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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Jurassic World Rebirth (Alexandre Desplat)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... to appreciate brilliantly precise and perfectly
sufficient music at the periphery of Williams' style in this solidly
exciting but technically cold recording.
Avoid it... if you continue to wonder how Alexandre Desplat can so intelligently write immense music that somehow provides absolutely nothing memorable.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Jurassic World Rebirth: (Alexandre Desplat) Because
Steven Spielberg and Universal Pictures will never seemingly be able to
restrain themselves from attempting to recapture the mystique of 1993's
classic, Jurassic Park, a seventh film in the franchise now shows
dinosaurs chasing and eating humans just like they always have. There's
only so much of the same formula that audiences can tolerate, but 2025's
Jurassic World Rebirth slots in after the Jurassic World trilogy
narratively and postulates that evil corporate scum wants to harvest the
DNA of rare dinosaurs for pharmaceutical reasons, hiring a team of a
mercenary, paleontologist, and other yummy snack targets to descend upon
yet another abandoned island laboratory to retrieve samples. Honestly,
how many of these goddamn tropical islands with destroyed labs can there
be? Once the unlikely team gets to the island, their boat is annihilated
by some nasty sea-dinosaur and they find themselves navigating the land
alongside some random family that was also stranded there. As expected,
half the people involved get spectacularly consumed by increasingly
bizarre-looking dinosaur creations that humans must have thought would
be a good idea at some point. Critical and audience reactions to the
movie were middling, the concept running on fumes. Director Gareth
Edwards is clearly a Spielberg enthusiast and spent much of the movie
making homages to the famed director's prior works, and one area of
loyalty comes in the soundtrack. Edwards doesn't have a plethora of
films to his credit, but composer Alexandre Desplat was instrumental in
his first two blockbusters, Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star
Wars Story. The French composer's music was rejected from the latter
movie, setting up Michael Giacchino to take the assignment of emulating
John Williams music for Disney. Giacchino also, of course, took the
reins of the Jurassic Park park franchise for the three
Jurassic World films starting in 2015, the first two of which
quite strong. In no small dose of irony, Edwards tasked Desplat with
replacing Giacchino in this franchise for Jurassic World Rebirth,
perhaps a make-good for Desplat's removal after not being allowed to
handle music from Williams' storied history in another franchise.
For both the industry and listeners, Jurassic World Rebirth is at last an opportunity for Desplat to show what he can pull out of Williams' shadow, and the results are highly predictable. At the very least, the assignment allows the composer an opportunity to handle a major blockbuster fantasy adventure, his first such high-profile work since Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets in 2017 before sliding back into his native dramatic genres of lesser scope. For this score, Desplat's London recording employed a 105-piece orchestra and a 60-member choir, with lead actor Jonathan Bailey making some feel-good news by performing on clarinet. Edwards encouraged Desplat to write a memorable score in the style of Williams, and it's fascinating to hear how the composer tackled that directive. His precise orchestrations and impressive choral usage are really smart technically, the constructs and level of rampaging activity in the score superb from start to finish. In terms of style, he applies the base Williams sound for the concept, including shakuhachi flute for the exotic element, but sparingly, and jungle percussion from The Lost World: Jurassic Park joins the fun in "Hurry." Desplat doesn't go wild with unique additional layers, though his trademark, deep electronic thumping is used early in the score without interfering in the soundscape. (It's mixed pretty far back.) A marimba is an interesting touch for locale applications in a few cues. You can tell that Desplat was attempting to apply low woodwinds and harp in Williams' usual methods, which is nice. But Desplat will always be Desplat, and this score is no different. Whereas Williams' natural tendency is for his structures to flow dramatically, even in horror sequences, Desplat is known for his prickly and staccato