"Jurassic World Rebirth: a Thrilling Return to the Dinosaur Franchise"

Jonathan Bailey as Dr. Henry Loomis bemoans the audience's lack of fascination with the same old prehistoric creatures in Jurassic World Rebirth. This spurs the InGen corporation to begin creating new species. This shift towards "engineered entertainment", as it comes to be known, mirrors the journey of the dinosaur clone franchise itself.

The new installment, led by Gareth Edwards, does not shy away from infusing adrenaline-fueled action, suspenseful near-encounters with colossal creatures, and characters that, despite being derived from existing templates, invigorate the series with their refreshing performances.

While the movie does seem to rehash familiar narrative themes from earlier installations, the narrative's pacing, accompanied by character development, novelty, and jumpscares, more than levies its debt to its predecessors. Rebirth adheres to the franchise’s established formula of using the awe-inspiring magnitude and primal rawness of the dinosaurs to drive the narrative and successfully reignites the franchise's dwindling creative spark.

Set in the aftermath of Jurassic World Dominion, the movie thrusts humans and dinosaurs towards precarious coexistence, while exploring the challenges posed by modern Earth's inhospitable atmosphere for the cloned creatures. It kicks off with an urgent prologue taking place in a secret InGen research facility seventeen years prior to the main storyline.

The plot gathers momentum when Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), a top-tier pharmaceutical executive, assembles a team to retrieve DNA from the three most gargantuan species residing on land, sea, and air. He believes that the DNA samples are critical to developing game-changing heart disease medication.

The movie briskly balances its action with a parallel subplot tracking a family vacation on a sloop named La Mariposa. When their trip takes an unexpected turn courtesy of a mosasaurus attack, they are rescued by Krebs' team. The characters end up shipwrecked on Isle Saint-Hubert, adding more tension to an already fraught plot.

Their ordeal punctuated with dynamic action scenes and charming character interactions filmed with Mathieson's pulsating cinematography, the two parties embark on a thrilling journey through dense vegetation and run-down facilities as they encounter prehistoric behemoths and navigate industrial product placements.

One haunting sequence involves Zora and Henry rappelling down a cliff to extract samples from a nest of low-flying reptiles, pushing mother nature too far. Meanwhile, the evolving kinship between the reluctant recruits offer plenty of humor and charm amidst the prevailing uncertainty and danger, establishing a unique dynamic between the pair.

The Jurassic franchise's pivotal star, T. Rex, features in key scenes that brilliantly blend physical locations with digital imagery and sets, elevating the movie's already high standard for visual effects. Despite a few tributes to Spielberg embedded in the film, Jurassic World Rebirth manages to stand on its own merits without overshadowing the franchise's earlier successes. In fact, it ought to be a welcome sight for devoted followers and aficionados of the Jurassic franchise.