In my last review, I mentioned getting two movies from the public library. The second was Jurassic World: Rebirth. I almost want to say “reboot” because we get a whole new cast of characters, most notably Scarlett Johansson playing the mercenary Zora Bennett.

The film takes place a few years after events in Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) starring another Marvel movie alum Chris Pratt as Owen Grady. Dinosaurs are now sharing the planet with all the other 21st century life forms including humans. However, due to changes in oxygen, temperature, and so on, most dinos are living in areas somewhere near the equator. That’s a convenient way to limit their exposure to people, but it was previously established that at least some dinosaurs can live in colder climates.

Well, this is entertainment.

Spoiler Alert! If you haven’t seen the film and want to be surprised, read no further. You have been warned.

The movie starts in 2008 in a dinosaur genetics lab on Île Saint-Hubert. In previous films, we’ve already seen that audiences got bored seeing the “same old dinosaurs,” so the big money people demanded that the scientists create ever more exciting (and more dangerous) hybrids. The lab has a stupid accident, dropping containment and all hell breaks loose.

Cut to present day New York where evil Big Pharma guy Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) hires Bennett with lots and lots of money to go to Ile Saint-Hubert in hunt of three specific dinos, the biggest and longest living of the lot. The idea is to take blood and tissue samples (later, they just take blood) from them to develop a drug that will all but eliminate cardiac disease. Bennett suffered the recent loss of a co-worker and is hesitant but the money makes it right.

They also hire paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) who has never seen a dino in the wild to point out and identify the creatures they need. So off to Suriname they go to hire a boat and crew.

That includes an old associate of Bennett’s Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) and weapon’s guy Bobby Atwater (the ever fun to watch Ed Skrein who played the bad guy in the 2016 film Deadpool) among others.

Meanwhile, on a sailboat, near where our “heroes” will be traveling, Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his two daughters Teresa (Luna Blaise) and Isabella (Audrina Miranda) and Teresa’s low-life boyfriend Xavier Dobbs (David Iacono) are taking one last cruise together for the summer as a family bonding thing. Xavier is along just to be Teresa’s lay (why Dad would put up with this is unknown) and is too lazy and stoned to be of much help at first (he later redeems himself by saving Teresa from drowning).

While Bennett and team are on the way to the island, they’re looking for an aquatic Mosasaurus which is the first dino they need to sample. Unfortunately the Mosasaurus finds the Delgado boat first and capsizes it.

Fortunately, they have an emergency radio and more fortunately, Kincaid’s boat picks up the signal. Over Krebs’ objections (what they’re doing is already illegal so they shouldn’t be there), they go to rescue the hapless family plus lay.

Now our motley crew…um, cast is assembled.

While successfully collecting the Mosasaurus blood in a very exciting scene, they are attacked by that plus a group of Spinosaurus. The family is separated in the water from everyone else and it should be noted, when Teresa tried to use the radio for help, Krebs not only stopped her, but when she was falling overboard, he didn’t even try to help. Yes, he’s the bad guy.

I was unhappy that Atwater died early. I was hoping for some of his sinister personality to spice things up. It was like he was hired just to die. What a waste.

Oh, other crew members die ultimately leaving just the family plus lay, Bennett, Krebs, Kincaid, and Loomis alive to complete the adventure. After the boat runs aground on the island, they have to head (in two separate parties) toward the former human-habitat to find safety and maybe a working radio.

They have tons of wonderous and terrifying encounters with the island’s dinosaur inhabitants on their way to the main lab where Bennett’s Plan B says a helicopter will hover over the complex at sunset a few days hence for exactly two minutes hoping to spot them.

I won’t go through the film scene-by-scene, but I will say that although the movie is reasonably well constructed, exciting, and all, it’s also pretty predictable. Our bad guy, after collecting all three required samples, has produced a gun and seems to be on the edge of leaving everyone behind when the helicopter arrives. He is, most justly, killed by a big, big mutant dino leaving the case of samples intact.

After must anguish, screaming, and blood, the rest of the party makes it to the dock where there’s a boat still working allowing them to escape. I guess Mosasaurus and company are no longer a problem for some reason.

During the film, Loomis convinces Bennett to open-source the cure based on the dino blood so it is cheaply available to everyone, not just folks with money and/or good insurance. The Pharma company probably can’t sue without revealing their involvement in illegal activities, but then how will Loomis and Bennett find anyone to make the cure for similar reasons. Also, if the cure involved a proprietary process created by Big Pharma to which they have no access, how will they know how to make it?

Like I said, it’s entertainment. It doesn’t have to be logical.

I noticed that when Johansson played the Black Widow in the MCU films, the “male gaze” photography tended to focus mainly on her ass. In this film, dressed in either tight tank tops or tight t-shirts, the cameras tended to favor her boobs.

And so it goes.

It’s entertaining and a fun way to kill a couple of hours, but by and large nothing we haven’t seen in a bunch of other “Jurassic” movies over the years.