17/07/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Since its release in 1993, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park has suffered from a bad case of recurring sequelitus – Jurassic Park Parts 2 and 3, Jurassic World and its three increasingly dodgily-titled offspring, not to mention knockoff fodder like Jurassic Shark and Jurassic Whoops I Can’t Think What to Call This. (Okay, so I made the last one up, but you get the idea.)

When this latest instalment was announced, I was initially reluctant to go and see it but, as soon as I heard that it was to be helmed by Gareth Edwards, my interest was piqued. Edwards’ 2023 sci-fi movie The Creator was one of our choices for the best films of that year – a completely original concept and, moreover, a film that looked like it cost millions of dollars more than it actually did. Perhaps inevitably, it fared badly at the box office. This may explain why Edwards decided to throw his hat into the ring for the latest Jurassic spin-off, authored by the franchise’s original writer, David Koepp. Well, it’s sure to have a good storyline, right?

It’s thirty-odd years after the events of the first film and, it seems, dinosaurs have fallen out of favour with the general public. Stegosaurs? Been there, done that. Consequently, dinosaur theme parks are now closing around the world because everyone’s bored with watching tyrannosaurs and allosaurs. Now these mighty critters only exist in remote tropical jungles on the equator, where people are warned never to venture. But shady entrepreneur Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) still thinks there’s potential gold in them there beasts. He has devised a plan to extract blood from three different types of dinosaur in order to produce a serum that will dramatically reduce the rates of heart disease around the world… yes, really. And the problem is the serum must be extracted while the creatures are still alive. Er… right. As you might guess from his malignant name, Krebs is not just doing this because he’s a nice guy, but because he’s expecting to make big bucks from the pharmaceutical industry.

He recruits special operative Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to head up the operation, ably assisted by her former military chum, Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali). Also in the team is dinosaur expert, Dr Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) – well, you have to have somebody who knows a bit about dinosaurs, don’t you? And there’s a bunch of assistants, who may as well have numbers on their foreheads designating the order in which they will be turned into dino-dinner. The motley crew set sail for a remote island that’s home to the three species they’re looking for.

On the way there, they rescue a party of four Mexican holidaymakers, out for an ill-advised leisure cruise through reptile-infested waters, their reasoning being that, well, there’s hardly any amphibious dinos left, so what are the chances of being attacked? One of the crew is a cute little girl called Isabella (Audrina Miranda) because, of course, there has to be a wide-eyed youngster for the audience to care about.

To give Edwards his due, there are three genuinely exciting set pieces here that actually have me on the edge of my seat as they unfold – for some reason, the water-bound sections are particularly effective. Once again, Edwards manages to bring in the film on a much lower budget than its predecessors, though it’s still in the region of 180 million dollars, which is nobody’s idea of cheap and cheerful.

But the two main problems here are: A – that eyebrow-raising storyline, which seems to revel in making itself increasingly unbelievable as it goes along; and B – the fact that the human characters feel under-developed, somehow less convincing than the CGI beasts that surround them. It’s ironic to see high-calibre actors like Johansson and Ali desperately trying to emote in the midst of all the giant lizard action, but no doubt they were handsomely paid for their efforts, so good luck to them. There are several inevitable visual references to the original film (viewers may as well be issued with a list to tick off). I prefer the delightful little tribute to stop-motion wizard Ray Harryhausen, with a brief clip from The Valley of Gwangi showing on a random TV screen.

If everything were been up to the standard of those mighty set pieces, I’d be much happier with the film, but what do I know? Based upon it’s opening week, it looks as though this is going to make a handsome profit, so inevitably, there are sure to be more titles to follow.

Jurassic World Afterbirth? Hmm. Maybe not.

3. 4 stars

Philip Caveney