Zora Bennett leads a team of skilled operatives to the most dangerous place on Earth, an island research facility for the original Jurassic Park. Their mission is to secure genetic material from dinosaurs whose DNA can provide life-saving benefits to mankind. As the top-secret expedition becomes more and more risky, they soon make a sinister, shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world for decades.
Director: Gareth Edwards
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ed Skrein
Release Date: July 2, 2025
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence/action, bloody images, some suggestive references, language and a drug reference.
Runtime: 2h 14m
Review:
Jurassic World Rebirth offers the big scale dinosaur action we've come to expect from the long running series however it suffers from an identity crisis as it struggles to figure out if it wants to lean into its horror roots or something more family friendly and safe. Gareth Edwards is perfectly capable of handling the dinosaur mayhem that occurs throughout the film by delivering impressive set pieces. There are sequences that are reminiscent of his older works such as The Creator, Godzilla and Monsters which work well for this franchise. The required T-Rex set piece is particularly well executed although people of a certain age might get heavy hints of the Land of the Lost intro from the 70's. The rest of the action is solid but it’s nothing groundbreaking or new which is disappointing since the crux of this entry being that this was an R&D island which worked on genetic splicing to create something new to keep the public’s waning interest in the park and their regular dinosaurs. It’s a bit of unintentional meta commentary on the series itself as this entry’s creatures really don't take any wild swings with the raptor/pterosaur hybrids and Distortus rex (which looks like a weird hybrid of the Rancor from Star Wars and an Alien from that franchise) which aren't nearly as memorable as they should be. The story doesn't help matter much as we get competing narratives with one following Johansson's covert opt to retrieve dino DNA and a random family that's rescued by her team after being shipwrecked by Mosasaurus. The script separates each group once they hit the island for no discernible reason other than to expand the geography of the film. Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali top line the film and their characters are given hints of deeper development which should have been nurtured with more screentime instead of the narrative tangents provided by the most generic family in the form of the Delgado's. It’s a headscratcher of a decision since the film has two top list stars that could have carried this film with general ease, but the script decides to sideline them for half the film's screentime. As a result, both groups of characters are underserved and they all come off as far more generic than they should be, especially considering the top tier talent. It leaves everything in Jurassic World Rebirth feel like a retread of the far superior original, something a steady series of clunky visual easter eggs manage to hammer home.
C+
