Contains spoilers for “Jurassic World Rebirth”

The era of Ian Malcolm and Claire Dearing has concluded with “Jurassic World Rebirth.” In this seventh entry of the “Jurassic Park” series, directed by “Rogue One” filmmaker Gareth Edwards, a new team takes the spotlight. Mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), together with her long-time ally Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) and newcomer scientist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), are engaged by a pharmaceutical firm. Their mission is to journey to an island teeming with dinosaurs to collect blood from three colossal prehistoric creatures, aiming to develop a novel treatment for heart disease.

Predictably, this “straightforward” task on Ile Saint-Hubert spirals into chaos, among the breakdowns being any plausibility in the “Rebirth” script. This film is marked by a glaring lack of coherent storytelling, starkly contrasting the clever narrative of “Jurassic Park” with its mix of bewildering absurdities.

In “Rebirth,” some of the most nonsensical elements appear as odd references (or complete omissions) related to significant sites from earlier “Jurassic Park” sequels. The script further stumbles with poorly developed characters, their awkward story arcs, and erratic interactions with others. While no one expects a “Jurassic World” movie to strictly adhere to reality, the film’s most preposterous points severely undermine any dramatic engagement with its characters or suspense in the dinosaur-focused scenes. Just as “life finds a way,” silly aspects continually manage to infiltrate every part of “Rebirth.”

Starting with “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” and continuing in “Jurassic Park III,” it appeared that Isla Sorna, InGen’s “Site B” for preparing dinosaurs before bringing them to Isla Nublar, would be the default setting for “Jurassic Park” sequels. However, once 2015’s “Jurassic World” returned to Isla Nublar to depict a fully functioning dinosaur theme park, Isla Sorna has largely vanished from “Jurassic Park” exploits, save for a mention in “Jurassic World Dominion” that certain Isla Sorna dinosaurs had been taken to BioSyn’s headquarters. 

The exclusion of Isla Sorna becomes even more of a head-scratcher, though, with the events of “Jurassic World Rebirth.” Going to a third, previously unseen island to retrieve DNA from prehistoric critters is already strange when these characters could head to the pre-established domain of Isla Sorna for the same purpose. Similarly, why wouldn’t dinosaurs, looking to evade the modern world’s harsh climate, head over to Isla Sorna, a place where dinos previously thrived for eons? With Isla Nublar reduced to rubble in “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” it feels like Isla Sorna would be more precious than ever to the dinosaur hunters of “Rebirth.” Instead, this initial fixture of “Jurassic Park” sequels once again goes unmentioned in one of the franchise’s modern installments. 

“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” ended on a very enticing tease of where this franchise could go next. Once dinosaurs were unleashed from the Lockwood mansion into America, the entire “Jurassic Park” status quo changed. These beasts were no longer confined to two islands that humans had to actively travel to. Instead, dinosaurs were everywhere, including the beach, zoos, and campgrounds. 

Unfortunately, the entertainment potential ingrained into this development never materialized. “Jurassic World Dominion” failed to really capitalize on this notion, save for a set piece set in Italy. “Jurassic World Rebirth,” meanwhile, goes ever further in trying to backpedal from this development. As on-screen text explains to viewers right from the start, dinosaurs are dying out around the world due to their inability to adapt to Earth’s modern climate.

That already feels like a shoddy excuse for hand-waving away dinosaurs being ubiquitous in everyday society. After all, these prehistoric beasts had no problem surviving in the modern world during the four years between “Fallen Kingdom” and “Dominion.” Three years between the latter film and “Rebirth,” though, is all it takes for dinosaurs to go scampering back to a select few locales near the equator. The move reeks of a cost-cutting measure to avoid having to spring for expensive sets and sequences reflecting a global society forever upended by co-existing with dinosaurs, closing the coffin lid on the most exciting tease in “Fallen Kingdom.”

Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is not an experienced mercenary nor a brilliant scientist in “Jurassic World Rebirth.” Instead, he’s just an ordinary father of two daughters who accidentally finds himself attacked in dinosaur-infested waters while out boating. Once he and his family get plucked up by Zora Bennett and her crew, he’s explicitly framed as a very mundane human trapped in unthinkable, massive circumstances. 

A pivotal illustration of this is the severe foot injury he suffers during one of the movie’s earliest set pieces. This pain is so bad that Reuben initially walks on the Ile Saint-Hubert island with a makeshift cane, is visibly limping and needs help getting down from heights. Heck, the entire set piece involving a T-Rex chase in a river occurs because rafting to their destination will be much easier for Reuben and company given his injury.

Once the third act rolls around, however, that leg problem vanishes. Reuben’s wounded appendage is all good and never provides further trouble, even as everybody races to outrun flying beasts or the relentless D-Rex. It’s an extremely puzzling development, given how much David Koepp’s script keeps emphasizing this problem before the finale. Suddenly dropping it is more distracting than using Reuben’s injury to keep providing obstacles in the story’s homestretch. Erasing this plot point also diminishes Reuben’s everyman aspect in the end, with an already flatly written character losing any flickering embers of personality through this awkward decision.