precision, and that sound guides almost every figure in this work. Such striking pluckiness sometimes makes the score sound uncomfortable with its preceding inspiration. Desplat expertly adapts Williams' progressions and other mannerisms, but he intellectualizes them severely, and you can't really do that without losing the appeal of Williams' classic melodic approach. The resulting homages to Williams show less overt love of the style than Don David accomplished in Jurassic Park III, which in turn was lessened a bit more in the Giacchino scores. In short, this score is proof that Desplat's erudite style, for all his intentions, is incompatible with Williams' melodic grace. While each individual component in Jurassic World Rebirth exudes a dose of brilliance from Desplat conceptually, he simply cannot write, develop, and prevail with memorable themes. This characteristic of his methodology is likely because he doesn't use the majority of his scores' running time to nurture and repeat his motifs in "hummable" fashion. He has always struggled with this tendency, the absolutely precise and intelligent executions of his themes seemingly more important than crowd-pleasing simplicity sometimes demanded by a story. In this work, Desplat tends to ramble for minutes at end without stating a meaningful recurring theme, with "Dart Show," "Zora and Kincaid," most of "Mayday," "The Pistol/Scare in the Trees," "What's This Smell?," and most of "Mutadons Fly In" devoid of any meaningful thematic advancement. The narrative therefore isn't tight at all, leaving none of Desplat's many new themes in memory. There are also singular melodic highlights like the opening of "Boat Chase" aren't connected to anything. The charming melody early in "Do the Job" is likewise orphaned. Several odd bits litter the path as well, with "Bridge of Deal" sounding like a Bernard Herrmann leftover and light piano romance in "Zora and Kincaid" seeming totally out of place. Desplat's actual narrative consists of eight recurring new themes of interest, some of which will require close attention to pick out of the mass of the composer's suspense and chasing material. It's interesting that Edwards implored Desplat to write memorable (or "hummable") new themes and the composer responded with a group of at least eight, none of which remotely as engaging as Williams' legacy identities, two of which remain in this score. For whatever reason, Desplat opted to replace Williams' famous adventure and fantasy themes with his own alternatives but heavily borrow Williams' progressions from Jurassic Park and beyond for them, causing all these ideas to bleed together. The main new identity in Jurassic World Rebirth is Desplat's adventure replacement, which represents the overarching concept and location. While a decent identity, it has distinct similarities in its opening notes to both the legacy adventure theme and Williams' E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, depending on its harmonics. Per usual, Desplat heavily manipulates those harmonies in his statements, so the idea sometimes resides closer to E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial than at other moments, but the similarities are generally distracting. Desplat's main adventure theme in Jurassic World Rebirth explodes with a brief moment of relief at 4:38 into "Opening Lab" and occupies the first minute of "Natural History Museum" in vague Williams tones before returning on solo horn at 3:34 over hints of Williams' fantasy theme. It opens "Voyage" with optimistic gusto from the whole ensemble and diminishes to worried shades against slight Williams hints, later lamenting the situation on solo horn at 4:21 into "Boat Chase." Returning with nervousness on brass at 0:08 into "Walking the Swamp," the adventure theme is pleasantly expressed at 0:11 into "Dino Lovers" with Williams' magnificence of locale suggested. It's suspenseful with clanging percussion at 3:31 into "Crossing the River/T-Rex," factoring with more strength at 6:20 but still darkened by the rambunctious horror surroundings. The theme interrupts the rowdy action at 1:30 into "Bird Strike" and several times thereafter, closing the cue with an exotic fanfare mode, and a bassoon rendition at 3:31 into "Tunnel/Helicopter" is cool but lost in the overall action. Finally, the idea accompanies the action rhythms on brass at the start of "Bella and the Beast" but otherwise diminishes at the end of the score. The other primary new identity from Desplat is a protagonist theme that largely replaces Williams' legacy fantasy theme, which is ironic because this new theme extends directly