Rebirth

or sexy action figures

My daughter and I went to see the latest entry in the Jurassic Park/World franchise on Saturday afternoon, Jurassic World: Rebirth. I have to say that the fact that they are still making Jurassic Park movies 32 years after the first one kind of blows my mind, even though it shouldn’t because what a cash cow they have been. As one would expect since they are seven movies in to the franchise, the movies themselves have been of varying quality, but the kid in me that was obsessed with dinosaurs will keep going to them until they stop making them or I die, whichever comes first (my suspicion is it is the latter.)

I had read some not great reviews of Rebirth so I went in with my expectations in check. And while it didn’t quite match the original which will always and forever be the best film in the franchise, and didn’t quite have the reboot power of Jurassic World, it was a more than capable entry into the Jurassic World universe. The plot was blessedly simple - a pharmaceutical executive needs blood samples from the three biggest dinosaurs to help make a revolutionary drug to prevent cardiovascular disease and he enlists a mercenary (Scarlet Johanssen) and a palenotologist (Jonathan Bailey) to accompany him to an island off the coast of South America to obtain said samples. Their paths cross with a family sailing the Atlantic that is attacked by a mosasaurus and subsequently shipwrecked. What follows is the usual dinosaur sci-fi terror that we’ve come to expect from these movies.

I’d have to give the movie a solid B+ because while it was a bit lacking in places (it got off to a pretty slow start), I feel like it did the best job of capturing the magic and wonder of the original of any movie since the Jurassic Park. I also really appreciated the simple, straight-forward story rather than the convoluted plots of the last two entries in the series. Although I will say I’m kind of tired of the mutant dinosaurs. Please, give me actual dinosaurs and not some T. rex/Godzilla hybrid. Just show me dinosaurs chasing and eating people - that’s all I’m there for.

Or at least, that’s what I thought.

As it turned out, I ended up not being able to take my eyes off of Jonathan Bailey’s hot nerdy paleontologist Henry Loomis. I mean, I think it’s pretty easy to see why.

I frequently say I don’t really have a “type” but yes I do and Loomis is definitely IT. The “slutty little glasses” definitely were the icing on the cake haha. I think Jonathan Bailey is really going to be a STAR because he so deftly moved from a role in Wicked to a role in a Jurassic Park movie. We’re going to be seeing a lot more of him, at least I hope so.

I was so enamored with him, I am seriously considering picking this merchandise tie-in solely for the Henry Loomis action figure (although the pteranodon is pretty sweet too.)

We’ll see what I do - it’s almost $30 with shipping and that’s a pretty steep price but I can imagine it will only increase in price. It’ll be the first time I’ve ever bought a figure based on the sex appeal of the person playing the character but as they say, there’s a first time for everything.