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It's never a good sign when a film opens by admitting its own irrelevance - and Jurassic World: Rebirth does exactly that. Early on, Dr. Loomis (played by Jonathan Bailey) states that audiences have grown tired of seeing real life dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the same is true of film audiences and this movie proceeds to prove exactly why.

In the early scenes, despite the cringe-worthy story and dialogue, you might still hold out hope that director Gareth Edwards will at least deliver solid action. But even that promise fades as the movie unfolds, devolving into tired recreations of iconic moments from Jurassic Park - only serving to highlight the brilliance of the original.

At the end of the day, this installment seems to exist for one purpose only: to showcase the franchise's upgraded technology for putting dinosaurs in water. And showcase it they do - relentlessly, as if repetition alone might generate awe. It doesn't.

What's astonishing is that, 32 years after Jurassic Park stunned the world with groundbreaking realism, the dinosaurs in Rebirth feel less real. Not because of bad special effects, but due to bizarre genetic mutations that make them look like AI-generated monsters, combined with questionable directorial choices - including a particularly absurd scene involving dinosaurs in love.

The script is a minefield of clichés and awkward dialogue. Characters are paper-thin stereotypes, and even talented actors like Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey seem lost in the material, delivering performances that feel stiff and disconnected.

Rather than breathe new life into the franchise, Rebirth only serves to remind us how revolutionary the original Jurassic Park was - and how little of that magic survives today.

Jerry Bruckheimer is 81 years old, and somehow still cranking out the exact same movie - and selling it. Time and again, he brings in directors who fully bend to his vision, making his movie instead of their own.

The case of F1 is a particularly clear echo. Back in 1986, Bruckheimer tapped then-little-known Tony Scott to direct Top Gun. Four years later, he brought Scott back for Days of Thunder, which was basically Top Gun with NASCAR. Fast forward to 2022, and it's Joseph Kosinski who remakes Top Gun, beat for beat, as Top Gun: Maverick. Now, in F1, Bruckheimer teams up with Kosinski again - and sure enough, it's Top Gun: Maverick, but with Formula 1 cars.

At a certain point, it feels like an insult to the audience's intelligence. But in truth, Bruckheimer has long understood something most Hollywood producers only pretend to: audiences don't mind watching the same movie over and over, as long as it's shiny enough. And to his credit, the production values do keep getting better.

The racing sequences in F1 are undeniably stunning. The opening stretch offers fresh, immersive angles that genuinely make you sit up. That sensation wears off, but the racing remains the movie's strongest element. Everything else - the character moments, the romance, the bromance - mostly feels like filler while you wait for the next lap.

It gets repetitive. A little boring. Occasionally silly. But the technical craft keeps it from ever fully derailing. Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem both deliver solid performances, even if the script gives them very little to work with.

I have now watched MI: Final Reckoning twice, as I wasn't sure I had appreciated it well the first time. But I am quite certain of my verdict now!

Overall, Mission: Impossible - Final Reckoning is yet another entertaining entry in the franchise, but it has a few flaws that make it rank below prior entries: 1. The movie is shot and edited in a way that makes you a bit dizzy... and a bit sleepy 2. The central submarine scene doesn't work. While it looks like it was hard to make, one keeps wondering what Ethan Hunt is doing and why it's difficult or dangerous 3. The bad guys don't work as hard: in trying to make the entity come to life, they made it even more conceptual and hard to see as a villain. To counter that, they try to make Gabriel the villain in flesh, but he is seen as too secondary, too "middle management " to make us care much about him either

Ultimately, the central marketing pitch of these movies lately seems to be that Tom Cruise does his own stunts. Impressive, but not a reason to neglect storytelling.

So overall fun, but not quite amazing either.