Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)

By: Mike Ward on Wednesday, July 02

PG-13 Running Time: 134 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

  • The seventh Jurassic Park/World film offers the promise of a rebirth and a new lead actor in Scarlett Johansson. Hey, at least it is better than recent films Dominion and Fallen Kingdom.

  • Fans will appreciate more nods and winks to the nostalgia of previous films, while the score, sound design, and visual effects add to an unpredictability and uncertainty throughout the film.

  • If you love jump scares, unlikable characters, and snarky one-liners, Jurassic World Rebirth may be the movie for you!

NO

  • Any depth of story, character development, or exploring of ethical and moral questions about the subject matter are ignored for a movie that becomes, basically, “Dino Attack!”

  • At one point, I was rooting for the dinosaurs.

  • We are so far removed from anything Steven Spielberg envisioned, these Jurassic World films simply tell variations of the same general premise - humans must control and/or destroy what they have created. Was that the actual intent of Jurassic Park?


OUR REVIEW

Though I don’t have an official review posted, both things can be true: The 2022 film Jurassic World Dominion was a massive financial success and a lazy, slipshod attempt at storytelling. A muddled mix of nostalgia and badly paced suspense and dim-witted dialogue somehow seemed to please enough moviegoers (and studio brass), that we now have a fourth Jurassic World film, Rebirth. This means there are now more Jurassic World films than Jurassic Park films, if you happen to be scoring at home. 

Let’s look at positives: This is a better film than Dominion, Fallen Kingdom or Jurassic World. The movie has a handful of witty one-liners. There are effective jump scares. The dinosaurs look incredible. The sound design is intense. Alexandre Desplat incorporates familiar elements from John Williams’ iconic Jurassic Park score, adding to the nostalgic vibe the movie aims for, while John Mathieson’s cinematography varies between observing the carnage from a distance and being up close and personal as characters carefully navigate uncertain surroundings.

There are a few gnarly kills. And director Gareth Edwards tries to maintain a degree of unpredictable intensity and uncertainty. 

And then … there’s everything else. 

Jurassic World Rebirth promises something refreshing and new, but is essentially a “rebirth” in name only. No one returns from the 2022 Dominion film, but we are given yet another story of scientists and greedy pharmaceutical executives angling for how the dinosaurs can benefit them.

We also have Scarlett Johansson in this installment, playing Zora, a “special ops” mercenary hired by a sleazy suit named Martin (Rupert Friend). Zora is offered lots of money to put together a team to travel near the equator to s̶t̶e̶a̶l̶ extract DNA samples from three distinctive types of dinosaurs - one from the water, one from the land, and one from the sky.

Zora assembles her squad, including paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), old friend Duncan (Mahershala Ali), and a few other teammates who apparently exist to either complicate things or get chomped on by the monsters they are agitating.

Returning Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp hints at bigger, weightier topics. We learn that in the five years since the events of the previous film, human beings are pretty much “over” the whole dinosaur thing. Dinosaurs are starting to die off again, many unable to survive in a modern climate. Dr. Loomis’ dinosaur museum is closing when Zora finds him because of a lack of interest.

For most of the film’s 134 minutes, we wander around Ile Saint-Hubert, a remote island with an abandoned research facility. Things move in the grass. Odd sounds crackle around Zora’s team. We have giant sea monsters, long-billed bird-like creatures, and a host of hybrid dino creations, allegedly caused by cross-breeding, running amok at the remote location. 

We also have a subplot involving a family of four - a dad, two daughters, and the older daughter’s aloof boyfriend - rescued by Zora’s crew when their boat capsizes in the Atlantic Ocean.

I understand that people are not buying Jurassic World Rebirth tickets to watch an ethical, message-heavy movie. Concepts about how humans can be their own worst enemies, or how climate change threatens all living things, could be worth exploring. 

Hear me out though - what if these movies dug into the ideas Spielberg previously explored? For example, how humans resurrected dinosaurs for profit and created creatures who are largely miserable, confused, desperate to survive, and acting out because they are genetically altered? 

Instead, these movies have narrowed focus and tell basically one singular story: “Dinosaurs are bad. We must control and/or destroy them.”

Fun moments exist here and there, but Jurassic World Rebirth is mostly a bore that telegraphs several key moments, tries to deliver callbacks to other Jurassic Park/World films and never finds a proper voice. 

Johansson delivers one of my favorite lines of the year when she says - and I am paraphrasing here - “If we hit those rocks, we will crash!”  A reminder that we are far, far removed from Jeff Goldblum’s classic line from 1993’s Jurassic Park …

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”

Just know that if, at any point, you find yourself rooting for the dinosaurs … you’re not alone. 

CAST & CREW

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, Audrina Miranda, Philippine Velge, Bechir Sylvain, Ed Skrein

Director: Gareth Edwards
Written by: David Koepp
Based on characters originally created by Michael Crichton
Release Date: July 2, 2025
Universal Pictures