I've been a staunch fan of the franchise for a while, which has slowly been going downhill with each installment. So I went into this film expecting nothing---and still somehow managed to leave wanting a refund of my $10.50 ticket.

The premise set at the beginning of the film was actually quite interesting. Martin Krebs recruits Zora Bennett (a mercenary) to lead a high-stakes, off-limits mission to an abandoned equatorial island where dinosaurs still live. The goal is to extract biomaterial from the three largest prehistoric specimens---while alive (yehh, hell no): Mosasaurus (aquatic), Titanosaurus (land-based), and Quetzalcoatlus (flying). This would help in the development of an experimental heart disease treatment, potentially extending the lives of those with heart disease by decades. So although the theme still revolves around corporate greed, at least there is some stake in this for the common folk?

Despite the early developments and discussion around this miracle heart drug, and foreshadowing how it would affect the world, we got literally no follow-up. We are to assume that Zora Bennett and Dr. Henry Loomis (paleontologist) "gave it back to the people"---whatever the hell that means---considering you would need a substantial amount of money to develop such a drug, probably get assassinated trying to bring something like this to market, and make it past the FDA and NIH.

In the beginning, Reuben, Teresa, and Isabella Delgado, along with Teresa's boyfriend Xavier Dobbs, are located on waters near the equator when their boat is capsized by a Mosasaurus. I feel this was a fairly irresponsible early showing of the creature, as stakes were set quite low due to a death toll of zero after this scene. Some of this was mitigated by the over-the-shoulder shot of the massive Mosasaur behind Xavier.

To top off the maddeningly drawn-out Mosasaur scene, Nina dies from a Spinosaurus on the beach that she somehow did not hear get up, shift, and traverse the beach to get to her.

What's more unbearable than this is what comes next with the Spinosaurus pack. They are all 12--15m (39--50ft), which is relative to the size of the one displayed in JP3, but I don't think they managed to give off nearly the same screen presence. This is for several reasons. First, the fact that they were shown in the same scene as the Mosasaur lent nothing to the terrifying nature of Spinosaurus, due to what is known as the Contrast Effect---stating that when two comparable things are in close proximity to each other, you will judge them by comparison rather than assess them individually. This leads to a drastic reduction in perceived threat from these creatures.

This was made no better by the fact that they appeared in a pack, which---due to Deindividuation---caused each individual creature to have a reduced sense of individual identity and appear somewhat less threatening.

The concept of hybrid dinosaurs, although lazily implemented, was at least an interesting idea. Given more thought, they could have easily done better with this specific aspect---rather than introducing this colossal creature only for its sole on-screen feats to be killing two humans and a helicopter. It makes it fairly hard for it to create the sense of dread that was established with Spinosaurus, Mosasaur, and even Indominus Rex in earlier films.

1/5: Don't waste your time, unless your mindset is "I don't care how bad it is, I just want to see it". Then lose money at your own risk.