Ile Saint-Hubert once housed an InGen research facility where scientists went wild concocting new, bizarre dinosaurs as must-see Jurassic World attractions, which is how the climactic villain, the D-Rex, came to be. That concept suggests that “Jurassic World Rebirth” is full of oddball dinosaurs and creative designs you won’t see anywhere else. The Mutadons, an offshoot of the pterosaur, certainly live up to that potential by blending raptors and flying beasts into one terrifying creature. 

Otherwise, however, the island is full of familiar “Jurassic Park” dinosaurs wrapped up in new color schemes. The Compsognathus, for instance, is back but now has bright blue and red coloring. A mid-movie T-Rex, meanwhile, has a browner color palette, while the briefly seen Dilophosaurus doesn’t appear to have any significantly new color flourishes at all.

Intentional or not, this suggests a reluctance to go too far into weirdo dinosaur territory lest the franchise not immediately remind people visually of past movies. The designs must evoke memories of “Jurassic Park” or “The Lost World” (among other installments) as much as possible, creating a jagged, distracting inconsistency between the looks of the various “Rebirth” beasts. While some look like aliens from outer space, others just look like they were copied and pasted from the visual effects files of “Jurassic World.” This leaves tons of potential on the table, while also making it difficult to buy that Ile Saint-Hubert works as a functioning dinosaur ecosystem.

From the moment the cast of “Jurassic World Rebirth” reaches Ile Saint-Hubert, Zora Bennett is justifiably suspicious of the expedition’s wealthy benefactor, Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend). Just one scene earlier, Teresa (Luna Blaise) claims truthfully that Krebs did absolutely nothing to save her from a Spinosaurus attack, lest she alert the authorities about the existence of this illegal mission. Zora grills Krebs about his moral leanings and starts keeping a close eye on this shady fellow. 

But it doesn’t take long for Zora to fall down on the job. In a movie chock-full of ludicrous plot details, this detail is especially infuriating and dumb. Just after Zora vows to keep Krebs locked in her sight, the whole rest of the group wanders away so Krebs can encounter a downed helicopter. He then spends several minutes using a stick to retrieve a gun that he can use on the film’s heroes in the third act.

It’s already a stretch to suggest that the trigger-happy mercenary Zora would let Krebs out of her supervision for even a minute if she thought he was up to no good. The fact that his departure is noticeably prolonged in this case (as he tries to single-handedly get into a helicopter and procure a weapon) makes it even more bizarre that nobody is suspicious about his extended absence.

Speaking of Teresa, the character’s introduction in “Jurassic World Rebirth” finds she and her father Reuben not on ideal terms. Reuben’s not happy that Teresa has brought her himbo boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono) on their sailing expedition. He tries broaching this topic with Teresa, noting that he wanted to spend quality time with his oldes daughter before she leaves the family. Teresa responds by reminding her dad that she’s simply going to New York University in the fall, not dying. 

An impending change in the family’s dynamic (on the heels of what’s implied to be Reuben’s divorce from his daughters’ mom) is inspiring serious strife between father and daughter, and surviving on a dinosaur-infested island could be a perfect opportunity to create some bonding time between them. However, this subplot is quickly abandoned almost as soon as Reuben’s boat sinks.

Once Reuben’s family meets up with Zora Bennett and the other mercenaries, Teresa’s primary role is to be adversarial with Martin Klebs. Reuben, meanwhile, has all his character growth tied into learning to value and appreciate Xavier. Father and daughter don’t even get much screentime or dialogue together, a potential consequence of just how many characters David Koepp’s script juggles once the action reaches Ile Saint-Hubert. Still, it’s strange that a profound emphasis is placed on Reuben and Teresa’s distant rapport only for that detail to vanish once dinosaurs fill up the screen.

In a quiet scene midway through “Rebirth,” Duncan Kincaid begins probing Dr. Henry Loomis on his background and especially where his love of dinosaurs came from. Loomis proceeds to explain his various career and academic accomplishments, including the fact that he previously studied under “Jurassic Park” protagonist Dr. Alan Grant, amplifying how much passion Loomis had for everything related to dinosaurs. 

While this moment connects “Rebirth” to its predecessors, it also inspires confusing questions regarding Grant’s notoriety within this fictional universe. The way Loomis says Grant’s name makes him sound like a rock star. However, in previous “Jurassic Park” media, Grant’s mostly just been an ordinary soul without much of a fanbase. In “Jurassic Park III,” people attend one of his ramshackle public speaking appearances just to ask him questions about the events of “Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World” rather than out of any direct interest in him. “Jurassic World Dominion,” meanwhile, doesn’t signify that Grant is a household name in any way. 

The treatment of Grant’s name by Loomis, then, is totally incongruous to “Jurassic Park” continuity. The obvious answer for why Loomis even brings Grant up is that it’s meant to inspire excited murmurs from moviegoers. However, that just makes this shout-out to the past all the more frustrating. The dialogue in “Rebirth” is manufactured to create buzzworthy audience responses rather than a believable standalone world.

