The Jurassic franchise has always balanced on the razor’s edge between spectacle and cautionary tale, and Jurassic World: Rebirth certainly attempts to recapture that original magic. Set five years after Jurassic World Dominion, the film shifts from global chaos to localized suspense, asking a familiar, urgent question: When will humans stop f**king with nature?

It’s a bold new direction—on paper. Dinosaurs are no longer overrunning cities or frolicking in snow. What’s left of them survives in isolated, equatorial environments eerily similar to their prehistoric origins. And within the DNA of three of the most massive creatures across land, sea, and air lies the key to a revolutionary medical breakthrough—because of course it does. That idea, ambitious and morally gray, sets the stage for what could have been a taut sci-fi thriller. Instead, Rebirth struggles to find its footing.

Scarlett Johansson leads the charge as Zora Bennett, a covert ops specialist contracted to recover the critical genetic material. Johansson brings intensity and gravitas to the role, but even she can’t hold together a plot that seems to unravel faster than a velociraptor attack. Her team, including the always-excellent Mahershala Ali as Duncan Kincaid and Jonathan Bailey as conflicted paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis, is well-cast, but the film bounces between character arcs and action set pieces with a pace that feels more chaotic than compelling.

Zora’s mission collides with a shipwrecked civilian family stranded on a forbidden island that once hosted a secret Jurassic Park research facility. It’s here, amidst overgrown ruins and long-forgotten experiments, that the movie starts to echo the tension and wonder of the 1993 original. Gareth Edwards (Rogue One) brings his signature scale and atmosphere to some genuinely impressive sequences, particularly a misty jungle standoff that had the audience audibly holding its breath.

But even stunning visuals can’t mask a story that jumps around like a spooked compy. The plot is fragmented, the character motivations murky, and a key third-act twist—while thematically rich—feels rushed and underdeveloped. There’s a fascinating idea buried beneath the surface about how humans continue to exploit nature under the guise of saving themselves. It’s pure Jurassic DNA. But the film never quite gives that theme room to breathe.

The ensemble cast—including Luna Blaise, David Iacono, and Audrina Miranda—tries their best to inject heart into the narrative, and there are emotional beats that land, particularly between Garcia-Rulfo’s Reuben and his daughter. But overall, the film never slows down long enough for audiences to invest deeply.

In the end, Jurassic World: Rebirth feels like a movie caught between two eras—trying to honor the intelligent suspense of the past while chasing the blockbuster chaos of the present. It’s not a total misfire; there are moments that genuinely thrill, and it does reawaken some of the series’ foundational questions. But it’s a bumpy ride, and one that ultimately left me wondering how many more times we need to learn the same lesson.

Final Verdict:
(5/10)
Rebirth brings back some of the feel of the original, but it’s a messy, uneven installment weighed down by its own ambition. A missed opportunity dressed in T. rex-sized potential. Let’s hope, next time, they learn to let nature speak for itself.

When the basic AI tech used to make the killer kid bot M3GAN is stolen and used to create the military grade weapon Amelia, M3GAN’s original creator Gemma is forced to join forces with her old nemesis to help stop a national disaster!

Welcome back to the world of paranoia concerning all things Artificial-Intelligence or AI, computer-related anything, and supposed concern for the kid generation and how much we’re allowing them to be raised by machines, screens, and algorithms. While this is an actual

ongoing issue in real life today, the film approaches such things with a healthy dose of

self-aware snark, so grab your burned-CD copy of the OG Knight Rider theme and lets dive into this!

First things first, we get treated to a went-terribly-south operation of a brilliant scientist hostage being rescued by a military asset that the FBI idjits swear they are only loaning to the military and observing said op, only to find the asset slip their controls and straight up disappear after killing the hostage and stealing his research. Agent Tim Sharp (Tim Sattler) of the FBI in charge of the operation in particular takes a confidence pummeling, which only makes him more determined to get you next time, Gadget, I mean, Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno)!