out of the opening three notes of that Williams fantasy theme. It also takes a while to develop in the story. Briefly on hopeful strings at 3:17 into "Mayday," this theme offers respite at 3:47 into "Boat Chase" in fuller form, which exposes its redundancy with the Williams alternative. It informs solo violin elegance at 2:02 into "Dino Lovers," where it stands apart with choral beauty; the secondary phrases of this theme are really lovely in this moment. The protagonists' theme pleasantly offers a single statement in "Clifftop" before succumbing to suspense again, and it returns as a slight and muted solution for strings at the end of "Climbing the Wall." It unoffensively bubbles along in its chords during "Let's Go Home" and resolves with a pretty rendition from the ensemble at the end of "Bella and the Beast." By this point, it sounds almost inextricable from Williams' fantasy theme, and the idea's secondary phrasing opens "Sailing Away" as a direct precursor to that 1993 identity's closing performance. Ideally, these two themes would have been combined into one by Desplat, with the legacy Williams material in support, a strategic move that would have greatly helped this work's memorability. Also new to Jurassic World Rebirth is Desplat's own family theme for the stranded, innocent bystanders on the island. Never mind that Williams had conjured his own such theme and Don Davis supplemented it with a truly fantastic alternative of nearly James Horner magic in Jurassic Park III. By comparison, Desplat's own version is extremely elusive and provides almost no melodrama or caring for these characters. Debuting on mysterious woodwinds early in "Cave Swim" but eventually warming up a bit, it wafts through the cue in hints but consolidates nicely at 2:31 for tenderness. This theme functions as an introduction to the new protagonist theme at the outset of "Clifftop" and opens and focuses at 0:26 into "Gentle Boat Ride" on light choir and piano. It struggles in the background of the action at 0:38 into "Mutadons Fly In" and suddenly interjects into horror material at 0:34 into "Run to the Gate" without needed power. Desplat cannot seem to find good places in which to fully state this idea in the bulk of the score, rendering it somewhat pointless. More successful in Jurassic World Rebirth are the composer's four horror-oriented themes, all of which provided extremely robust renditions that compete favorably with all the prior scores in the franchise. This area is where Desplat truly excels, his main horror theme especially monster-appropriate and Godzilla-like in its ascending menace, borrowing a touch of Giacchino bravado for such beasts. Heard on deep choir with dramatic brass counterpoint at 0:24 into "Opening Lab," this idea is less obvious at 0:24 into "Fins Attack - Part 1," shifting to high strings in action at 2:30, and continues more frantically throughout "Fins Attack - Part 2." It stews dangerously under thumping jungle percussion early in "Hurry," turning to its loftier horror mode at 1:17 in higher registers. Following Desplat's new carnivore theme at 1:26 into "Crossing the River/T-Rex," the main horror identity recurs a few times and then cyclically stalks on low strings over tingling cymbals at 1:34 into "Gentle Boat Ride." It bursts from the ambience at 2:16 into "The Old Lab" with slamming percussion and brass but keenly turns positively evil with an almost heroic tilt in first minute of "Tunnel/Helicopter" before announcing itself one more time with bravado at 1:42 into "Run to the Gate." Listeners looking for the most muscular, sometimes tonally magnificent moments of grandeur in the score will find this horror materials' major performances to be an easily appreciable highlight of the score. Strategically, Desplat overintellectualized his new horror motifs in Jurassic World Rebirth while totally disregarding those coined by the composers before him. A second horror identity in the work is less about fantasy anticipation and has a focus on chasing instead, and it resolves incredibly at the score's end. Stomping at 4:01 and 4:23 into "Opening Lab," this theme reminds of its presence on low strings and woodwinds at 1:25 into "Voyage," and cellos return it to the forefront without much gravity for a few renditions at 0:52 into "Walking the Swamp." Fortunately, it absolutely blows up "Crossing the River/T-Rex" at 6:57 before being dialed back at 0:21 into "Climbing the Wall" on flute, yielding to flowing harp panic. This secondary horror material creeps along at "Tunnel/Helicopter" in its underlying chords and blasts with force of imminent death at 0:21 into "Run