Some 32 years after its arrival at cinemas, life still finds a way for the Jurassic Park franchise. A mere three years after the release of the worst of the bunch, a seeming-franchise killing Jurassic World Dominion, the series are back with a soft relaunch, one sure to please Tom Cardy. Jurassic World Rebirth jettisons the cast of the previous run of films, limits the legacy sequel elements to callbacks and goes back to basics from the plot up. This time we’re following a crew on a covert mission to yet another inGen island. This one houses the dinosaurs that, for whatever reason, could never make it to the theme park. This team’s mission is to take blood samples from three species (land, air, sea) so Big Pharma can make a cure for heart illness. Throw in a family shipwrecked at the same time (what are the odds?) and we have our tasty humans for the dinos to snack on.

To say the narrative is clunky is to state the obvious about Jurassic Park sequels. There’s often been a struggle to explain why characters encounter the big beasties, often relying on a new park here, an until-now unheard-of island there. It’s best to just sit back and enjoy these films. As Hammond says in the original, “it’s kind of a ride”.

And that is the best way to approach Rebirth – as an act of pure spectacle. Martin Scorsese got in some trouble with MCU fans when he said the franchise's outputs were not films but rollercoaster rides. But the same is essentially true here, as this more closely resembles a Universal Studio ride than an actual film. For some this will be an issue, but for this reviewer, he was fine with it. The blockbuster set pieces here are breathtaking, the dino encounters captured gloriously by director Gareth Edwards and his team. Edwards has always had an eye for scope and scale, and Rebirth is at its best when it can embrace this. Encounters with the Mosasaurus are wonderful, Jaws-like sequences. And there’s a fantastic one with a T-Rex lifted straight from the first book. I would, however, argue that in the final act the film starts to overstay its welcome, slightly undone by pulling so far away from its earlier grander sweeps.

The cast is effective, if somewhere let down by returning scribe David Koepp’s script. They all comfortably fit types, with some gifted additional motivation. Scarlett Johansson reminds us why she was such a good fit for MCU blockbusters, giving her part an intriguing blend of swagger and vulnerability. Jonathan Bailey continues to be a very good thing for modern studio cinema, with his Dr Loomis the film’s conscience. And it’s nice to see Mahershala Ali back in cinemas after what has felt like a very long gap (outside of voice work, it’s been six years since he’s starred in a wide release). The Family Delgado don’t leave too much of an impression, save for one all-timer set piece and being the place for the film to attempt to find its Baby Yoda – hello, Dolores.

Rebirth doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does stabilize a series that had hit the rocks with its past installment. We’re never going to get back to where Jurassic Park got cinema to, but that’s ok. Not every blockbuster has to hit those heights. Sometimes it’s ok to have spectacle for spectacle’s sake. And this is what Edwards can grasp. It’s a minor miracle to recentre the films on the dinosaurs themselves; to find the scope and scale we want from them. I left the cinema with a goofy smile and a total willingness to, once again, head back to Dinosaur Island. All together now; “they are truly beautiful, and they all deserve our respect, run”.