In “Jurassic World: Rebirth”, Universal Pictures attempts to inject new DNA into a franchise that refuses to remain extinct. While dinosaurs may have gone extinct 66 million years ago, they certainly remain a part of our pop culture thanks to Steve Spielberg’s 1993 film “Jurassic Park.” Just this summer, the franchise returned from extinction in the last installment called “Jurassic World: Rebirth” directed by Gareth Edwards. 

The film stars Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Academy Award-winning actor Mahershala Ali. Johansson, best known for her role as Black Widow in the Avengers franchise, stars as Zora Bennett, a competent operations expert. In the film, Bennett gets hired by English actor Rupert Friend, who plays the movie’s billionaire antagonist Martin Krebs. As a representative of Parker-Genix Pharmaceutical Engineering, Krebs believes that through the DNA of the world’s largest dinosaurs, the pharmaceutical company can develop a medicine that aims to cure heart disease. However, they can’t complete the mission without an expert aboard the team. Mr. Krebs hires a paleontologist named Dr. Henry Loomis, played by English actor Johnathan Bailey, who’s set to star in another blockbuster later this year, “Wicked: For Good.” 

The film promises longtime Jurassic Park fans a fresh chapter, but what we get is a mixed bag of clever thrills, misused characters, and some nostalgic callbacks to the original that range from earned to just eye-roll-worthy. 

Something the film’s director, Gareth Edwards, experimented with was creating moments that came off as a thriller, which I believe the film did well. Edwards, whose eye for scale and tension served him well while directing “Star Wars: Rogue One,” delivers a film that, at its best, flirts with the concepts of horror. Gone are the overexposed theme parks and overly explained science lectures. In their place is a survivalist nightmare where humans once again learn they’re not at the top of the food chain.

 Arguably, one of the few pulse-pounding moments within the film comes when a character named Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and his family find themselves stuck on an island looming with towering dinosaurs. They board a raft and are chased down the river by a fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex. Edwards revived the idea after stumbling on a behind the scenes book on the making of the 1993 original. In it he found Spielberg once planned a similar scene scrapped decades ago. In his version, a Dilophosaurus nearly lunges at Delgado’s daughter Teresa on the docks, only to retreat when the large dinosaur appears. The tension builds once Teresa notices that in order to get the emergency raft for both herself and family, she must sneak past a sleeping T. rex. It’s a masterclass in tension and pacing, showing that less can sometimes be more; the nail-biting and jolting from your seat couldn’t have been possible without the strategic cinematography. The underwater shots showing the colossal jaws of the creature snapping at the limbs of the family struggling to make it out alive are the type of heart-pounding scenes I would’ve loved to see more of. Though this wasn’t the only scene in the film where a dinosaur got too close.

Early in the first act, Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), Dr. Henry Loomis (Johnathan Bailey), and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) venture to a remote island once used as a research facility for hybrid and mutated dinosaurs. As they approach, a Mosasaurus circles the waters. While some critics criticize that the characters felt emotionless towards the death of a character from their crew, I argue this was still a thrilling scene.

 I was on the edge of my seat, hoping Bennet and Dr. Loomis were able to get a blood sample from the sea creature. I noticed how the scene honors and pays homage to Spielberg. While there was no blood in the water, the Mosasaurus struck some terror into me and felt similar to Jaws. It’s a rare moment in the film where I believe the danger feels immediate, physical, and almost personal.  

Another viral moment in the film came through a pee scene. Xavier Dobbs, Teresa’s boyfriend, wanders off from her family into a dark forest to use the bathroom. Suddenly, a group of Velociraptors sneaks up behind him, nearly lunging at him. The scene alone had my heart in my throat, but sadly, it was a short-lived scene that served as partly horror and comedic relief. The scene has stirred some online debate amongst the fan base for its inclusion. Some argue that including the family in the film is a waste of time, but I disagree. We wouldn’t have gotten this scene with comedic relief or the suspenseful raft scene without them.  

Though for much of the film, I found myself wanting more scenes like these. Each section of the film, with solid storytelling and suspense, only adds up to 18 minutes total out of a film that’s two hours and 13 minutes. I honestly felt like it was a waste of time and wasn’t really worth the ticket price after analyzing the film overall. I felt somewhat dissatisfied leaving the theater and questioned whether the franchise alone would even succeed with another trilogy. To be honest, I think it’s better off becoming extinct. It’s also worth mentioning that I didn’t feel too connected to these characters; they were two-dimensional characters that didn’t have a compelling character arc. For example, Martin Krebs felt like your stereotypical mustache-twirling billionaire villain who was only invested in this expedition for himself. I felt so unmatched because there weren’t any true characteristics that I could relate to. Sure, I’m not made of money, but I think showing that greed, selfishness, and giving us what he gets out of this personally, apart from money, would be a better approach.  

In contrast, the original 1993 “Jurassic Park” had memorable characters like John Hammond, Ian Malcolm, and Ellie Settler who were (and still are) iconic, rich characters in American pop culture with rich and memorable dialogue. Even when the film shifts away from the dinosaurs, you have a film with what I would argue had a legitimate premise. There was chemistry and character progression with each of them as the film proceeds, and I think “Jurassic World: Rebirth” screenwriter David Koepp missed the mark. In the 1993 film, each of the characters ends up in a different place by the end. In Rebirth, you just won’t find that within Johansson or Bailey’s characters; they are simply one-dimensional. 

Additionally, I think that plot-wise, the Delgado family shouldn’t have been in the film. They had nothing to do within the first 45 minutes of the film. As an audience member, I just can’t wrap my head around why the family would be trying to sail to Cape Town, South Africa, but choose to travel within 30 to 40 miles of a dinosaur-inhabited island that’s generally understood to be a no-fly or sail zone. 

At the beginning of the film, it’s set up so the audience believes that dinosaurs can only exist along the equator due to the environmental conditions. Though I found this contradictory, given that within the first 15 minutes of the film, a Triceratops is walking in Manhattan, New York, and the citizens don’t bat an eye at a large creature in the streets. I think my ultimate gripe was with a little dinosaur named Dolores that Delgado’s youngest daughter takes a liking to. I thought this inclusion would serve a purpose later on, but come to find out, Dolores is just a marketing device serving as the film’s equivalent of Baby Yoda from “Star Wars.” To add to the contradiction that dinosaurs can’t survive away from the island, at the end of the film, the little girls take Dolores home off the island, where she will most likely not survive. 

The opening scene was also laughable; it shows a flashback to when the top security research facility on the island was active. It was ridiculous how the facility was a level five bio-hazard area, and one of the employees, eating a chocolate bar, stupidly tossed his wrapper on the ground, only for it to get sucked into a vent. Thus causing the entire system to come crashing down over a candy bar wrapper. Now, for me, that was absolutely stupid and ridiculous. At the end of the film, I was disgusted and displeased with a different scene showing a mutated dinosaur that had some of the worst visual effects I’ve seen, and I can only describe it as CGI garbage. 

While I may not have enjoyed this installment of the franchise too much, the film did some numbers at the box office, kicking off the summer blockbuster lineup. The film garnered $92 million opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada. Over $335 million at the domestic and $844.7 million at the worldwide box office, according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

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