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Stephen Spielberg’s original Jurassic Park film (1993) instilled awe and trepidation in his characters and audience alike. As his protagonists wrestled with the unintended consequences and ethical dilemmas of reanimating extinct apex predators, viewers marvelled at the novel use of CGI. At a keystroke it seemed to consign the hand-crafted stop-motion wonders of dinosaur films past to the archive.

Alongside pulse-pounding action set pieces delivered with trademark Spielberg panache, that first film flamboyantly inaugurated a new era in fantasy effects. And it solicited delight and wonder from its audience. On opening day in New York the dinosaurs’ first appearance prompted a spontaneous ovation: I was there and clapped too.

Thirty-two years, six Jurassic iterations and countless monstrous digital apparitions later, that initial wow factor is a distant memory. By Jurassic World: Rebirth (set nearly 35 years after the original film) dinosaurs are treated by their human prey as barely more than inconvenient obstacles. They’re dangerous, of course, but certainly not wondrous.

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Palaeontologist Dr Henry Loomis’s (Jonathan Bailey) delight in coming face-to-face with his objects of study is a pale echo of the giddy euphoria that overtook Sam Neill and Laura Dern’s characters all those years ago.

In fact, early in the film we’re told that the public have since lost all interest in dinosaurs. Wildlife parks and museum displays are closing and the animals themselves have mostly died off outside their quarantined tropical habitat.

As this has information has little bearing for the plot, it’s hard not to sense some ironic commentary from screenwriter David Koepp (returning to the franchise for the first time since 1997) on the exhaustion of the Jurassic Park model. Always incipiently reflexive – as a blockbuster set in a theme park – by this stage in the game, the franchise machinery is inescapably visible.

Almost as ironic is a plot line promoting the open-source sharing of intellectual property for the benefit of the whole world rather than exploitative corporations. I doubt NBCUniversal-Comcast would agree.

The Jurassic franchise

The Jurassic Park format is among the most unforgivingly rigid of any current film franchise.

Each instalment (bar to some extent the last, the convoluted 2022 Jurassic World: Dominion, whose characters and story the new release completely ignores) places humans in perilous proximity to genetically rejuvenated sauropods. And generally does so in a remote, photogenic tropical location with minimal contact with the outside world. (Will the franchise ever run out of uncharted Caribbean islands where demented bio-engineers have wreaked evolutionary havoc?)

The human characters in this new film are the usual pick-and-mix of daredevil adventurers, amoral corporate types and idealistic palaeontologists. And there are the mandatory school-age children too – important to keep the interest of younger viewers. The real stars of course, are the primeval leviathans who grow larger and more fearsome – though not more interesting – with each new episode of the franchise.

How this human-dino jeopardy comes about tends not to matter very much. Jurassic World: Rebirth produces one of the least interesting MacGuffins in movie history (meaning something that drives the plot and which the charcters care about but the audience does not). Blood drawn from each of the three largest dinosaur species in the aforesaid remote tropical island will produce a serum to cure human heart disease (dinosaur hearts are huge, you see, so … never mind).

This feeble contrivance suffices for sneery Big Pharma suit Martin (Rupert Friend) to hire freebooters Zora (Scarlett Johansson) and Duncan (Mahershala Ali) for his expedition. Along the way they encounter a marooned family (dad, two teens, one winsome but plucky grade-schooler) who subsequently have their own largely self-contained adventures before reuniting for the big climax.

Franchise filmmaking is generally an auteur-free zone. Welsh blockbuster specialist Gareth Edwards is no Spielberg (though he pays homage at several point, notably in a waterborne first act studded with Jaws references). But he handles the action with unremarkable competence.

In truth, Jurassic World: Rebirth suggests that the intellectual property so expensively vested in the franchise would benefit from some genetic modification.

This week, the 2025 Wimbledon tournament kicked off in London. Just a few days in, a number of celebrity tennis enthusiasts are already sitting courtside in their VIP seats while taking in the matches—including Cate Blanchett, David Beckham, Priyanka Chopra, and Nick Jonas, to name a few. This morning, A-list couple Olivia Rodrigo and Louis Partridge were also spotted at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

While the American singer and English actor typically have a grungier style sensibility, they both played into the signature preppy Wimbledon aesthetic for the outing. (For attendees, dressing up in a country club vibe is half the fun, after all.) Rodrigo traded in her love of mini lace and slip dresses—which she loves pairing with combat boots—in favor of a buttoned-up gingham shirt dress. She added itty-bitty shades. Partridge, meanwhile—who can often be spotted off-duty in baggy trousers or athleisure—went the snazzy route in a navy blazer, khaki trousers, and striped shirt-and-tie combo.

While there is no official Wimbledon dress code that is enforced, it goes without saying that attendees are encouraged to wear smart-casual pieces—including elegant dresses and smart tailoring. Clearly, Rodrigo and Partridge did their homework before attending the event. While it proved to be a total style-180 for them, their complementary preppy outfits totally work for them. Should this be their new summer fashion mood? Something tells us they will be going back to their downtown-cool wardrobes very soon. But, for now, it’s fun to see them cosplay as posh tennis lovers.