Luna Blaise as Teresa Delgado and the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex in a scene from "Jurassic World Rebirth." (Photo courtesy of Universal Studios)
The dog days of summer are here, and in time-honored tradition, lackluster sequels and vapid star vehicles sprout like weeds. These plus-sized time wasters pop up like pimples on a pockmarked teenager's cheeks, polluting the screen with earache-inducing dialogue and gratuitous product placement. They feature full constellations of stars, from the hottest “it” people in Tinseltown to established vets with at least one Oscar win under their belt.
Don't take the bait. In the immortal words of Admiral Ackbar, it's a trap. Pits of oblivion (or should I say Pitts?) aimed at depriving you of your precious leisure time and hard-earned dollars.
My warnings are bound to fall on deaf ears when it comes to an underachieving duo currently making a killing at the box office. One is a legacy sequel of a popular franchise well past its due date, and the other sees an A-lister with multi-generational appeal grappling with a legacy in noisy, mind-numbing ways. I'll try to keep these warranted thrashings relatively brief. So the toxicity doesn't rub off.
Mahershala Ali as Duncan Kincaid in a scene from "Jurassic World Rebirth." (Photo courtesy of Universal Studios)
“Jurassic World Oblivion”: Dinosaur movies ought to be filled with wonder and dread, thrill rides engineered to quicken the pulse and invite you to look up at the screen in awe. Steven Spielberg achieved this feat 32 summers ago with “Jurassic Park,” a full-throttle rendering of Michael Crichton's best-selling novel about scientists playing God and the deadly ripple effects of their ill-advised experiments.
“Jurassic Park” remains satisfying popcorn fare, as far as these big-budget creature features go, but its follow-up, 1997's “The Lost World,” saw Uncle Steven on autopilot, more content with staging a couple of setpieces from the original novel than adapting Crichton's own follow-up novel. It was also darker and more mean-spirited, a strategy that could have worked if the results weren't so damn impersonal. That should have been it for this franchise.
Fast forward to July of 2025, and we're saddled with the seventh film in the series, the first entry in the wake of two trilogies that saw diminishing returns. The first and third entries in the “Jurassic World” films are pretty lousy, though I disliked the middle entry, 2018's “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” less than most.
The ads for “Rebirth” tout a return to basics and the return of “Jurassic Park” screenwriter David Koepp, in addition to reports that Spielberg was more closely involved in the development of this film than in the previous “Jurassic World” sequels. The marketing also highlights fresh new blood, in the form of an attractive, new-to-the-franchise cast and director Gareth Edwards, who knows his big-screen spectacle but, to these eyes, has yet to deliver on the promise of his feature debut, the modestly budgeted extraterrestrial encounter yarn “Monsters,” released in 2010.
And it's all for naught. “Rebirth” regurgitates what has been regurgitated before, a gargle of Listerine that rots the teeth and gives your breath the aroma of a Taco Bell bag. The story, a Xerox of a Xerox, sends covert ops experts Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), alongside paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and Big Pharma rep Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), to Ile Saint-Hubert, an island on the Atlantic Ocean, situated near the Equator.
Nearly two decades ago, genetic experiments conducted at a research lab on the island were abandoned after a mutated T.rex wreaked havoc. The trigger for the chaos, in what is emblematic of Koepp's plotting here, was a discarded Snickers wrap. (Don't ask.) But as dinosaurs continue to die off across the globe, Krebs tells Bennett in his pitch, the ones at Ile Saint-Hubert have flourished, and they possess in their DNA the key to reducing heart disease-related deaths, possibly making them a thing of the past. Three samples from three specific breeds will suffice.
A reluctant Bennett agrees when Krebs dangles dollar signs before her eyes. An equally skeptical Loomis caves when Bennett and Krebs point out the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of seeing the closest thing to dinos in their natural habitat that present-day Earth can offer. Then he pops an Altoid in his mouth. Because product placement.
Scarlett Johansson as Zora Bennett and Jonathan Bailey as Dr. Henry Loomis in a scene from "Jurassic World Rebirth." (Photo courtesy of Universal Studios)
Of course, these “experts” shrug off the inherent dangers of voluntarily entering a hostile environment and becoming prey for the genetically altered critters who will hunt them. And this is where “Rebirth” becomes, for a sizable chunk of its 134 minutes, a tale of two movies: a perilous expedition funded by a greedy pharmaceutical company, and the survival tale of divorced dad Reuben Delgado, his two daughters and her older daughter's boyfriend, who find themselves adrift at sea following a close encounter with a prehistoric marine predator.
The latter narrative strand, which briefly intersects with the former, is by far the more arresting, thanks in large part to Mexican actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, who turns Delgado into an everyman hero. The devoted patriarch's actions are made all the more admirable because he's just putting one foot in front of the other trying to ensure his loved ones' safety. The handsome thespian also spends the entire film in shorts that are, well, quite flattering.
You might have seen Garcia-Rulfo in a handful of supporting roles in movies and longform TV, or as the star of Netflix's “Pedro Páramo,” but if anything good can come from this weak franchise entry, it's that it opens the door for more high-profile roles for him. It's Garcia-Rulfo, not Johansson and the PTSD Bennett lives with, not Ali and Kincaid's crippling grief, not Bennett and Loomis' slutty glasses, who is “Rebirth's” most valuable asset.
Jonathan Bailey as Dr. Henry Loomis and Scarlett Johansson as Zora Bennett in a scene from "Jurassic World Rebirth." (Photo courtesy of Universal Studios)
But not even the esteemed Garcia-Rulfo can overcome the film's uninspired plotting, on-the-nose visual cues to the 1993 original and avalanche of clichés. Worst of all, a problem that has dogged the franchise from the start is particularly dispiriting here: its refusal to sacrifice characters who always seem impervious to the dangers thrown their way. There's a never a sense that even the more vulnerable characters are in genuine danger, and Edwards is simply unable to make us become invested in their welfare.
