I don’t think this is much of a hot take, but here we go anyway: the only good Jurassic movies are the first two, the ones directed by Spielberg. I get that “Jurassic Park III,” “Jurassic World,” “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” and “Jurassic World: Dominion” have their fans and I’m sure that if you were a kid when one of those movies came out, then it was an imagination-shaping game-changer. I was 13 when “Jurassic Park” came out in 1993 and seeing that movie in the theater was the first time I can remember confronting how much transportive magic a film can have. I was Dr. Alan Grant, awestruck and stunned, looking at a dinosaur for the first time.
While “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” doesn’t quite have that same level of magic, it still feels like a masterpiece compared to the cartoonish “Jurassic Park III.” Maybe that’s the problem: I keep getting older and the “Jurassic” franchise keeps selling itself to the 13-year-olds. If I learned anything from the initial “Jurassic World” trilogy, it’s that I need characters to care about to make the dinosaur mayhem matter and, (hot take #2?) Chris Pratt has a ceiling on his abilities as a dramatic actor and is coming close to reaching that same ceiling as a comedic one. Three movies in a row of a character whose personality never breaks out of a cartoonishly smug masculinity is tiring at best.
As entertaining as some of the sequences are in that trilogy (the rampaging dinosaurs in a mansion from “Fallen Kingdom” were ridiculously stupid in a fun way), none of the movies ever captured any of the wonder or excitement that should be the bread and butter of this franchise. Even bringing back Sam Neil, Laura Dern and Goldblum wasn’t enough to keep “Jurassic World: Dominion” from being the absolute nadir of the series.
Yet somehow, I was still looking forward to “Jurassic World: Rebirth” and the franchise’s relaunch. Yes, I am a sweet summer child, but I still thought with Gareth Edwards in the director’s chair, it would at least be interesting to look at. His entire career has been built around putting fantastical creatures and robots in beautiful, real-world locations and his work with large-scale destruction in 2014’s “Godzilla” and 2016’s “Rogue One” made me think he would give a tactile breath of life to the series. Plus, David Koepp, the writer of “Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World,” was returning and a cast featuring charismatic actors with range like Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey was also a positive sign.
That might be the saddest thing about the entire “Jurassic” franchise at this point: “Rebirth” is probably the best film in the series since “The Lost World,” but that doesn’t remotely make it a good movie. It’s probably the most disappointing one I’ve seen in a while since all the ingredients are there for a quality blockbuster, but it just sits there flat onscreen, generating no tension, no excitement and certainly no wonder.
Which is actually the best idea in the entire film: the average person is annoyed and bored with dinosaurs. No one cares anymore. So InGen (the EEEEvil company playing God) has been Mad Scientist-ing Dino-DNA on an island in the Atlantic to try and create something that makes dinosaurs lucrative again. This goes poorly, people die and some time later, a mercenary (ScarJo), a paleontologist (Bailey), a skipper/badass (Ali), a pharmaceutical rep (Rupert Friend) and some redshirts all go to the island to harvest some of that sweet, sweet biomaterial.
It’s intermittently fun to watch these good actors trying to make something out of Koepp’s lazy script and Edward’s lifeless direction, but that only lasts for a few minutes. The rest of the time, I was left to ponder random plot holes, wonder how much money this would make and imagine a world where a filmmaker manages to capture just the slightest bit of magic again inherent in the original film…and that’s when it hit me.
Maybe it’s impossible to recapture that magic. Spielberg is a once-in-a-generation populist filmmaker and, just as he did with “Jaws,” Raiders” and “E.T.”, he held lightning in a bottle with “Jurassic Park.” I know it’s possible to grow up and still feel the wonder of cinema because it was there as recently as seeing “Sinners” for the first time, but maybe, just like the everyday people in the world of “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” maybe I just don’t give a shit about dinosaurs anymore.
Even if it doesn’t give me that same sense of wonder like I felt as a kid, I still think it’s possible to make an exciting dinosaur movie. Here are a few ideas:
Stop setting them on tropical islands. We’ve seen it. Let’s put Raptors in Brooklyn or Pterodactyls in Detroit.
Build interesting characters that aren’t just generic mercenaries or scientists (or terrified children).
These movies have no tension anymore. Remember the kids vs. raptors in the kitchen in “Jurassic Park” or Julianne Moore vs. gravity in “The Lost World?” Insanely intense sequences. Create situations where characters we care about are in ever-escalating danger and audiences will care, I promise!
Have a script with people speaking like human beings instead of expository machines.
Find scary ways to use the classic dinosaurs again instead of constantly inventing new ones that look hilarious. There’s a new one in “Rebirth” called the (*checks notes) ugh, Distortus Rex that looks like if a xenomorph from “Alien,” a rancor from “Star Wars” and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from “Ghostbusters” had a hydrocephalic love child. Or just stop making these movies until someone has a clear vision, original idea and a decent script.
I don’t want to be so hard on this, but “Rebirth” really defeated me. I was abnormally excited for this since I respect Gareth Edwards as a filmmaker and know he could do something original with this franchise. Instead, it smothered my inner 13-year-old in his sleep and then asked if I was having fun yet.
There can still be magic and wonder in this series because dinosaurs are awe-inspiring creatures that ignite the imaginations of kids and their parents alike. Maybe that inner 13-year-old doesn’t have to die and it just takes a strong vision of an inspired filmmaker to reignite that spark inside. We can do better than this and so can every person involved in this cynical and empty exercise in corporate synergy.
If enough of us don’t go see this movie (too late for me), maybe Hollywood will try and do better next time. Kidding, I’m not that naive. That level of optimism is the only real dinosaur I see.
This article appears in Source Weekly July 3, 2025.
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