Jurassic World Rebirth

Essential as the current entry point to what comes next, and it is a deliberate reset rather than a continuation. New cast, new characters, and a premise that quietly undoes the problem Dominion created: the climate has turned out to suit almost none of these animals, so the survivors have withdrawn to a band of territory near the equator and the rest of the world has largely stopped caring.

That is an elegant piece of housekeeping and it returns the series to what it does well, which is a small group of people on an island they should not be on. David Koepp, who wrote the 1993 film, came back for this one, and the structure shows it: a pharmaceutical company wants blood samples from three enormous living animals, so the expedition has a reason to approach rather than escape.

Gareth Edwards directs and his particular skill, staging very large things in the same frame as very small ones, is the best thing in it. The river sequence with a sauropod herd is the closest any sequel has come to the awe of the original's first reveal, and a long set piece on an inflatable raft in open water is the most frightening since the aviary.

The weaknesses are the ones the series keeps repeating. A civilian family is added to supply children in danger, the corporate villain is familiar, and the engineered mutant in the third act is another bigger-teeth solution to a problem the film had already solved more interestingly. It is a better film than Dominion by a wide margin and short of the 1993 one by a wider one.