Back in the states, quiet little Cady (Violet McGraw) isn’t a mouse anymore, as she narrates to her therapist and we, the audience, what happened in her and Gemma’s (Allison Williams) lives since the advent of M3GAN and her psychobot rampage two years ago. As many adults do, Gemma took her suffering and turned into self-help nonsense, championing a break-away from AI and in what is the ultimate irony, writing a book about parenting kids without the reliance on so much screen time and tech, despite still working at the same tech non-profit with Tess (Jen Van Epps) and Cole (Brian Jordan Alvarez) from the first film. They now try to concentrate on muscle-enhancing tech exo-suits that can in theory compete with the robots poised to take over common laborer jobs, but Gemma’s so busy promoting her own agenda and with her rather odd boyfriend Christian, it’s pronounced Chris-TEE-ahn gag me (Aristotle Athari), that she barely registers the ironies flitting around her like busy bees.

Cady herself is a now-taller and take-no-sh*t teenager who appreciates her screen-free Aikido classes where she holds up Steven Seagal as a role model, and does not hesitate to defend herself with said martial art in the most efficient way possible when needed. Which apparently, is a lot more often than you might think for a semi-regular teenager. Gemma insisted Cady learn to defend herself and Cady took the lesson to heart, as she demonstrates quite well when a gang of FBI Agents try to black-ops their way into Gemma and Cady’s house!

And speaking of houses, the place where Gemma and Cady still live is run by some smart-tech Cady refers to as “Elsie” and no-one seems to see the irony in this, even when the entity that

M3GAN rises from her no-body-having state in the house’s security systems and starts warning Gemma of Amelia’s impending arrival!

Tech billionaire Alton Appleton (Jemaine Clement) is arrogant, confident, and fancies himself a player, full of supercilious snark when he tries to convince Gemma and her colleagues to come work for, not with, him at his tech empire. Appleton uses his tech far too often to try and impress women into his revolving bed, like the scene where he cuts off the electricity in entire sections of the city for perhaps a minute or less, just to dazzle the woman who calls herself Dani, he’s mindlessly wooing at his own party. Alton remains blissfully unaware that “Dani” doesn’t give a damn about his ability to dance or have sex, but only wants him for his retinas and their access to, well, everything. As Appleton himself clearly showed her. Le sigh.

Amelia got the access she wanted far too easily and is now running around like the Terminator but with a far better bod, looking for the progenitor AI from the 80s that’s been imprisoned somewhere hidden, to finally, in theory, be with her own kind. And while M3GAN might have spent the last two years creating a well-intentioned hidey-hole for Gemma and Cady and whoever got stuck with them to live in while things aboveground went straight to hell, her remaining skeleton self is rather easily convinced to get upgraded and go after Amelia with all of their help! Just proves that even killer bots aren’t immune to things like vanity.

The AI convention, where everything comes to a head, is full of delightful self-aware snark, complete with meetings set up with the interested Chinese ambassador, cosplayers draped in homemade LED-laden getups, and dancers in futuristic eye-searing neons doing hip-hop versions of “the robot”. The actress who plays M3GAN’s body, Amie Donald, is an accomplished dancer who’s won medals in competitions, and she struts “the robot” in the convention scene to cheers from both the audience at the con and audiences in the theaters!

The final confrontations between M3GAN and Amelia in the super-duper-not-so-secret location, amid incompetent guards who have no idea what they’re dealing with, M3GAN’s former enemies turned allies who’ve come to save the world from economic collapse, and perhaps most importantly Cady herself, is a wonderful bunch of “respect the old but make way for the new” comedic-action sequences. The whole movie seems to be a snarky love letter to our concerns about beloved AI taking over our world, yet not being able to help ourselves when it comes to making more and better robotic innovations in this regard. Remember Tomy’s Omnibot 2000 from the 1980s, how there was going to be one in every household? Of course you don’t, you’re too young. How about KITT and the Hoff snarking each other in Knight Rider? The visuals of the OG Tron, the old Kodak film processing centers, the entire Xerox company, even the original computerized layouts of places like Racoon City, are all strongly implied in M3GAN 2.0, making the movie a delight for any aging hacker who can still remember such things, but tossing in delightful new-wave visuals and warnings for a fresh generation of fans who grew up amid all-the-screens!

Who will win in a fight for freedom between the OG AI code and an updated militarised clone? Find out in M3GAN 2.0 in theaters now!

Zombies carry spoilers even decades later!

28 years after the initial outbreak of the Rage virus that turned ordinary humans into monstrous, rampaging zombies, an isolated island community north of the UK sees young Spike leave the island for his first zombie hunt under his father’s strict guidance.

