't high for this fast-arriving seventh instalment. Fortunately, it's a fresh start on the cast front. No more of Chris Pratt's dull dino-whisperer or Bryce Dallas Howard's tiresomely kooky gal from Jurassic World amusement park middle management turned pro-ancient species activist. And a new start on the directing front, too. Brit Gareth Edwards was a DIY special-effects whiz, whose low-budget debut Monsters was a good Jurassic audition piece. He then did wonders with two ancient franchises – Godzilla in 2014 and the Star Wars spinoff Rogue One two years later. Rebirth isn't quite the refreshing surprise that Rogue One was, but it's got a similar vibe of affection for the original series and Edwards clearly likes his big beasties, possibly more than the people running away from them. Given that much of the action on Rebirth is waterborne, this also feels like a tribute to Spielberg's Jaws, his first monster film from 50 years ago. There's a fair dollop of Aliens DNA in this, too, given the looks of a few mutant dinosaurs and the presence of Rupert Friend as a fiendish big pharma guy funding a mercenary mission to extract blood samples from the biggest of them. The originals lived so long, the theory goes, maybe they have the genetic answer to human heart disease. But no, you don't come to a seventh Jurassic film for a bad science lesson. You come to crane your neck in awe at the big vegetarian ones and watch our plucky heroes outsmart the carnivores. Rebirth offers plenty of both. The raiding party is led by Scarlett Johansson's Lara Croft-like mercenary and Jonathan Bailey's idealist paleontologist. He's only there because of waning public interest in ubiquitous dinosaurs means he's out of a museum job. Steering the ship is Mahershala Ali, an old comrade of Johansson's character whose very big boat gets us, eventually, after some Jaws moments at sea, to Île Saint-Hubert, a lush equatorial island chocka with dinosaurs. Also along for the ride are a yachting family whose trans-Atlantic voyage in a clearly inadequate boat has ended up on the island, where instead they get to go whitewater rafting while being chased by something T. Rex-adjacent. It's got less digital overload to its visuals than its recent predecessors, though its story, by David Koepp, who wrote the first two Jurassic films, can feel like a videogame – collect those samples and proceed to the next level and repeat. But there's plenty here that's stupidly exciting and has nice echoes of when Neill's paleontologist stared in genuine wonder at what Spielberg had brought to life. Rating out of five: ★★★
NZ Herald
05-07-2025
- NZ Herald
Sofa, so good: The latest, greatest TV you need to catch up on
The Listener team's round-up of the best TV from the first half of 2025, from Adolescence to Wolf Hall. Truth be told, when it came to a Listener office discussion about the best new shows we'd seen this year, things soon went off topic. Yes, those of us who
