OK, despite a few characters being eaten in Jurassic Park (1993), it seems the park was eventually built. (The film wisely ignores the other two sequels.) But after a decade, attendance is waning. So they engineer a super-monster to lure the customers back. The irony that the same bigger-is-better thinking could be applied to this very movie is, I believe, not lost on the filmmakers.

This is a very self-aware franchise reboot, subversive even, and part of the fun is spotting the wink-wink references to the JP movies and other creature features. Anyway, the ludicrously named Indominus rex is twice the size of a T-Rex, with the camouflage skills of a chameleon and the intelligence of a velociraptor. What could go wrong?

Chris Pratt’s the leading man, but less goofy than in Guardians of the Galaxy. Bryce Dallas Howard’s perfect as the park’s harried director. And an oily Vincent D’Onofrio is terrific as the military creep with his own agenda.

It fails to match the first film’s sense of awe—what could?—and there’s no real sense of danger. But still a solidly entertaining time at the movies. The 3-D’s useless. (124 min)