Summer in September

So, hey! Congratulations to Shiny Things readers Jeff Mather and Simone Stock, whose 4K/Blu-ray combo editions of Jurassic World: Rebirth should be en route by now from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. Giveaways are fun, right? And so is Jurassic World Rebirth, as it turns out.

Admittedly, the bar couldn’t have been lower for a new Jurassic movie after the wheeze of 2022’s Dominion, which found Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow struggling to find any life at all in the final chapter of his post-Park trilogy. I know I saw it, but the only thing I can remember is the casts of both trilogies coming together in the last act to stand around and wait for something to happen, and I truly don’t remember what that was. And I’m pretty sure one is supposed to think of cool set pieces involving dinosaurs when one looks back on any Jurassic movie.

Rebirth is full of cool set pieces, as one might expect from a film directed by Gareth Edwards, the guy who made Monsters and Godzilla and Rogue One. Some critics argued that the film is all set pieces; I would respectfully disagree, since the dialogue scenes are well-shot and -acted, have themes that you can engage with and are filled with interesting actors who’ve been cast to flesh out archetypal characters – which felt to me like another tip of the hat to the original Jurassic Park. Both Edwards and screenwriter David Koepp – who was involved on various levels with the first trilogy – are consciously trying to reinvent the franchise by celebrating its Spielbergian DNA, building something new and fun out of familiar parts.

Indeed, those set pieces are constructed as homages to Spielberg’s greatest hits – Jaws, Raiders, and Jurassic Park – and the entire plot is a reworking of The Lost World. See, it turns out there was another secret InGen site, on Île Saint-Hubert off the coast of French Guiana, where research was underway on newer, cooler dinosaurs to surprise and entertain humans who’d grown jaded with the original resurrected thunder lizards. A prologue, set “Seventeen Years Ago,” shows us the workplace disaster that led to the evacuation of the facility, leaving the creatures to their own devices. (And yes, the timeline is a little wonky, but let’s assume it was part of the operations for the launch of Jurassic World a few years later.)

Three years after the events of Dominion, it turns out most of the planet isn’t hospitable to dinosaurs, and it turns out they can only thrive in the equatorial regions – which have been designated no-go zones by a global accord. And it just so happens that the largest dinosaurs ever to walk the earth – the aquatic Mosasaurus, the herbivorous Titanosaurus and the avian Quetzalcoatlus – are all alive and well on Île Saint-Hubert, their massive hearts and long lifespans possibly containing the secret to revolutionary heart-disease treatments for humans.

That’s the impetus for sketchy pharma rep Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) to recruit crack operative Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and her team of expert adventurers – Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), Atwater (Ed Skrein), Leclerc (Bechir Sylvain) and Nina (Philippine Velge) – to extract genetic samples from all three creatures, accompanied by paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey). And so we’re off to dinosaur island once again – with a brief detour so our heroes can rescue a family whose boat has drifted into the dino zone.

That lets Koepp and Edwards shift back and forth between two narratives, with the pros having death-defying adventures while the entirely unprepared Delgado family – father Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), college-age Teresa (Luna Blaise), her kid sister Isabella (Audrina Miranda) and Teresa’s himbo boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono) – try not to get eaten. And sending the two groups in separate directions lets the movie jump from one set piece to the next without seeming to pause for breath.

I’ll say it again: These are some great set pieces. The Mosasaur stands in for a certain great white shark in a loving (and very inventive) riff on Jaws; a scene that sends Zora and Loomis rappelling down a cliff face to raid a Quetzalcoatlus’ nest feels like it could plug right into an Indiana Jones movie, and Koepp finally gets to use the scene from Michael Crichton’s novel where someone has to sneak past a sleeping T-Rex to retrieve a raft – and use it as the starting point for a breathless white-water chase sequence.

The original Jurassic Park gets a few more nods, as you can imagine: There’s a direct reprise that manages to convey, for the first time since 1993, Spielberg’s sense of awe and wonder, and a nighttime chase sequence that demonstrates Edwards’ skill at integrating digital creatures and real locations and actors – as seen in Monsters and Godzilla – while also nodding to JP1’s climactic raptor action.

Does Rebirth have the novelty of the second half of J.A Bayona’s criminally underrated Fallen Kingdom, which pivoted from island adventure into an Old Dark House monster movie? It does not. But it does feel more like an original-recipe Jurassic Park movie than any film since The Lost World, with engaging actors and straightforward stakes. It embraces the limitations of the franchise and turns them into strengths. It’s fun. I kinda want to watch it again.

