Jurassic World Rebirth: enjoyable sequel hampered by plot holes

This is the sixth sequel to Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster "Jurassic Park", and it is "easily the most fun", said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail. It has "the same snap and bite as the original", and "grips from start to finish".

As the film opens, the world's ecology has not proved hospitable to dinosaurs, and they are now confined to a strip around the Equator. Humans are forbidden from entering this zone, but that doesn't stop sinister pharma boss Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) from plotting an illegal trip to collect samples of dinosaur blood, for use in a lucrative heart-disease drug.

Ultra-aggressive new variants

For this job, Krebs hires two crack mercenaries (Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali) and the "obligatory nerdy-yet-dishy" palaeontologist (Jonathan Bailey).

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They set off to an island where the largest prehistoric specimens now live, but of course nothing goes smoothly: some of the dinos have mutated into ultra-aggressive new variants – and before long, the "most expendable characters" (those played by the lesser-known actors) are falling victim to their terrifying claws and jaws.

'A dispiriting slog'

There's a pleasingly retro feel to the tropical island set-up, said Leigh Singer in Sight and Sound, and the dinosaurs are bigger and scarier than ever. But alas, the movie quickly descends into a poorly connected series of "CGI-heavy set pieces", further hampered by a terrible script, "paper-thin characters and plot holes so vast, a T. rex could amble through them".

It ticks a few of the "Jurassic Park" boxes, said Leaf Arbuthnot in The New Statesman: "dinosaurs, dread, Jeeps". Some of the jokes raise a laugh; and the actors do their best. But ultimately, it's a "dispiriting slog". If you're in the mood for "a 1990s blockbuster with 1990s energy", you'd do better to watch a 1990s blockbuster.