Edwards' previous film, the sci-fi adventure “The Creator,” was ultimately a beautifully lensed misfire, but it showed glimmers of something special. In “Rebirth,” the filmmaker is dealing with a narrative that has the potential of becoming a loose adaptation of H.G. Wells' “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” but he shows little curiosity for the genetically spliced dinos. He prioritizes elaborate setpieces that fail to get under our skin.
Monster movie fans clamoring for a five-course banquet are here left with a flavorless dish, a corporate product that keeps reminding you of its disposable nature, then has the gall to peddle an anti-corporate message. The rampant product placement is more telling than the makers probably intended, because we have been handed a crumpled Doritos bag of a movie. You know what to do with junk food scraps.
Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes in a scene from "F1: The Movie." (Photo by Scott Garfield. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures / Apple Original Films)
"F1 The Movie": Was it the devilish smile, or was it the butt? Okay, it was the butt, squeezed into tight-fitting jeans. Brad Pitt may have had a small role in “Thelma & Louise,” Ridley Scott's galvanizing feminist road movie, as a hunky drifter who's on the grift, but people noticed. (Screenwriter Callie Khouri even worked his character's derriere into the script.)
Pitt no longer looks like the lanky hustler he played in that Oscar-winning film, but doggone it, the good-looking bastard is aging like fine wine. His screen presence has remained dependable, even if the quality of his projects has been an assortment of peaks and valleys. For every winner like “12 Monkeys” and “Ad Astra,” there have been been a couple of underachievers, like “The Mexican” and “World War Z,” but even in his misses, Pitt's magnetism manages to draw you in. (We'll just pretend “Babylon,” his period stinker about Hollywoodland's early days, was a bad dream.)
The “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood” star hopes he can work his magic in “F1 The Movie,” a professional racing film that aims to do for Pitt what “Top Gun: Maverick” did for Tom Cruise. It's even helmed by “Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski. a man's-man filmmaker with, it has to be said, a better track record than Gareth Edwards.
Damson Idris as Joshua Pearce and Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes in a scene from "F1: The Movie." (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures / Apple Original Films)
Aging A-lister keen on examining his legacy, aka pulling a Fred Astaire in “The Band Wagon”? Check. Overqualified supporting cast featuring the likes of Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon and the prolific Tobias Menzies? Check. Top-notch production values, featuring digital photography intended to be best experienced on an IMAX (or LieMAX) screen? Check. The irresistible pull of an against-the-clock sports drama? Check.
“F1” ticks all the boxes and even gets off to a promising start, with a strikingly shot race on the Daytona International Speedway that leans on the Ridley Scott circa 1991 vibes, further accentuated by Hans Zimmer's booming score. Sonny Hayes, the easygoing racing nomad Pitt plays with a tip of the hat to Steve McQueen, gracefully fulfills his duties around the track as a hired hand on the 24 Hours of Daytona endurance race.
A face from the past comes knocking while he's enjoying a cherry pie at a California diner. Alone. Ruben Cervantes (Bardem), former frenemy and racing rival, wants Sonny to join APXGP, his Formula One team, both as a racer and a mentor to rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), all while downplaying the fact that the suits want to shut him down.
Once Sonny agrees to come on board, “F1” starts sputtering and never recovers. The problem isn't so much that Kosinski, working from a very stale script by Hollywood pro Ehren Kruger (“The Ring,” Michael Bay's second, third and fourth “Transformers” movies), inserts every sports drama cliché known to humankind; it's that the shopworn trappings are strung together in detached fashion, like a business portfolio. There's something off-putting about the way Kosinski goes through the motions here. Even the racing scenes, more engaging than the scenes off the track, lack a certain kinetic verve.
Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes and Kerry Condon as Kate McKenna in a scene from "F1: The Movie." (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures / Apple Original Films)
In short, “F1” plays like a Tony Scott movie, he of the original “Top Gun,” “Crimson Tide” and “Man on Fire” fame, but with the mojo leeched out. Kosinski has always been a square-jawed storyteller, but everything that worked in “Maverick” goes awry in “F1.” He's a square trying to act cool, but the swagger on display feels counterfeit, and as a result, we end up biding our time in between races, as Sonny deals with the big chip on Joshua's shoulder, safety concerns from Joshua's mother Bernadette (Sarah Niles) and behind-the-scenes wheeling and deeling from oily, and veddy British, board member Peter Banning (Menzies).
Kosinski tries to rally the troops for the climactic race, which is more engrossing than the rest, but the eleventh-hour burst of energy comes too late in the game, especially in a film that sails north of the two-and-a-half-hour mark with the end credits. “Days of Thunder,” Tony Scott's slick 1990 racing movie starring Cruise and Nicole Kidman and, like “F1,” produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, may not be a classic, but it had more of a pulse than this overlong shiny trinket ever musters. There's talks of an “F1”/”Thunder” crossover movie in the not-so-distant future, to which I can only say this current nostalgia kick has metamorphosed into a Borg Collective that deprives good intellectual properties of their personality. It's time for Kosinski, and Pitt, to slam the brakes and reassess.
“Jurassic Park Rebirth” and “F1 the Movie” are now showing in wide release across South Florida, including Dolby Cinema showings for “Rebirth” at AMC Aventura and AMC Sunset Place 24 and IMAX engagements for “F1” at Regal South Beach, AMC Aventura 24, AMC Sunset Place 24 and CMX Dolphin 19.
