To date, there have been six Jurassic Park sequels. None have lived up to Steven Spielberg’s colossal ’90s classic, but while two entries have gestured toward novelty — J.A. Bayona’s haunted house romp Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Spielberg’s San Diego-set creature feature The Lost World — Gareth Edwards’ Jurassic World: Rebirth can’t be counted among them. You’ve seen most of it before, and despite the star power involved, it’s too visually flat, too narratively scattered, and far too thematically slight to make an impact.
A reboot of a reboot penned by David Koepp (the original movie’s screenwriter), Jurassic World: Rebirth is practically a post-postmodern reflection on rote sequel-itus whether or not it means to be, since it follows an existing dinosaur formula to a T. Not the formula for a good Jurassic Park movie, mind you, but rather the formula for a factory-produced follow-up that makes lofty promises with its setting — like Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Dominion — but delivers a Temu version of Spielberg’s original.
