Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: “Jurassic World Rebirth,” the seventh installment in the Jurassic Park franchise now playing in theatres, plays like a love letter to Steven Spielberg’s original dino drama. Scarlett Johansson is Zora Bennett, leader of a covert operation team hired by a pharmaceutical company to secure genetic material from dinosaurs at the original Jurassic Park Island research facility. Their expedition soon uncovers more than they bargained for, including a mutant Tyrannosaurus Rex with six limbs. “The worst of the worst,” Zora says, “were left here.”

CAST: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Ed Skrein. Directed by Gareth Edwards.

REVIEW: Early on in “Jurassic World Rebirth” we’re told the public’s intertest in dinosaurs has waned. “Nobody cares about these animals anymore,” laments paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey). Judging by the enthusiastic audience I saw this movie with, that isn’t exactly true, but the film itself doesn’t appear to be in love with its reanimated reptiles.

The mutated dinos on display—we’re told the island is where they dumped dinosaurs that were “malformed or too hard for people to look at”—are used sparingly, as they were in the classic original, but they don’t make the same impact when they do appear. The sense of wonder that once accompanied watching the Jurassic movies has evaporated. Perhaps we’re too familiar with the roaring CGI creatures or perhaps it’s the film’s presentation.

Director Gareth Edwards conjures up fierce looking foes for the cast to interact with, but much of it feels been-there-done-that. A notable exception comes with a scene featuring a pair of “married” Titanosaurus. It’s a lovely, tender moment, for both the dinosaurs and their human counterparts, that breaks the film’s theme park ride vibe.

The dinosaurs aren’t the film’s only big stars. Oscar winners Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali headline the cast but soon get lost in a story that divides in two directions, the mercenaries lead by Johansson’s Zora Bennett and a castaway family who distract from the plot’s main thrust.

The supporting cast fares even worse. They’re so underdeveloped and uninteresting they could have been delivered to the set in a large plastic shaker labelled Dino Food.

“Jurassic World Rebirth” does have several pulse racing sequences. A raft chase featuring a fierce T-Rex, adapted directly from Michael Crichton’s original “Jurassic Park” novel, is exciting stuff and a cliff climbing scene may have you moving toward the edge of your seat, but the dopamine rush wears off very quickly.

“Jurassic World Rebirth” will likely please fans of the franchise and in some ways it is a return to form after a series of lackluster sequels, but the sense of awe that made us fans in the first place is missing.