Not all dinosaurs are man-eaters chasing people down narrow hallways. Take Dolores, for example, the baby Triceratops that Reuben’s youngest daughter, Isabella (Audrina Miranda), adopts. This excuse to make untold amounts of cuddly toys is undeniably adorable, especially since the critter’s ragged mannerisms often evoke a pug or a feral youngster rather than something too cloyingly cute. 

However, one problem with Dolores is that she has an apparent superpower to teleport to wherever the plot needs her to go. Just before Reuben and his family try evading a T-Rex on a river raft, Isabella, realizing how dangerous the impending situation will be, lets Dolores go. However, when some Mutadons trap these same characters inside a convenience store, Dolores is suddenly back, much to Isabella’s joy.

The return of Dolores isn’t even a grand event accompanied by triumphant music or a cathartic action beat in which the baby dino takes down a larger foe. Instead, the camera just awkwardly cuts to a medium shot of Dolores, indicating she’s reunited with her adopted owner. How on Earth a baby dinosaur with unmistakably tiny legs traversed so much of the island in a short time staggers the mind. It’s a distractingly convenient moment that doesn’t add much to the climax beyond giving Isabella something to clutch when she gets especially frightened. Maybe there’s something in InGen’s history with genetic mutations and tampering that gives Dolores a bizarre ability to appear wherever “Jurassic World Rebirth” needs her to be.

Supporting character Leclerc (Bechir Sylvain) meets his inevitable end during the final dinosaur blood retrieval mission, which concerns taking Quetzalcoatlus DNA from an egg. The mother of those unborn flying dinosaurs ends up gobbling Leclerc shortly after this mercenary engages in one of the movie’s most inexplicable actions. While Zora and Dr. Loomis are extracting blood from an egg hidden inside a cave, Leclerc is dangling outside and admiring the gaping canyon around him when he starts using one of his tools to randomly bang on rocks, making an initially loud noise that echoes seemingly forever. 

An amused Leclerc, flashing a delighted grin, proceeds to keep smashing these rocks while engaging in a mission that requires stealth and avoiding the attention of ferocious, fully-grown dinosaurs. But predictably, a gargantuan Quetzalcoatlus returns to her nest thanks to those noises, putting Zora and Dr. Loomis in danger.  As these characters try to scale back up a mountainside to evade certain death, one can’t forget that this all happens because of Leclerc’s random, silly behavior. 

This lapse in intelligence doesn’t make sense for the character, nor is it an interesting way to inadvertently generate tension. Not only does Leclerc’s behavior look dumb on-screen, it comes off as a strained way to lead into a set piece involving humans contending with a Quetzalcoatlus. No wonder Leclerc and his fixation on echoes ends up in this beast’s belly.

The previous “Jurassic World” mutant dinosaur designs weren’t exactly brimming with imagination, but one or two of them made some semblance of sense in-universe for their respective purposes. The Indominus Rex, a Velociraptor and T-Rex combination, merged two popular dinosaurs into something Jurassic World theme park patrons would flock to see. The Indoraptor in “Fallen Kingdom,” meanwhile, was the kind of ideal lethal killing machine that you’d want to try selling to black market dealers and military-industrial complex leaders. 

The D-Rex in “Jurassic World Rebirth,” however, is flabbergasting in terms of what it was ever designed to do. Why would potential Jurassic World visitors want to see something this repellent-looking and not immediately identifiable as one of their favorite dinosaurs? The D-Rex only works as a big foe for a blockbuster movie’s third act action sequences rather than as a conceivable theme park attraction gone haywire.

Those logical lapses would be incredibly easy to forgive if the D-Rex’s design were at all pleasing to the eye. Instead, this formidable critter has a drab color palette and a design way too derivative of other, more famous movie monsters. Providing this Indominus Rex successor with human-like arms (complete with elbows) is also a big mistake: they just don’t look right in any capacity. Given how unappealing the D-Rex’s appearance is, questions about what on Earth InGen ever planned to do with this bloated beast become especially unavoidable. 

As the D-Rex descends on the principal characters in the climactic moments of “Jurassic World Rebirth,” Duncan Kincaid makes a bold decision. While everyone else heads for a life raft that’ll take them off the island, Duncan distracts the D-Rex with a distress flare. This scene is meant to pay off Duncan’s long-running sorrow over losing his son, an event he clearly feels some level of responsibility for, by helping to save the lives of two children (plus Zora, Reuben, and Dr. Loomis). 

Much to Zora’s dismay, Duncan lures the D-Rex away from the raft and towards a small, closed-off enclave offering him no escape. Audiences watch Duncan right up until the moment that the D-Rex presumably pounces on the guy, before returning to the other characters who are now out at sea. From a distance, Zora sees the flare light go out, which makes it official: Duncan Kincaid is dead.

Except he actually isn’t. Just 30 seconds later, the survivors spot Duncan, with nary a scratch on his body, waving another flare out in the water in a bizarre and awkwardly executed development. Given how much energy and time are spent establishing that this is the end for Duncan, why backtrack on it suddenly? Furthermore, how on Earth does Duncan survive the D-Rex? There’s no escape route for him; audiences practically see the beast begin to chow down on him. Duncan’s inexplicable resurrection sends viewers home on an extremely ridiculous note.