Jurassic horror returns: lots of adrenaline and mutant dinosaurs

Hollywood's King Midas was fascinated by the moral dilemma posed by Crichton's book: "We can create clones, but is it acceptable?" and he knew that bringing a story of humans playing God without considering the consequences to the big screen would be lucrative material set on the fictional Isla Nublar. And his instincts didn't fail him. Three years after the publication of the best-seller, he released Jurassic Park (1993), and the film became the highest-grossing in history—grossing more than $1 billion worldwide—until James Cameron resurrected his Titanic four years later. "I was really just trying to make a good sequel to Jaws , on dry land," the American director would later confess, returning to work with John Williams for another iconic soundtrack.

The adventures of a group of people in a theme park featuring cloned dinosaurs, created by a billionaire philanthropist and a team of genetic scientists, attracted a mass audience and sparked dinosaur mania. The film combined science fiction and adventure with ample doses of horror and suspense. The director of ET never wanted "to make a dinosaur movie that was the best ever filmed, but the most believable for the viewer." It was visually spectacular and innovative cinema that revived prehistoric creatures, embracing the best and most passionate family adventure films. An infallible formula that also marked a milestone in the use of special effects, which combined digital animation with animatronic figures, such as the T-Rex, the star of the show.

The huge success of the film, starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, launched an irregular franchise whose seventh installment, Jurassic World: Rebirth , hits theaters today as the summer blockbuster and with Scarlett Johansson fully committed to her role as Zora Bennet, a covert operations expert who is hired by Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), a guy linked to the pharmaceutical industry, to lead a team of specialists in obtaining genetic material from three giant species of dinosaurs that could help eradicate coronary heart disease.

Johansson's character enlists for money, until her relationship with the paleontologist played by Jonathan Bailey opens her eyes to a reality where common good prevails. Directed by British director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), the story returns to its most terrifying origins, with mutant dinosaurs hunting humans.

It's been 32 years since the first film was released, and in the meantime, several directors have signed on to the Jurassic saga, including Barcelona-born Juan Antonio Bayona, who directed the brilliant Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), supervised by Spielberg, who reluctantly took over the reins of the 1997 sequel to Jurassic Park with The Lost World , an equally successful film with the appeal of Julianne Moore as a scientist in distress, but with a weaker narrative edge. For the third installment, Spielberg handed over the direction to Joe Johnston (who reserved production duties for himself) for a fantasy film released in 2001 and panned by critics.

It took fourteen years for the start of a second trilogy called Jurassic World and led by Colin Trevorrow, with the exception of Bayona's, which made the box office jump again in its return to Nublar, this time with the charisma of Chris Pratt as a trainer of domesticated dinosaurs. Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) reunited the original leading trio in a nostalgic plot with a taste of repetition.

It seemed like a farewell, but in a Hollywood short on ideas, the norm is to exploit sequels to the fullest. Jurassic World: Rebirth doesn't break any new ground, although it's a highly entertaining and adrenaline-pumping experience. And from the looks of it, it won't be the last to milk an original work that set the bar high.