Was Jurassic World: Rebirth supposed to relaunch the franchise? Was it a reboot? A refresh? A restart? A continuation?

Or, was it a plot to tear down, literally, all the magic, wonder and terror of the original movies – because THAT is what it succeeded in doing.

We have spent decades in awe at the dinosaurs that were invented for the original movie, with effects that still stand up to today’s pixel peepers. We enjoy the plot, the action, the suspense, the terrified children, the heroes and the lessons learned. It will never be duplicated.

Over the years, the scripts got weaker, the children more stupid or invulnerable, or both. The timeline seemed to skip ahead, to a time in the future where we drove giant hamster balls across fields amongst the tamed dinos.

Then, they escaped! And the dinosaurs threatened to rule the world again. Would we live together in peace, coexisting with the giant brontosaurs eating away at our trees in the backyard, and occasionally needing to head to the shelter to pick out a new dog, because that darn Tyrannosaurus Rex next door ate Doggo Rex again. Gosh!

When we last left our dinosaur adventure, with the original gang meeting up with the new gang, we thought dinos would be everywhere. Right? Isn’t that what happened? And what year is it, 2040?

Now, with JW:R, we see dinosaurs, the lumbering brontosaurs literally dying in the streets – the dinosaurs can’t live in our climate. Oh no. Is this a message about climate change? Not really, it’s just a weak plot device. A museum filled with dino bones and Jurassic Park themed decorations is being shut down, due to lack of interest, the Jurassic Park banner of our memories literally falling to the floor.

Plot is manufactured, our “heroes” just have to collect DNA samples from 3 of the biggest remaining dinosaurs on the planet – to help cure heart disease? Someone hires Black Widow from the Marvel Universe to be the leader of this expedition to … where…. why, there’s an island, another research facility from the original days, where, oh gee, they were experimenting with creating mutants… mutant dinosaurs. Wait, from the original movie, or from Jurassic World, where they were experimenting… creating mutant dinosaurs. Recycle much?

Apparently, on this island, was housed another mini-town with labs. There’s a gas station in this town, with a mini-mart. Don’t ask. It doesn’t make any sense. This mini-mart has a toy section. Why?

Meanwhile, as this group of DNA hunters crosses the ocean to get to this island that everyone has conveniently forgotten, there is a family traveling on their sailboat. The father, who suspiciously looks like Pedro Pascal, just enough that it fools your brain that is only paying half-attention after the first 15 minutes. There’s a young daughter who will be put into dangerous situations, only to discover her amazing talent for adopting a baby dino and being invulnerable. There’s the older daughter, who is running off to college when they get home. And then there’s the boyfriend, the half-naked boyfriend who seems stoned most of the time. And where does he sleep? Apparently, they all take turns at the wheel, steering the boat across the ocean, taking turns so that the daughter can’t sleep with the boyfriend…. ?

Doesn’t matter, plot happens and they get wrecked by water-dino.

They get rescued by the DNA rangers and together they all go to the mysterious island.

And THAT ship gets wrecked. There are a few PG-rated deaths, not even PG-13 levels of gore, the waves pull a bunch of blood INTO the ocean, when actually, the blood should be coming FROM the ocean, where the victim was, but let’s not let physics ruin a meh death scene.

I know, they declare, we’ll find the abandoned village and get rescued by the helicopter. Helicopter? Yes, the helicopter we scheduled to show up 36 hours after our shipwreck. Never mind how we knew we’d be shipwrecked, or how the helicopter knows where the village is… and how a chopper got allllll the way across the ocean…. oh, as established in the original movie – the islands are not that far away from civilization, so don’t think too much.

But first, we’re going to drag this family along with us  as we collect the DNA samples. Physics be damned, against the largest green screens they could find, the DNA samples are collected, giant dinos snap and roar, but can’t catch Pedro and his sprained ankle, his small daughter or the stoned college boy and his girlfriend. This is why dinosaurs aren’t around anymore, it wasn’t a meteor after all, they were just slow and stupid.

Unfortunately, this movie plays like a low-budget rip-off from the folks at The Asylum, known for producing pure crap with names similar to movies that are popular or just about to be released. Avengers? How ‘bout Revengers! That has to be real – but I’m not wasting my time looking it up. The effects are poor, with the entire franchise suffering from Superman : The Quest For Peace effects syndrome. Maybe it was the theatre’s projector, but if you’ve ever seen a movie filled with CGI FX playing on basic cable, and something is off, the effects stand out from the rest of the scene, like one was placed over the other, and don’t exist together – that’s this movie. 

Instead of joy, adults will feel sorrow as the notes from the Jurassic Park theme play throughout, but not in an adventurous WOW kind of way, but in a “The Girl from Ipanema” elevator music kind of way, hollow, no heart. Like The Asylum bought the CD from the first movie and just played it over these scenes.

We don’t feel any sympathy for characters that die. We do feel sympathy for the dying brontosaurus on the city street, but also relief when we realize that dino-actor got his check and took off, spared from tromping around in the rest of this flick.

The new mutant-dinos are ugly, no ferocious charm, no sinister smile. They imitate the roars of much more talented dinos from previous movies, yes, striking that classic dino-pose, but it’s all fake.

Scarlett Johansen puts in her time to collect her dino-sized check, as she plays the “Casper Van Dien,” the “big name” of this Asylum production, because every Asylum movie has to have a big name, big from years gone by. And maybe they thought it would be cool to have her and Mahershala Ali, the new “Blade” from the Marvel Universe together… except New Blade never happened.

The movie ends, without threads to pull for another movie. Thankfully. Unless, oh no, the little girl smuggled her baby dino friend back to the states and it grows and spawns! Because that little dino played literally no role at the end of the movie – even the obvious scene where the baby dino could have went for the candy thrown by the girl, landed on the control panel, stepping on the door control, opening it to save the group. That’s a cute moment, worthy of a stuffed toy. A stuffed Dino-toy named “Delores.” Nope – didn’t happen. The critter spent much of his time hiding in the backpack.

Poor quality and sad, even the appearance of a Nickelodeon game show set can’t bring spark to this awful movie. Yes, that cave with the carvings they stumble across, it looks like Legends of the Hidden Temple, from 1993. In there, they fight a giant version of Pterri, the pterodactyl from PeeWee’s Playhouse.

It’s time for this franchise to extinct itself.