.

I can see I was being naive but I kind of thought this thirty two year old film series was extinct. I mean, I thought it might have been resurrected in a decade or so but the last movie, which was the sixth instalment, seemed to close things off pretty conclusively by bringing the cast from the original trilogy together with those from the new one for one last adventure. Here we are though with Jurassic World: Rebirth, a title that seems to acknowledge my assumptions (the word rebirth has nothing to do with anything in the plot) but picks everything up again just three years later. No, Jurassic Park (I’m an OG fan, I’ve never really adopted the ‘World’ titling) is not extinct and let’s be honest, neither has it evolved. We are still following a group of people who inexplicably find themselves surrounded by dinosaurs and either stare at them in wonder or more often run away from them to hide under something that will get smashed or chomped as they cower and scream underneath it. They are new people here and they are new dinosaurs but it looks like we are starting a whole new run of films (the huge box office would certainly suggest so) here rather than moving on to something new. 

Sure, the previous movie Jurassic World: Dominion was not great so least we haven’t finished on a dud but I’m tired of Hollywood continually falling back on established IP. It would be nice to see the US mainstream industry shake things up a bit and commit to investing in original work. 

This said, I really enjoyed it. Yes, I know that makes me part of the problem but this is a very entertaining movie. 

Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m henceforth ignoring the fact that this is another Jurassic Park film. Sure it references a lot of the established elements and the story broadly continues from the events of John Hammond’s doomed little tourist attraction. I choose to take it on its own merits though, away from the legacy of what has come before and without the burden of mainstream American cinema’s current reputation for stringing out established properties rather than supporting new projects. It is fundamentally just a group on a mission in amongst dinosaurs, it could be made without the logo and the history attached. In fact, why is none one else doing this? Is there some kind of monopolising union where every dinosaur movie has to be made under this banner? We get lots of different movies from lots of different filmmakers on vampires, zombies, spies, robots and Superman, so let’s just imagine that this is the same. Let’s think of this not as Jurassic World: Rebirth but as an original independent film called something like Mesozoic Island or maybe How to Reframe Your Dragon (nope, not that second one).

So yes, this does feel referential to Steven Spielberg’s excellent 1993 movie Jurassic Park, it even shares that film’s screenwriter David Koepp (which is why if it was another Jurassic Park sequel it would be the best one) but it also takes us on a thrilling ride all of its own. As it is, Mesozoic Island also riffs on another Spielberg film because there is a lot of the grammar of Jaws being used here. Before they even get to the titular island they are attacked in the water and it is managed well, with good action and character moments coming together effectively. Once on land there are various other encounters with monsters as you would imagine and each is done well. The best involves a T-Rex, not totally unlike the one from Jurassic Park, in an episode that is actually lifted from the pages of Michael Crichton’s original book so there’s another like to that other franchise. There’s a repeated beat with dinosaurs coming over ridges or out of the smoke to reveal something that works nicely too but it’s good they only did it twice. The whole thing is slightly less than the sum of its parts but it is solidly entertaining. The humans are engaging too. Not all of the ones you want to get eaten do but they have to leave some intact for the sequel. There’s actually one group they they are going to have to work some narrative trickery to get back as it didn’t really make sense that they were caught up in this one in the first place but they always managed that in the Jurassic Park films so I’m sure they’ll do it here too.

Much of the success of this movie is down to director Gareth Edwards. The film is not as good as his last movie The Creator but a lot of the framing and vistas are reminiscent of that and the ability to balance the action and the story that he is known for is here. Edwards has had issues working with big studio franchises in the past so little wonder that he has signed up to do this new movie rather than jumping aboard some huge blockbuster series. Either way, his sensibilities come through, as to be fair they did in Star Wars: Rouge One despite Lucasfilm’s control. He is always a filmmaker to watch. His 2010 film Monsters genuinely was a small indie movie and it remains the best of this type of thing.

So yay, dinosaurs live on. Let’s be honest this is not the time of the year for new ideas at the cinema (even F1 is a spiritual sequel to Days of Thunder) and this film is fun.