Written by Sam Clark 

Certificate: 12A

Running time: 134 minutes 

Director: Gareth Edwards 

When the ''Alien'' and ''Predator'' franchises were both running their course, they knew that if they were to do another one, a drastic change would need to be made in order to keep people interested. Both ''Prey'' and ''Alien: Romulus'' went back to the horror and survival roots of the originals, and I ended up being so blown away by what ''Alien: Romulus'' did, that I think it's better than the first film; and I am dying on that hill.

It now seems the ''Jurassic'' series has followed suit, but has sadly failed to do what they did. Gareth Edwards has taken over direction this time, an absolutely perfect and genius choice as he has a special effects and monster background. Also returning is 'Jurassic Park'' screenwriter David Koepp to write the script, so surely everything will be fine? Right?...

Image credit: IMDb / Universal Pictures

''Jurassic World: Rebirth'' begins in classic fashion; a lab experiment going terribly wrong with the creation of yet another genetic mutation. It breaks out, eats someone along the way and the lab is closed down. Fast forward years later, Earth's climate has now become too dangerous for dinosaurs to exist in. However, the last remaining species still live on the same island from the beginning as the climate is different as it is located near the equator. Scarlett Johansson stars as ''Zora Bennett'', a covert-ops specialist who along with ''Martin Krebs'' (Rupert Friend), recruits paleontologist ''Dr. Henry Loomis'' (Jonathan Bailey) for a mission to collect DNA samples from the last remaining species (air - ''Quetzalcoatlus, water - ''Mosasaurus'' and land - ''Titanosaurus''). They must also enlist the help of ex-military fisherman ''Duncan Kincaid'' to transport them there. 

I desperately wanted ''Rebirth'' to be able to do what ''Prey'' and ''Romulus'' did, but simple could not. Just because it works for others, does not mean it will be the same for you. Whilst Edwards brings his visual flair, spectacle and aesthetic to the forefront here (he's one of the few filmmakers who knows how to make things genuinely enormous on screen), there's just nothing going on underneath that we have not seen before. ''Jurassic World: Rebirth'' does play out like ''The greatest hits of Jurassic Park'' with the usual box ticking conventions: completely disposable human characters you know will only last five minutes? Check: a random family caught up in the mix? Check. ''A new era is born'' (apparently). When a film with that tagline once again proves to just end up re-hashing old ideas and conventions of before, you know you're in trouble and that it is time to tap out. 

Image credit: IMDb / Universal Pictures 

Whereas in ''Jurassic Park'' you had human characters you genuinely cared about, every film since then has just become weaker and weaker. ''Rebirth'' does improve upon the last films in this regard, but nowhere near as much as you'd like. To give some credit where credit is due, the film does attempt to take us back to those horror and survival roots with some tributes and love letter moments to '93. We have a set piece similar to the raptor kitchen scene and some claustrophobic tunnel scenes. The moment in which we first lay eyes on the ''Titanosaurus'' is almost as beautiful as it was the first time around; so at least it's heart is in the right place in some regard and it is a great monster film in general- just a shame about the rest. 

But I confess that even I was foolish enough to believe this would be a breath of fresh air and remind us why ''Jurassic Park'' is so beloved. Since I'm such a huge fan of Gareth Edwards, I am disappointed but he's not solely to blame. If this does prove a success financially, you know what that means. Yes, I am going to say it. In the wise words of ''Ian Malcolm'': ''Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should''. 

In cinemas now