Ed Skrein Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Jurassic World Rebirth,’ starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono and Audrina Miranda

June 30, 2025

by Carla Hay

David Iacono, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey in “Jurassic World Rebirth” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment)

Directed by Gareth Edwards

Culture Representation: Taking place near South America, the sci-fi/action film “Jurassic World Rebirth” (the seventh feature film in the “Jurassic” series) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latin people and a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A rogue group of explorers and an unsuspecting family get trapped on an island where dinosaurs live and attack.

Culture Audience: “Jurassic World Rebirth” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the “Jurassic” movie series and the movie’s headliners, but the movie rehashes many of the same themes and storylines.

A Spinosaurus in “Jurassic World Rebirth” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment)

“Jurassic World Rebirth” should be called “Jurassic World Rehash.” It delivers plenty of action, but it borrows heavily from the plot of “Jurassic World III,” with no real innovation or surprises regarding who lives, who dies, and what the dinosaurs do. “Jurassic World Rebirth” has a lot of awkward acting and unconvincing scenes. And the product placement in the movie is just obnoxiously ridiculous. You can immediately spot many of the product placements by how certain brands of candy, breath mints and potato chips are pushed into the forefront of a scene so that they’re impossible to ignore.

Directed by Gareth Edwards and written by David Koepp, “Jurassic World Rebirth” is the seventh feature film in the “Jurassic” movie series that began with 1993’s “Jurassic Park,” which is still the best movie in the series. “Jurassic Park” and 1997’s “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” were based on, respectively, Michael Crichton’s novels “Jurassic Park” (first published in 1990) and “The Lost World” (first published in 1995). The “Jurassic World” movies are sequels to the first three “Jurassic Park” movies.

“Jurassic World Rebirth” takes place in five years after the events of 2022’s “Jurassic World Dominion.” Do you have to see any of the other “Jurassic Park” movies to understand “Jurassic World Rebirth”? No, because “Jurassic World Rebirth” has an entire cast of characters who were not in the previous “Jurassic” movies and “Jurassic World Rebirth” is essentially about people trying not to be killed by dinosaurs.

According to the “Jurassic World Rebirth” production notes, here is what Earth is like in the story: “The planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures across land, sea and air within that tropical biosphere hold, in their DNA, the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind. And so, in ‘Rebirth,’ dinosaurs are in danger of extinction once more. The only places they continue to thrive are the tropical climes along the equator.”

“Jurassic World” begins by showing a catastrophe that happened 17 years ago on Ile Saint-Hubert, located 227 miles off the northeastern coast of South America. (“Jurassic World Rebirth” was actually filmed in the United Kingdom and in Malta.) The island had a secret research and development facility operated by InGen, the company known for cloning dinosaurs in the previous “Jurassic” movies. The movie’s opening scene shows that a worker in the facility unknowingly left a discarded candy bar wrapper on the floor.

This candy bar wrapper got stuck in an air vent and caused a giant glass-enclosed research lab to reboot the system and then explode, killing most of the people inside. The research lab housed dinosaurs that were being used for illegal experiments. After the explosion, the facility was shut down permanently, but the dinosaurs and their offspring remained on this secret island.

In the present day (2025), certain people have discovered that each of the largest types of dinosaurs left behind on Ile Saint-Hubert have genetic DNA that can cure heart disease in humans. The three types of dinosaurs are Quetzalcoatlus (avian), Mosasaurus (aquatic), and Titanosaurus (terrestrial). With this confidential knowledge, it’s only a matter of time before a greedy corporate type wants to get this dinosaur DNA and profit from it.

Martin Krebs (played by Rupert Friend) is the corrupt leader of a major American pharmaceutical company that wants to obtain this DNA, which would be illegal. Martin doesn’t care, and he’s got the wealth to buy their services of a team that will go to Ile Saint-Hubert and get the DNA. Martin wants to personally go on this mission too because he doesn’t trust anyone else to handle the DNA once it’s extracted.

