Finally watched the film today...and it was enjoyable for what it was, ranking somewhere in the middle for the overall franchise (ranking after the first two films and Dominion).
I will give the film credit where it is due: Gareth Edwards' directing is astounding and John Mathieson's cinematography is breathtaking. If nothing else, the film is beautiful to look at and the action pieces were the thrilling, nail-biting experiences they needed to be. I especially loved the background movements that happened repeatedly throughout the film, particularly when the Spinosaurus unfurled themselves on the beach behind Nina and the T-Rex waking up from their nap behind Teresa. But above else, major kudos to Edwards and Mathieson for making me genuinely feel vertigo from atop of the cliff (regardless or not it was real). My skin crawled for a solid minute before they began rappelling.
That all said, I wish Edwards and the cast were working from a far better script. Considering David Koepp wrote the first two films of the franchise, I'm somewhat surprised by the atrocious dialogue and terribly slow set-up with the story taking far too long to get to the island (the Mosasaurs sequence aside). Mind you, I wasn't expecting a deep story or anything, but I feel that Koepp's strength resides more in adapting stories than creating them, which is even noticeable between the first two films where Lost World is a much loser adaptation, for better or for worse.
I will say, however, that I quite enjoyed the inclusion of the Delgado family and their desperate journey to survive running parallel to the mercenary operation. The lameness of Xavier aside, I cared for the family, even if both the daughters definitely had plot armor and no one would ever expect to actually die. However, I did expect the father to go out in a noble sacrifice the moment he injured his leg but I guess that was a red herring for Duncan's apparent sacrifice...if only the film had stuck to its guns and let him die instead of implausibility surviving.
Which bring us to the dinosaurs and their aquatic and avian cousins themselves. I loved all of the actual animals (complete with an Ankylosaurus cameo!) and each of their set pieces, but I especially loved seeing Quetzalcoatlus in action. For all of my issues with Jurassic Park III, I always loved the Pteranodon sequence so I'm forever a sucker for flying reptile sequences and Rebirth delivered it in spades. However, I was quite surprised that Velociraptors only got a mere cameo. Instead we got...
...more of the gods fucking awful mutant dinosaurs. I really had I hoped we left that shit in the past after the first two World films, but I guess not. What's really weird is after the film ramped up to Distortus rex (ugh), we barely even see them! What purpose was having that ugly motherfucker in a role that could've easily been filled by a T-Rex or any other large carnivore that actually exists? Between that, the Mutadons filling in for Velociraptors, and the film wimping out on Duncan's death, that whole sequence left a bad taste in my mouth. Bleah.
Overall, the film is a fun, terrifying adventure, but in future viewings, I'll probably just start with the Mosasaurus introduction and stop once everyone arrives at the InGen complex. The rest is atrocious, unnecessary fluff.
