Mundo Jurássico: Renascimento

Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali have good chemistry.

Gareth Edwards proves himself very capable, and he gets the very best of what is honestly a chunky script.

The film is so disinterested that it simply throws them onscreen with occasional bits of human beings stuck between their teeth. Rather than chew on disposable characters, those dinosaurs should have eaten their agents instead.

Mr. Edwards's pacing is slow, his musical score (by the veteran Alexandre Desplat, who seems to be running out of ideas) is corny and banal, his action sequences pedestrian. At no point does anything shocking, or even interesting, happen.

A plodding, disenchanting experience that adds some more roaring dinosaurs in exchange for any memorable characters or narrative stakes. It has little reason to exist, beyond cashing in at the summer box office.

The cast and dialog crackle and pop, and the franchise is reborn in a crunchy-munchy cross between Moby-Dick and Swiss Family Robinson.

This is a big movie, but one of its best qualities is how focused and intimate it feels. An ideal summer blockbuster-style ride - a riveting and highly entertaining thrill with just enough meat on its bones to add to the evolving themes of the franchise.

Rebirth eventually tries to summon awe, but when Edwards finally 'cues the wonder', it's too little, too late.

A bit of summer fun for the Cenozoic Era.

Its stars may be a refreshing, new sight among a whole lot of primordial fare, but by casting for charm, "Jurassic World Rebirth" unintentionally questions just how much appeal this franchise has left.

Despite Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey and a genetically modified heart cure, this seventh dinosaur installment proves extinction might be overdue.

Life can stop finding a way now.

Rebirth's dinosaurs are everywhere, but the more you see, the less it means. They're good for a scare now and then, but the sense of awe is long since gone.

Seven iterations into a franchise, the spectacle means less now because we've seen it all before.

There are a lot of interesting ideas out there. Whatever is going on with "Jurassic World Rebirth" isn't one of them.

I try to judge a motion picture for what it is and not for what I want it to be, but Jurassic World: Rebirth makes that annoyingly difficult.

Even at its best moments, "Jurassic World Rebirth," opening Wednesday throughout Houston, just serves to remind viewers of what they liked about the previous films.

To its credit, Rebirth features some of the best dinosaur setpieces the rebooted World series has ever delivered. Unfortunately, it also has some of the most annoying characters and plotting in any Jurassic installment to date.

You get your summer-movie money's worth in baseline neuro-stim thrills from "Jurassic World Rebirth," and that's what counts.

The effects are uniformly effective - we believe these dinosaurs, even as we don't believe that any humans could be quite this clueless - and it all goes down perfectly nicely with popcorn, which is all you can ask of a "Jurassic" movie.