The reviews lean negative, with fewer than a quarter of critics prepared to recommend it and most landing somewhere between indifference and irritation. Where they agree is on Adam Driver, whose committed lead performance is singled out by admirers and detractors alike as better than the material around him. The dinosaurs earn a second, smaller cluster of praise: several critics find the creature design frightening and the set pieces, particularly the finale, effective.
The chief complaint is tone. Many critics feel the film refuses to embrace the silliness of its premise, weighing a stranded pilot and a child down with grief when it should be running from things with teeth. Others call it derivative, cobbled together from better survival pictures. The spread is wide: Empire and Screen Daily find it an efficient, entertaining thriller, while the Los Angeles Times calls it dull and imitative, and The Telegraph thinks the dinosaurs themselves are given short shrift.
E
Empire
10 March 2023 · John Nugent
70*
The film is a straightforward, efficient survival thriller that delivers a lean, original studio premise without breaking new ground or relying on franchises. It stands out for its compelling Adam Driver performance, which grounds the B-movie silliness, and its fun, frightening dinosaurs in a handsomely presented package.
Adam Driver gives a committed performance in this efficient, sprightly popcorn thriller mixing dinosaurs, space travel and a father-daughter story. Terrific CGI monsters and swampy scares make it an entertaining multiplex movie.
The critic finds the film a dire and derivative sci-fi action flop with shoddy execution and lazy world-building. Adam Driver's committed lead performance is singled out as better than the material deserves.
Though derivative and cobbled from better films, the adventure delivers requisite thrills thanks to Driver's committed performance and menacing dinosaurs, feeling pleasantly diverting in its brevity despite lacking originality.
The critic finds the film self-serious and exhausting despite its premise. He singles out the predictable action set pieces and lack of surprises as the main complaint.
The critic finds the film a ho-hum, unremarkable survival movie that is not as bad as its troubled release history suggested but ultimately misses the mark. It is efficiently made in places thanks to Adam Driver’s commitment and some decent jeopardy, but relies too heavily on ineffective jump scares and fails to deliver the silly B-movie fun promised by its premise.
The film is neither truly terrible nor halfway interesting, offering familiar dangers without awe, suspense or surprise as Driver's character runs a gauntlet of dinosaurs and other perils on ancient Earth.
Adam Driver does his best in this late-Cretaceous romp, but the whole thing feels fatally underpowered and the dinosaurs cruelly underfed. The cheerfully silly concept is not the problem, but nervous recuts, a damp-squib ending and dinosaurs rarely shown to their best advantage leave it disappointing.
The promising mix of dinosaurs and Adam Driver fails to ignite in this underwhelming and derivative sci-fi survival thriller. The action sequences are half-baked and the film has precious few ideas of its own.
The critic finds the film boring despite its wild premise of Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs on prehistoric Earth. It fails to embrace B-movie silliness, with repetitive action, underdeveloped characters and a blandly heroic lead performance.
The critic deems the film not good and unengaging despite nonstop dino action. He singles out its mangled badness as oddly compelling while criticizing the confusing premise and lack of engagement.
The movie is a pedestrian, dumb and dull hack job that is imitative and complacent rather than weird or wondrous about its extinction-level premise. It lacks visual breadth and compositional tension.
The critic calls it a middling throwback creature feature. He singles out the novelty of Driver using high-tech weaponry against the dinosaurs for praise while noting the overall low-rent feel compared to recent sci-fi blockbusters.
The critic calls it a decent but formulaic sci-fi action thriller that lacks sustained tension yet excels in its exhilarating third act and finale. Special effects and creature design are singled out for praise.
The critic finds the film delivers on dinosaur scares and action sequences but suffers from weak writing, a stale story, and thin characters. Driver's performance is praised for adding depth through body language.
The film is a shoddy, somber sci-fi thriller where Adam Driver spends more time sulking than shooting dinosaurs. Some handsome staging and spectacle are noted, but the action is clunky and the CG unconvincing.
The film fails to deliver on its high-concept premise of a stranded pilot battling dinosaurs 65 million years ago, resulting in a tonal misfire that mixes grief themes with blockbuster action unsuccessfully. The standout cave set piece with dinosaur tension shows potential, but overall it is a jurassic dud.
The movie fails to embrace its goofy B-movie premise and instead awkwardly grounds it with emotion, resulting in tedium. Driver's yelling and the final dinosaur sequence are singled out positively amid the flaws.
Ordered by the weight we give each publication, then by score. Scores are normalised to 100; * means inferred from an unrated review. Summaries are ours, not quotations; follow the links for the reviews themselves. How we rate