Leading this extraction mission is no-nonsense Zora Bennett (played Scarlett Johansson), a longtime mercernary/special operations agent, who agrees to for this job for Martin for $10 million. Martin and Zora then convince Dr. Henry Loomis (played by Jonathan Bailey)—a museum-based paleontologist whose specialty is colossal dinosaurs—to join the this covert team.

Zora then visits a longtime friend and former colleague named Duncan Kincaid (played by Mahershala Ali), the captain of a camouflaged military patrol craft named The Essex. Duncan is very skeptical but Zora persuades Duncan to join this mission with select members of Duncan’s crew. The three members of Duncan’s crew who are part of this mission are adventurous co-pilot/deckhand Nina (played by Philippine Velge), reliable co-pilot/deckhand LeClerc (played by Bechir Sylvain) and daredevil security chief Bobby Atwater (played by Ed Skrein). All of them are enticed by the money they will be paid.

Why such a small crew for a big mission? Martin explains the less people who know about this mission, the better. The team has giant hypodermic needles to collect the samples when the needles are shot from arsenal into the dinosaurs. Once a needle filled, the needle self-ejects and triggers an attached parachute that will presumably float into hands of the person who wants the needle. This needle parachuting has some of the most ridiculous “too good to be true” moments in the movie.

Not long after The Essex sets sail for Ile Saint-Hubert, a group on a very different boat excursion will cross paths with the people on The Essex. Divorced father Reuben Delgado (played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) is contuinuing their annual tradition of taking his two daughters on a sailing trip. Teresa Delgado (played by Luna Blaise), who is 18, is going to be a first-year student at New York University and feels she has outgrown these father-daughter excursions. Isabella Delgado (played by Audrina Miranda), who is 11, very much wants to be on this trip with her family.

Someone else has joined the Delgado family for this boat trip: Teresa’s eccentric boyfriend Xavier Dobbs (played by David Iacono), who comes across as a weirdo stoner. Reuben doesn’t know what to think about Xavier, who doesn’t talk much and seems to be the opposite of intelligent and goal-oriented Teresa. But in a movie where people of different backgrounds find themselves fighting for their lives against dinosaurs, you already know that certain characters who were at first uncomfortable with each other will be forced to work together and see each other in a different way.

Terror comes quickly to the Delgado group when a Spinosaurus in the ocean attacks and capsizes the group’s boat. After a harrowing sequence (one of the better parts of an otherwise formulaic movie), the Delgado group is rescued by the people on The Essex. None of this is spoiler information because the trailers for “Jurassic World Dominion” lready show the Delgado group and The Essex group in peril together.

The Delgado group just wants to go home. However, some people from The Essex group want to continue to push forward to Ile Saint-Hubert and drop off the Delgado group to safety after the dinosaur DNA samples are obtained. After much debate, it’s decided that the Delgado group will have to wait until people in The Essex group get what they set out to get. The people in the Essex group are secretive about why they want this dinosaur DNA, but they can’t hide the fact that they’re acting suspiciously.

With the Delgado group forced to tag along on this mission, you know what that means: More people for the dinosaurs to attack. “Jurassic World Rebirth” just has a series of attack scenarious that look very familiar to the “Jurassic” movie franchise, but with different-looking dinosaurs. It should come as no surprise that the dinosaurs that were used in experiements look very different. (Can you say “mutant”?)

The personal stories of the human characters are basic, scant and unremarkable. Zora is a loner who’s still dealing with the trauma of a combat colleague dying in a car bombing. It’s also mentioned that Zora did not attend her mother’s recent funeral. Duncan, who is a divorced father of an underage son, is experiencing heartbreak because of his failed marriage.

Self-professed “dinosaur nerd” Henry doesn’t seem to have a personal life at all because he’s so consumed with his work. Martin is the movie’s obvious heartless villian, so the movie doesn’t even mention who his loved ones are. And the people in Duncan’s crew are generic characters whose fate in the movie can be easily be predicted.