to the Gate," recurring throughout the cue. This theme remarkably shifts to become dramatic on strings about a minute into "Bella and the Beast," and its performance at 1:47 with the choir joining the ensemble is hauntingly impressive in its resolution. The aforementioned new carnivore theme, meanwhile, uses descending pairs of notes to key for the deadliest dinosaurs, needlessly replacing Williams' own theme for them. From deep male choir at 2:41 into "Opening Lab," Desplat previews the action on that choir at 0:48 into "Crossing the River/T-Rex" and returns this idea to form for a reminder at 0:44 into "The Old Lab" before a singular dramatic interlude that guides the remainder of the chasing. The nasty sea dinosaur with connotations to Spielberg's famed shark antics receives a repeated, growling descending phrase on aggressive low brass. This Mosasaur theme features at 1:09, 2:00, and 3:17 into "Mosasaur Attacks Yacht" over militaristic snare and brass, taunts "Mosasaur Bumps Boat" extensively in lesser volumes, and is littered throughout "Boat Chase" more than half a dozen times. Some listeners may find this simplistic motif to be more of a bass region sound effect in its downward slurring, but that Desplat accomplishes this tone with seemingly organic instruments is pretty impressive. The final new theme of note from the composer is one for Dolores, an Aquilops dinosaur that the girl of the innocent family adopts. This sweet, highly European-styled piano identity in slight waltz form is fine for a cute dinosaur, heard on piano at 1:24 into "Do the Job" and suddenly interrupting the terror on hazy piano at 2:05 into "Mutadons Fly In" but not significantly factoring elsewhere. The make-or-break aspect of Jurassic World Rebirth for many listeners will be Desplat's ability to manage Williams' legacy themes, and he does so competently but not without some road bumps. The maestro's adventure theme is the tougher one to adapt, and it only occurs once prominently in the score, following an awkwardly artificial key change at 4:26 into "Natural History Museum" for a wholesale rendition until an abbreviated, intentionally soured ending, which is a really nice touch. (That sour conclusion may describe the feeling listeners get from the whole score if they expect Desplat to reprise the majesty of Williams' tone overall.) Meanwhile, the Williams fantasy theme, aside from heavily informing the new protagonist idea, is more readily adapted. Its first three notes toy on piano under the new adventure theme at 3:36 into "Natural History Museum." Plucked on strings and harp in playful interpretations in the middle of "Team Gathered," the theme is equally twisted on piano for suspense at 2:30 into "Voyage." The fan-favorite is softer in minor-key harmonics on strings at 1:18 into "Zora and Loomis Chat" (where it doesn't really make much logical narrative sense), and the theme's secondary phrasing lightly informs the bright second minute of "Dino Lovers." It's copied wholesale in parts from the first score for "Dino Spectacle" but is abbreviated structurally, the nicely condensed arrangement sounding like nothing else in the score and therefore potentially annoying in its artificial insertion. The legacy theme extends out of the new protagonist material on piano in "Sailing Away" and eventually adds choir and the ensemble for a rousing close to the score, a really good adaptation that presents the core idea in another condensed form. Unfortunately, all the other Williams themes were abandoned without good reason. The lack of rising, four-note horn motif of mystery at the very start is unforgivable, because it would have fit perfectly with the narrative. In the end, Desplat did exactly what film score collectors could have predicted for Jurassic World Rebirth: written brilliantly precise and perfectly sufficient music at the periphery of Williams' style while somehow managing to provide absolutely nothing memorable. Despite all the consternation about Don Davis' approach to Jurassic Park III, he in retrospect handled the Williams conundrum better than Giacchino or Desplat. A 102-minute album presentation is unforgiving in its length, badly in need of consolidation to half an hour. This score is more proof that Desplat will always lack the "it" factor because of his style of writing, and if this franchise insists upon moving forward, then let's hope John Powell takes the next crack at it.
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 101:46
NOTES & QUOTES:
There exists no official packaging for the digital version of this album.
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