Not interested in dinosaurs, but jonesing to watch attractive people have more relatable problems? Consider Materialists.

When it opened in theaters earlier this summer, Celine Song’s follow-up to her magnificent debut Past Lives was positioned as a glossy romantic comedy. And yes, on paper a pitch about a successful matchmaker who finds her own ideal partner at the same reception where an old flame is working as a cater waiter sounds uncannily like something Parker Posey would have made for Miramax around 1998, or Kate Hudson for Warner picture in 2004. Materialists is neither of those things, because Song isn’t as interested in fluffy romcom machinery as she is in what would happen if this stuff happened to real people, in the real world.

And so when Dakota Johnson’s analytical Lucy finds herself caught between charming, interested and incredibly wealthy private-equity guy Harry (Pedro Pascal) and perpetually struggling actor John (Chris Evans), she’s forced to struggle with her core concepts of who she is as a person, and what these relationships could mean to her. Harry, with his money and his confidence and his capability, makes her feel safe. But John makes her feel.

Past Lives was about soulmates, too, and Materialists does find Song returning to a structure that worked the first time around. But the details are different, as are the characters; this isn’t a rehash at all. Johnson, Pascal and Evans all know exactly what sort of movie Song is making, and deliver some of their finest work in the small moments of panic, vulnerability or confusion that define these people. And there’s something else that’s very real and very powerful lurking underneath it all, something the romcoms of earlier decades would never have touched – but which Song handles with delicacy and intelligence and no small amount of anger. It’s a really good movie. You should see it.

Materialists is being released in the US in a bespoke Blu-ray edition from A24, while Canadian distributor VVS Films has authored its own release with a French dub track and subtitles. Both appear to use the same crystalline 1080p/24 transfer and Dolby Atmos audio, but the supplemental suites differ.

A24’s disc offers a typically thoughtful audio commentary from writer-director Song (with some modest self-deprecation thrown in about the stage play Evans’ character mounts in the second act), a boutiquey making-of documentary, “The Math of Modern Dating,” and a “Composer Deep Dive” in which musicians Japanese Breakfast discuss scoring the film. The disc also features the art cards that have become standard for A24’s releases; does anyone actually do anything with those?

Here at home, the VVS Blu includes Song’s commentary and the production featurette but swaps out the Japanese Breakfast interview for a one-minute clip of Johnson, Evans and Pascal joking around for A24’s social-media channels. I did not miss the art cards, either.

Jurassic World Rebirth is somewhat more ambitious, with both the 4K and Blu-ray platters offering hours of extras. I don’t know that I even need to mention this at this point, but the 4K presentation is top-shelf; Gareth Edwards knows what a Jurassic movie is supposed to look like, and he and DP John Mathieson have a great time with the Spielbergian vibe throughout. The Dolby Atmos audio is similarly on point, constantly busy with both natural and unnatural noise until things get really, really quiet. And then, you know, there’s the running and screaming.

Edwards sits down for two separate commentary tracks – one with production designer James Clyne and first assistant director Jack Ravenscroft discussing the shoot, and another with editor Jabez Olssen and ILM visual-effects production supervisor David Vickery who offer a more holistic view of the film from conception to release. A one-hour documentary, “Hatching a New Era,” tackles the production in six parts, starting with everyone talking about how exciting it is to be “making a Jurassic” and then going through the set pieces one by one.

Co-star Audrina Miranda hosts two shorter featurettes, a fun walk-through at Skywalker Sound and a closer look at the adorable Dolores, the baby dino who bonds with Miranda’s character in the film; we also get a guide at the movie’s easter eggs, a slightly different version of the opening sequence and two alternate versions of later scenes. All of these are presented in unfinished versions, with glimpses of puppeteers and incomplete animation. They’re cool!

Finally there’s “Munched: Becoming Dino Food,” showcasing various cast members who don’t make it to the end credits. Watch that one last, obviously.

 

Jurassic World Rebirth is now available as a 4K/Blu-ray combo and an individual Blu-ray from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment; Materialists is now available on Blu-ray from A24 in the US and VVS Films in Canada.

Up next: Warner Archive celebrates its mission with themed collections, and Criterion brings an underground classic to Blu-ray for the first time. Also, that clown is still in the cornfield. It’s getting weird.