Peter Viney's Blog

2025

Directed by Gareth Edwards
Written by David Koepp
Executive Producer Steven Speilberg

Scarlett Johansson – Zora Bennett, covert operations person
Mahershala Ali – Duncan Kincaid, Zora’s team leader and boat captain
Jonathan Bailey- Dr Henry Loomis, a palaeontologist
Rupert Friend – Martin Krebbs, pharmaceutical company guy
Manuel Garcia-Rulfo – Reuben Delgado, father of shipwrecked family
Luna Blaise – Teresa Delgado, his eldest daughter
David Iaxono – Xavier Dobbs, Teresa’s boyfriend
Audrina Miranda – Isabella Delgado, youngest daughter
Ed Skrein – Bobby Atwater, Zora’steam
Bchir Sylvain – LeClerc, Zora’steam
Phillipe Velge – Nina, Zora’s team

So we continue. Again. And again. Though the word is that this is the best since Jurassic Park in 1993. So this is #7 overall. Or #4 in the World series. All new characters, too. It’s the cheapest of the four to make. It doesn’t show. SFX has become cheaper.

OK, the plot. The world is tired of dinosaurs (as many of us are after six chapters in the franchise), and they only survive now near the Equator with its richer oxygen. So that entire area of the world is shut off to humans which is unfortunate if you live there, though some do in French Guyana. A closed research project on an island with spectacular AI scenery tried to mutate dinosaurs and did so, successfully creating bigger nastier monsters. It was wrecked 17 years earlier due to a technician dropping a Snickers packet which fouled up the machinery. Is this product placement? This confectionary is to be avoided by all with peanut allergies too.

Big Pharm has worked out that blood from the biggest dinosaurs with the largest hearts could have its DNA extracted and would cure heart disease so everyone will live another twenty years (if they don’t die of cancer or get eaten by T.Rex). So they need to extract blood from the biggest sea dinosaur, from the biggest land dinosaur and from the biggest aerial one. The donor dinos need to be alive too. The land ones are touchingly lovey-dovey to each other.

Then there’s the ethical dimension. Should Big Pharm make billions or trillions from the discovery, or should it be for The World?

Is the film better than the recent ones? The major new bit is sea dinosaurs, and the Delgado family (father, daughters and boyfriend) to lend a domestic touch. As you may guess, Scarlet Johansson as Zora takes over the role of hardened adventurer, while Jonathan Bailey is the gentle nerdy doctor and palaeontologist with a conscience.

The man from big Pharm (Rupert Friend) is the bad guy from pretty much first appearance, employing Zora and pals by flashing millions of dollars. Mahershala Ali is Duncan, the hardened sidekick to Zora. Duncan and Zora have back story. She lost her partner. He lost his son. They share their trauma. Aaaah. Then there’s the (disposable) team with Zora. Nuff said.

Yes, I guessed who was going to live and who was going to die from their initial appearances. There was a nail biter and surprise at the end though. We all knew the little Delgado girl, Isabella, who befriended a cute little dinosaur as a pet would survive, in spite of half a dozen close brushes with death. We guessed that the idle boyfriend Xavier had the advantage of being comic relief, so that was in his favour in the heads bitten-off stakes. Teresa the older Delgado daughter is the heroine of the piece. Reuben the dad is worthy and protective.

Having the Delgados as an almost completely different storyline is a positive. They work well. The ban on being in the tropics does not stop the Delgados sailing across to Cape Town on a modest yacht through the crucial area. The long shipwreck of their yacht by a sea dinosaur is the best sequence and Jaws beating, and Speilberg also is pointed by the cute baby dinosaur, (ET?) Unfortunately the yacht shipwreck comes early.

The Zora team wreck their boat too after being attacked by different sea dinosaurs so everyone is stranded on the mutated dinosaurs’ island, but in two groups. The island has some left over AI steps and bits from Indiana Jones.

Getting the blood from the land ones is sweet.

The aerial ones dventure is exciting sheer rock climbing, though I’m not sure how you get several 500 metre long ropes and winches in a backpack. Dr Loomis works out that they can extract the DNA from dinosaur eggs. The nest is located in Indiana Jones’ Temple of Doom.

I was ready to get up to go at the end of the aerial dinosaurs sequence, since all the DNA has been gathered, but then we have the obligatory and very long indoor dinosaur chases through the ruined research facility, the indoor bit which we have seen six times before. In an earlier one that set off a juke box or radio with The Weight. In this one it sets off Stand By Me. It’s a signature. Karen thought the best bit was a dinosaur standing on a bottle of fizzy pop in the supermarket.

LINKS ON THIS BLOG
Jurassic World
Jurassic World: Dominion
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom