Find someone who loves you the way international audiences love the Jurassic Park/World movies, or at least the dinosaurs themselves. Throwing money after a bad investment like the world’s worst hedge fund managers, filmgoers across the globe remain dead set on chasing the high of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 original, even when the results have been less than inspiring. The nadir occurred just three years ago, with the ignominious Jurassic World Dominion resetting the modern standard for blockbuster debacles, necessitating a reset in its putrid wake. That Jurassic World Rebirth could be greenlit, shot, edited, and dolled out to the masses in such short order speaks to our collective hunger to see those towering, scaly beasts back on the big screen as soon as possible, as well as our willingness to forgive and forget. We’re way passed the point of being fooled twice and then learning our lesson; Universal Studios has an absurdly long leash with these things, and as long as Rebirth focused on giant reptiles instead of Dominion’s reprehensible locusts, the popcorn-munching hordes were likely to be satisfied.

Any monolithic movie studio would kill for such a lenient arrangement, which makes the World flicks’ insistence on inverting our real world obsession so confounding. Rebirth marks the fourth straight feature to stress just how disinterested and hostile the public has become toward the de-extinct creatures, watching them wither away in the unnatural habitat they’ve occupied since Fallen Kingdom with tired eyes that border on antagonism. Having instinctively returned to a more friendly climate around the equator, the monsters have only been enjoying their humid retirement home for a brief while before big pharma comes knocking in the form of Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend). His parent company, ParkerGenix, needs only the DNA from a specific trio of behemoths to create a revolutionary new drug in the battle against heart disease, and have deep enough pockets to recruit the best reconnaissance team that money can buy. Off we go to the most dangerous region on the planet, escorted by covert operations badass Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), boat captain and general tight-spots navigator Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), and nervy paleontological expert Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), with a raft of human snack food in tow.

If that description sounds gratingly similar to Spielberg’s headlining triumvirate of Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum, it’s worth noting the perils of straying too far from the beaten path. Returning veteran screenwriter David Koepp, who penned the series’ first two entries, might be a welcome guest along the journey, but he’s extended a misbegotten invitation to the Delgado family. Comprised of belegard father Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), surly daughters Teresa and Isabella (Luna Blaise and Audrina Miranda, respectively) and Teresa’s stoner boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono), the semi-nuclear unit are as surprised by their unwitting involvement as the audience, facing the same terrors as their militarized counterparts, and enjoying roughly the same amount of screentime. Placing a child of Isabella’s age directly in harm’s way is a manipulative staple of Jurassic storytelling, and for all of the reverse engineering at play, the actors acquit themselves nicely to some truly awful dialogue. Iacono’s broad comic relief plays better than anticipated, while Garcia-Rulfo and Blaise are sturdy and vaguely soulful. It’s just too many damned characters, especially when the flick strands them in their own separate movie.

You won’t hear any complaints from the dinosaurs, who have ample culinary offerings to choose from, and once again do so with a purity of conscience. The order in which they consume the lesser cast members is a forgone conclusion, selected for either their basic anonymity, or damaged moral compass. They barely make a mark, which is largely true of the top billed players as well, with Bailey struggling inside of Goldblum’s formidable shadow, while Ali attempts the charm his way through a nothing burger of a part. Johansson fares the best by doing the least, reading straight from the tight-lipped playbook of taciturn machismo that used to mint male stars just a few long decades ago. All those clenched jaws and rippling biceps have since been replaced by our fascination with trauma, and while Koepp dutifully observes the changing of the guard, every ounce of character motivation and backstory is relegated to a 20 minute stretch near the end of the first act. Best not to mix the drama with the buffet.

When it comes to fine dining, director Gareth Edwards is Rebirth’s ace in the hole, concocting a slew of involving set pieces that trump anything witnessed in the last couple outings. His knack for scale, momentum, and carnage is on full display in the flick’s lone T-Rex sequence, as well as a seafaring Mosasaurus bombardment that benefits from the novelty of its setting. You just wish the colossuses didn’t feel so weightless, and while the decision to harken back to the original by shooting on 35mm film gives the quieter moments the inviting graininess of yesteryear, it clashes spectacularly with the onslaught of CGI. Naturalistic lensing does wonders when propping up the tactility of practical effects, but Rebirth’s leviathans were made exclusively from behind the comforts of a keyboard. They feel removed, or out of place; any attempt to reach out and touch them would result in a handful of pixelated vapor.

But did you catch those fleeting compliments? Dominion left enough damage that even modest words of praise will be met with a formidable sigh of relief. This is still, somehow, the only prehistoric show in town, and until some hot shot executive realizes that Universal hasn’t managed to copyright dinosaurs just yet, we’ll have to take the good with the bad. Rebirth’s occasional facility with hair-raising tumult is enough to stock the former pantry, though the movie is telling on itself with all the name brand junk food that constantly litters its frame. You don’t so much watch the new Jurassic offering as gorge on it, reaching to the bottom of a crinkly bag, searching for the last crumbs of high calorie goodness. Devouring it in place of a well-rounded cinematic meal might lead to a stomach ache, but as it stands, that’s the price of admission. Unlike the World saga’s distractible populace, our appetite for dinosaurs simply cannot be quelled. Here’s hoping there’s something more nutritious in the next go-around.