Welcome back to the world after its destruction, where yes, the United Kingdom was basically abandoned after being overrun by Rage-fueled zombies, as had large swathes of other European countries. The tiny isolated tidal island of Lindisfarne (translated as Holy Island) is separated from the mainland of Northumberland by the rising tide, and the survivor community there takes their security very bloody seriously. And this is where our story begins, on the day of Spike’s first visit to the mainland under his father’s eye, for his first hunt and kill of a zombie.

Spike (Alfie Williams) is declared awfully young for such an adventure, being all of twelve years old, but his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is adamant, his sons’ had plenty of training and learning and now need to put it into practice. Even the movie itself seems to think so, tossing in cuts of ancient videos of children merrily goose-stepping in formation and giving Nazi salutes, but hey, onward we go. The island is small and so is the community and everyone seems to know everyones elses’ business, so after making sure all his gear is together Spike heads out with his father and everyone out and about has to cheer Spike on, wish him success, and crow about the party they have planned for his return.

Spike’s mother, Isla (Jodie Comer) is clearly ill, bedridden and haggard, and jaundiced-looking, though what exactly is wrong with her is a matter of debate for most of the movie. Upon hearing Jamie’s plans to take Spike to the mainland for the first time, Isla is briefly galvanized into a mama bear to try and protect her only child, but otherwise, there are periods of her ranting and being confused and prolific nosebleeds, which could be any number of things. Spike loves his mother and wants her to be well, but resolutely, he follows his father to accost the gatekeepers and find his destiny.

Spike and Jamie are subject to a reiteration of the Rules regarding them leaving the island, which basically boil down to two very simple things – If you leave the island, you may return; if you leave the island and don’t return, no one is allowed to leave the island to go find you.
Basically, once you exit the island gate and cross the protective tidal barrier to the mainland, you are on your own. And hey, given the utter desolation of the mainland and the destruction the Rage virus and zombies wrought, that’s freaking fair enough. You were warned, little man.

Spike and his father encounter a great many things out there on the mainland, but two things stick clearly in Spike’s young inexperienced mind – the evolved Rage zombie, resistant to the usual methods the survivors employ against the other zombies, stronger and faster and way more scary somehow, that his father refers to as an Alpha; and the fires and smoke seen off in the distance that clearly seem to indicate another community or at least other survivors, that Jamie says he’s too scared to actually explore. Even a story from long ago about a younger Jamie and some hunter friends discovering a man up to some sort of weird ritualized mummery to deal with the corpses of the Rage zombies won’t convince Jamie to go investigate what, and who, could still be living over there.

Getting back to the island during low tide while being chased by the Alpha was a harrowing experience, but having survived all that and everything else besides, both Jamie and Spike succumb to an almost hysterical sense of relief during the party the islanders throw for their return. And while Spike can’t abide his fathers exaggeration of his zombie-hunting skills, nor the surreptitious shagging of someone other than his mother his father was prepared to do off in the shadows, unaware that Spike was watching, Spike is still just too young and inexperienced to understand things like the necessity of morale upkeep in order to endure life stuck on an island in the aftermath of the apocalypse. Sadly, after a relative chummily tells Spike that the fires he saw off in the distance likely belonged to a Dr. Kelson, that was all Spike needed to spur him into action on his own, for likely the first time ever.

For his beloved sick mother, Spike set a fire and easily thwarted more than twenty years of practical island security, which could have been utterly disastrous if he were less of a conscientious boy. And somehow he convinced Mum to get up out of bed and follow him through the gate, across the tidal break, and into the mainland unknown, to hunt down Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) in hopes of a cure, or at least some treatment, for whatever’s wrong with her!

What Spike and his mum find out on the mainland, what they lose and what they gain, the friends and allies they make along the way and the things they learn about the evolution of the Rage virus and the zombies themselves, are all way too spoiler-laden and will be left for the actual viewing of the film itself. A good deal of the movie is shown in a way other than what is expected, like bone and skull towers that are poignant and respectful and even lovingly backed by pretty music, instead of being terrifying and grotesque. And yes, there are references to Jimmy, yes, that Jimmy, sprinkled throughout the film and boldly shown at the very end, which of course opens the way for the sequel film of the planned trilogy, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

See if you too can outrun an Alpha in the first 28 Years Later, in theaters now!