And so that leaves the Delgado group to give “Jurassic World Rebirth” viewers an immediate and visible sense that they are the people with the most at stake in staying alive for their loved ones. The movie sometimes struggles between giving attention to The Essex group versus the Delgado group, who are each separated from each other at different points in the movie. In between all the dinosaur action, there’s some tedious drama about whether or not Xavier will be fully accepted by Reuben.

“Jurassic Park III” also has a plot about dinosaurs needed for research to improve human lives, with people hiring a rogue group to take them on a secret private visit to the “forbidden” island populated by dinosaurs. “Jurassic Park III” also has a family with siblings who are trapped on the island, but the siblings are brothers in “Jurassic Park III.” And just like in “Jurassic Park III,” there’s a Spinosaurus and there are Velociraptors in major attack scenes.

“Jurassic World Rebirth” does introduce new dinosaurs that weren’t in previous “Jurassic” films. Not all of them will be described here, but one is a baby Aquilops, who follows the Delgado group like a stray puppy and has a mischievous-but-cute personality. Isabella grows attached to this female Aquilops, names her Dolores, and wants to keep Dolores as a pet. It’s all very “Lilo & Stitch.”

The visual effects in “Jurassic World Rebirth” do not disappoint, but the action scenarios and chase scenes are just retreads of other movies. Similarly, there’s nothing terrible about the acting performances in “Jurassic World Rebirth,” but the dialogue is often just witless drivel. No one is expecting a “Jurassic” movie to be intellectual, but at least these movies should make the dialogue sound like realistic conversations, not something that could have been generated by cheap artificial intelligence. “Jurassic World Rebirth” is a movie that is ultimately stuck in the birth canal of creativity and shows no interest in evolving past its predecessors.

Universal Pictures will release “Jurassic World Rebirth” in U.S. cinemas on July 2, 2025.

Review: ‘Naked Singularity,’ starring John Boyega, Olivia Cooke, Bill Skarsgård and Ed Skrein

August 24, 2021

by Carla Hay

“Naked Singularity”

Directed by Chase Palmer

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in New York City, the dramatic film “Naked Singularity” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: An idealistic public defender, who gets involved with a female drug courier, has to decide if he’s going to help her or betray her by stealing one of her big drug hauls that’s worth a small fortune.

Culture Audience: “Naked Singularity” will appeal primarily to people who like watching cliché and unrealistic heist flicks.

Ed Skrein and Olivia Cooke in “Naked Singularity” (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)

“Naked Singularity” is a perfect example of talented stars who are stuck in a terrible movie. All of the principal cast members have done much better work elsewhere. This heist movie, which could have been thrilling to watch, is instead mired in a permanent creative rut filled with outdated depictions of women.

There’s absolutely nothing original about “Naked Singularity,” except some mystical mumbo jumbo from a conspiracy-spouting nutcase—a supporting character in the movie—who rambles on about how singularity in the universe is the loss of physics. This crackpot theory serves as the basis for the title of this film, which was adapted from Sergio De La Pava’s 2008 novel “A Naked Singularity.” This award-winning book has been turned into a horrific mess of a movie.

“Naked Singularity” is the feature-film directorial debut of Chase Palmer. He co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with David Matthews, who has a background in television and also makes his feature-film debut with “Naked Singularity.” Palmer wrote the screenplay for the 2017 horror movie blockbuster “It,” which might explain why “It” star Bill Skarsgård (who played the evil clown Pennywise) was suckered into being in a flop like “Naked Singularity.”

The cast members actually do fairly good jobs in their roles. Too bad they have to spout some ridiculous lines and depict even more ludicrous situations. The first clue that this movie is going to be horrible is in the opening scene, which depicts a New York City courthouse that looks more like a jail or psychiatric institution. Belligerent criminals, one with his trousers down to expose his half-naked butt, get rowdy in the hallways and have to be subdued by security officers. Random people are yelling at each other. An attorney snorts cocaine in a bathroom.

