Jurassic World Rebirth (2025): Movie Review
Another so so entry into the franchise
Since the release of Stephen Spielberg’s classic genre-defying blockbuster film Jurassic Park (1994), with each passing entry, the Jurassic franchise continues to stumble over itself while trying to top what came before. Following the dreadful “finale” that was Jurassic World Dominion (2022) is Gareth Edwards's Jurassic World Rebirth (2025), which tries to capture the scale and wonder of the original Spielberg magic to mixed results. Edwards can still deliver what he does best through warm, colorful visuals and a few standout sequences of masterfully crafted tension, but it’s all hindered by an incredibly poor screenplay. The lead actors try their best to add weight to some paper-thin characters and dialogue but Rebirth unfortunately shows that these films still can't tread out of their pool of mediocrity.
The film’s central narrative is relatively auto-pilot even for the standards of this franchise; we start five years after the events of the aforementioned Jurassic World Dominion and meet covert operations expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) who is tasked by Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) to lead a skilled team on a mission to retrieve genetic material from the worlds three biggest dinosaurs in their natural habitat to create a life-saving medicine. Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) acts as a true guide to the dinosaurs they are tracking while Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) is their pro for travel. When their operation intersects with a capsized-at-sea civilian family, they all must journey together and face a mutant dinosaur the likes of which no one has ever seen.
Sure, character, clever story, and dialogue have never been the strong point of this franchise, but it would be preferable to have even a bit of weight on most of these characters. They all end up having small shades to them that are interesting like Duncan’s protection of children when things between his wife didn’t work out, but it never culminates to much of any substance to pretty much anyone. This cast manages to at least be more charming, so nothing is as truly egregious as previous entries but the shallow screenplay isn’t able to back them up. Anytime there is an actual exciting sequence or captivating image crafted, it is followed by clunky and unfunny dialogue or the same tired tricks of cheap musical echoes of the original or empty references yet again struggle to determine whether the franchise wants to give us something new, or continue to huff the smoke from the greatness that was 22 years ago.
Despite these glaring issues, it is still a picture helmed by Gareth Edwards so some of its intended impact still has some heft. It's clear that Edwards in key moments tries to capture the tension-filled and wonderfully captivating atmosphere that once breathed refreshing life into this franchise and he mostly delivers even if it’s never quite as astonishing. The new massive mutant dinosaur (that feels like a mix of a T-Rex and a Xenomorph from the Alien franchise) at times channels a lot of the monster movie scale that Edwards accomplished in 2014 Godzilla where the sheer monstrosity of the Dinos is shown to us in full scale with pretty remarkable visual effects. The standout from all this is the famous original book-written raft sequence where a T-Rex chases the family of four when they get split up from the specialist team at the film’s halfway point. It truly lives up to the hype and has a fun tension-filled atmosphere with seeing how close the dinosaur is to taking its next meal and images like the Rex puncturing through the bottom of the raft with its teeth, its moments like these where the film is at its best and while yes it never comes close to matching Spielberg’s wonderfully crafted bliss, it's nice to see nonetheless. Even with these few positives however, Rebirth manages to still make some of these scenes just as weightless as its characters with other Dino scenes being shockingly lacking of true stakes.
Rebirth overall is a subpar use of entertainment where it’s far more frustrating than satisfying. There is potential in key moments of the film that could’ve made it a great surprise from the franchise but its shoddy screenplay and safe nature never rise above “at least it’s better than the other ones” boring status overall. Edwards tries his best to add any sort of magic but the franchise continues to drown in its own nostalgia-driven and hollow blockbuster emptiness.