Starring Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey, the latest in the dinosaur blockbuster series follows the template created by the original Jurassic Park – but it’s no match for it.

Eww. There is a definite whiff of staleness about the latest Jurassic film, which strains to come up with a fresh take on a formula – outrun those dinosaurs – that has made billions of dollars and clearly can’t be messed with too much. It turns out the film-makers should have messed with it a little more. Jurassic World Rebirth has major stars in Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey, and better-designed creatures than ever, but so few thrills that it may be the weakest of the Jurassic franchise.

This seventh in the series is essentially a reboot of a reboot, and follows the template Steven Spielberg created in the first Jurassic Park, starring Sam Neill and Laura Dern, 32 years ago. Three films were followed by the Jurassic World trilogy with Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard. And this next instalment sounded promising. Johansson, so vibrant as an action star in Black Widow, plays Zora Bennett, a mercenary hired by a Big Pharma company to retrieve dinosaur DNA. Bailey fits smoothly into the role of Dr Henry Loomis, a brainy palaeontologist who goes along on the dangerous mission. He can identify the dinosaurs, which roam freely on an abandoned equatorial island where experiments to create hybrids went wrong. Their DNA will be used to create a drug to prevent heart disease, providing huge profits for the pharmaceutical company that hires Zora. Rupert Friend plays the villain, the company’s greedy representative, which instantly makes him the most likely to be chomped on by a dinosaur. And Mahershala Ali plays Zora’s trustworthy colleague, a sailor hired to take them to the island.

But it’s a problem when a film’s main, star-filled story is overshadowed by the subplot, which is the unlikely outcome in Rebirth. As always in a Jurassic film, there is a family in danger. Here, the father is Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, of Netflix series The Lincoln Lawyer). He is on a boat trip with his daughters, college-age Teresa (Luna Blaise) and 11-year-old Isabella (Audrina Miranda, very good at looking frightened), and Teresa’s boyfriend, Xavier (David Iacono). Their story is the most suspenseful from the start, when their boat is attacked and capsized by a huge dinosaur-fish – officially a Mosasaur, bigger than a whale and more vicious than a shark – in a sequence with Jaws-like levels of danger. They are rescued by Zora’s crew, but on the island become separated. For most of the film, the family’s plot runs parallel to the expedition’s, and is more effectively executed as they trudge through the woods jumping at any growling sound, discovering that what looks like a tree stump could be a napping dinosaur.

The threats are more visceral for the family in part because their characters might be victims at any moment. What are the odds that Scarlett Johansson or Jonathan Bailey will be gobbled up? The stars’ close calls have to be especially tense to make up for their certain survival, as they are in most Jurassic films. Here their scrapes aren’t frightening enough to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. The director, Gareth Edwards (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and most recently The Creator) doesn’t often put them as close to the dinosaurs as he puts the family, and the action is bland. When Henry clings to the edge of a cliff by his fingertips, you might generously think of it as homage to any number of things, but it lands as a cliché. And Edwards adds some distracting bits of business. At two different points, Henry chews loudly on a mint, a cringy unsuccessful stab at humour.

Text at the start of the film explains that in the years since dinosaurs returned, they have become endangered by environmental changes and also that “public interest waned”. Interest can wane for cinematic dinosaurs, too, and while that hasn’t happened yet, the line sounds like a mandate for Rebirth to create bigger and scarier monsters. Zora and Henry have to tranquilize and get DNA from a Titanosaurus, the largest ever carnivore, and from the flying, vicious, beaked Quetzalcoatlus, as well as the swimming Mosasaurus. Along with many other creatures, they are not as frightening as they are impressive, sometimes beautiful to look at in their gigantic scale. At one point we see dozens of long-necked dinosaurs grazing peacefully. John Williams’ majestic original theme music, which composer Alexandre Desplat inserts gracefully into his new score, soars, and we can feel the awe Henry does as he stares at creatures he has never seen before.

But that scene, deliberately echoing the sense of wonder that Neill and Dern’s characters – and the cinema audience – experienced when seeing herds of peaceful dinos in Jurassic Park, is a reminder of how well Spielberg’s original holds up. Among all seven films, it is unsurpassed in building tension and keeping viewers enthralled. The sequels have been up and down, never quite matching the original for sheer excitement. Edwards has said that Spielberg consulted on the story and was “very involved” in making Rebirth, but that obviously isn’t the same as directing it. If you can’t improve on Spielberg – and really, when it comes to this kind of film, who can? – better to try something bold to prevent any waning dino-interest.