Amid this chaos is idealistic public defender Casi (played by John Boyega), who’s in his mid-20s and in his first job out of law school. Casi (whose name is pronounced “Cassie”) wants to be a public defender because he thinks the system is rigged against disenfranchised people, and he wants to try to level the playing field. Viewers will soon see that Casi doesn’t level the playing field for his clients. He demolishes it because he’s such a terrible lawyer.

Even though Casi is the movie’s protagonist, don’t expect much of a backstory for him or any of the other characters in “Naked Singularity. ” Apparently, these people don’t have families or anything else going on in their lives besides work and the dumb heist that’s at the center of this movie’s flimsy plot. It’s an example of how hollow and boring these characters are.

Meanwhile, tough-talking and sarcastic Lea DeLeon (played by Olivia Cooke) works as a front-desk clerk at a tow pound. One day, a sleazy-looking guy comes up to her window and tries to flirt and sweet-talk his way into convincing Lea to let him drive one of the impounded cars off of the parking lot. His story is that he’s there to pick up the car for a friend, whom he says is unavailable.

Lea doesn’t fall for this obvious lie, because this guy doesn’t have a notarized statement from the so-called “friend.” Lea casually dismisses this con artist, and he reluctantly walks away. But judging from how Lea looks at him, it’s easy to see she thinks he’s kind of cute, in a way that seems to say, “I know he’s up to no good, but I’d sleep with him anyway.” Lea looks like the type to go for “bad boys.”

And sure enough, not long after meeting this liar, Lea (who’s single and lives alone) is swiping through a dating app on her phone, when she sees him. She finds out his name is Craig (played by Ed Skrein) and he’s very single and available. The next thing you know, Lea and Craig are having sex at her place.

The next morning, Lea is about to send Craig on his way because she sees him as just a one-night stand. But you don’t have to be a psychic to know that this loser, who tried to con Lea the first time that he met her, is still going to try to find a way to get the car that he wants. He won’t leave Lea’s apartment, he starts making threats, and she ends up pulling a gun on him.

Viewers later find out why he wants the car. It’s for the most obvious reason possible when it’s revealed that a Mexican drug cartel wants the car too. There’s a stash of heroin hidden in the car. And it’s supposedly worth on the low end of several million dollars.

It’s not shown in the movie, but Lea eventually did agree to help Craig, but she got busted at work for it. Not only did she get fired, but her boss had her arrested. And that’s how Lea ends up as Casi’s client. Lea and Casi have met each other before, although the circumstances under which they met are a little vague. It has to do with her previous criminal record, which is never explained in the movie, but whatever she did was serious enough for her to spend time in prison, because she’s on parole.

Even though Casi and Lea have met before, this is the first time that Casi has become Lea’s attorney. She admits to him that Craig offered $100,000 to Lea get the heroin that’s stashed in the car. The car and the heroin are still at the tow pound.

Casi soon finds out that being Lea’s attorney is going to be a lot more complicated than he thought it would be. She tells him that her life is in danger from Craig unless she can get the heroin. Craig wants to sell the heroin to a drug lord called the Golem (played by Kyle Mooney), an Orthodox Jew who leads a criminal gang of other Orthodox Jews. Yes, this movie is that bad.

Casi wants nothing to do with this drug deal at first, but there would be no “Naked Singularity” movie if he stayed clear of Lea’s messy problems. After Casi gets suspended from his job for six months for breaching courtroom protocol, his corrupt co-worker Dane (played by Skarsgård), the attorney seen snorting cocaine in the movie’s opening scene, convinces Carl that maybe the two of them should try to steal the heroin for themselves. Don’t forget the Mexican drug cartel, because they want that heroin stash too. Meanwhile, a narcotics cop named Detective Winston (played by Robert Christopher Riley) is hot on the trail and wants to bust this drug cartel.

“Naked Singularity” has a subplot of the antagonistic courtroom relationship that Casi has with the stern Judge Cymbeline (played by Linda Lavin), who is apparently the only judge in New York’s criminal court system, since she’s the only judge whom Casi is seen interacting with every time he has a case. Casi, like an idiot, mouths off and is rude to the judge, which leads to the judge filing the formal complaint that gets him suspended. The movie tries to make it look like Judge Cymbeline could be racist, but anyone with common sense can see that Casi is his own worst enemy in the courtroom. He’s woefully incompetent at his job.

Who does Casi have in his life to turn to for advice? An eccentric and scruffy loner named Angus (played by Tim Blake Nelson), who spouts a lot of what he thinks is deep philosophical thoughts but it’s really nonsensical crap. Angus is the one who imparts his “singularity” theory on Casi. Angus also has a samurai sword that Casi ends up taking, because you know that sword is going to be used at some point during the inevitable fight with the drug dealers.

It should come as no surprise that Casi and Lea end up sleeping together. It happens after he’s suspended and can no longer be her attorney. It’s an example of how Lea, who’s supposedly “street smart,” is still treated as a not-very-smart sex object by the filmmakers. Needless to say, the filmmakers have Lea usually dressed in some type of revealing clothing.

Lea made the dumb decision to invite Craig over to her place, knowing he was some kind of criminal who wanted to illegally get that car from the tow pound. Did she think that Craig would forget about that, just because she slept with him? Apparently so. But it just set her up as an easy target for him to threaten.

However, later in the story, this movie inexplicably has Lea threaten Craig, by demanding that he give her $1 million so that she will give up her criminal lifestyle and go away. Does that make any sense? Of course it doesn’t, because this is an idiotic movie. By the way, Lea’s $1 million demand isn’t blackmail, because whatever incriminating information she has on Craig, she’s involved in those same crimes. And remember, she’s on parole.

Throughout “Naked Singularity,” there’s a countdown to what this movie calls “the collapse,” which might lead people to believe that Casi or someone else in the story might be headed toward some kind of mental breakdown. “Naked Singularity” is too shallow for that. It’s just a dumber-than-average heist movie, with predictable double crosses and violence.

Although all of the principal characters in this movie are American, the principal stars of the movie all come from other countries. Boyega, Cooke and Skrein are British, while Skarsgård is Swedish. Their American accents vary from convincing and consistent (Cooke) to average (Boyega and Skarsgård) to a little shaky (Skrein). Boyega adopts a nerdy Midwestern American accent, even though the movie gives the impression that Casi grew up in New York City. However, viewers will never find out what Casi’s background is because “Naked Singularity” is such a poorly written movie.

“Naked Singularity” is one of those “let’s try to outsmart the gangsters” movies written and directed men, who give male actors the most prominent roles and have one token female (almost always young and attractive) who gets to tag along for the ride. In these “boys club” movies with top billing going to several men and one token woman, older women have much smaller roles, usually as nurturing maternal types (which doesn’t apply to this movie’s characters) or as hard-nosed battle-axes, like Judge Cymbeline. Casi has an older female boss named Liszt (played by Liza Colón-Zayas), another “battle-axe” type, and she gets less than five minutes of screen time. All the other female characters in this movie are just extras, almost all of whom have no names and don’t speak.

Women and girls are 51% of the population in the United States and in the world. Therefore, it’s really moronic how certain filmmakers, such as the people who made “Naked Singularity,” continue to peddle these narrow-minded, outdated and inaccurate views of women as a minority who only exist for men to fight with, have sex with, or do dirty deals with so the men can get rich. That’s how women are portrayed in this garbage movie. And yes, Lea could get a cut of the deal that’s at stake, but the men get more money out of it overall, so the men still come out on top.

“Naked Singularity” starts out trying to be a message movie about bucking the legal system as an underdog. But it ends up going into a lazy and uninteresting downward spiral of being a doltish heist movie that looks as phony as a counterfeit bill. Luckily for the stars of “Naked Singularity,” their talent will land them in better projects, and this embarrassing dud will be a forgettable footnote in their careers.

Screen Media Films released “Naked Singularity” in select U.S. cinemas on August 6, 2021, and on digital an VOD on August 13, 2021. The movie’s release on Blu-ray and DVD is on October 5, 2021.