Jurassic World Rebirth

• Directed by Gareth Edwards
• June 17, 2025 (Leicester Square) / July 2, 2025 (US)
• Based on characters and situations created by Michael Crichton

A team travels to a former research facility where three specific gigantic species of dinosaurs live with the goal of taking tissue samples for a new heart disease treatment. Physical health is no longer necessary.

I had heard that a candy wrapper starts the problems in the of Jurassic World Rebirth and I was horrified to find out that nobody was joking. Combine that with nobody monitoring the warning systems and you have a bad cliché recipe for disaster. There needs to be set up for a scenario but a cascading failure of less silly origins was not possible?

A plot point of this movie is that nobody in the Jurassic universe cares about dinosaurs anymore hence all these park-specific Franken-creatures that provide bigger threats than something from the actual fossil record. It is a bit of meta commentary aimed at the audience but definitely at those involved in making the movie. No matter how you feel about this film it made $869 million or so that bit says a lot. Bold to tell the truth to the audience.

This is largely two stories merged into one script. The first is a team lead by tough-as-nails covert operation expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) who is hired by shady executive Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) to extract samples from three very large dinosaurs because they never suffered from heart disease and what the lab people need cannot be replicated in their facilities via DNA samples.

The other story involves single father Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) and his family as well as the daughter’s boyfriend on vacation sailing in dangerous dinosaur infested waters because that makes sense. Both stories connect to give the soldiers reason to be concerned for others before separating for character-in-jeopardy stuff before coming together so the soldiers can get heroic.

Separately, there is not enough for a single movie. Both narratives are independent with the overlap of each not impacting either. Together there certainly is a two-hour film. One is an action storyline where they have near death scenes while trying to harvest dinosaur DNA or whatever they need. The other involves a family bonding trip with an understanding developed as they face the elements.

Aside from being way too hot to be a believable soldier, Johansson utters much of that quippy Marvel dialogue which has become so popular. Humor is fine, but when it undermines drama or action or anything really it is a bad idea. Then again, this stars Scarlett Johansson who willingly performed such undermining dialogue for years in exchange for very healthy paychecks.

Clearly I have trouble buying Scarlett Johansson as a hardened anything and that is what Zora is supposed to be but only as needed for the moment. When she does not need to be she is kind of sensitive and caring with a strong moral code. Director Gareth Edwards and writer David Koepp had no idea who the character was.

I have never been one to ride the Scarlett Johansson train. I think she’s highly overrated and generally is wooden in her performances. Not consistently but frequently. She just happens to be amazing to look at and being a sex object has carried her largely through her career though as she ages I am guessing she is looking for roles like those of Zora that rely less on good looks. She has one expression and one voice to bring to each performance and nothing beyond that.

Interactions between characters in Jurassic World Rebirth that know each other feel closer to strangers trying to have a pleasant talk rather than two people who know each other. I have seen more comfort between two husbands that have never met before left to chat it up while their wives go off to have a good time. Because these characters are not only strangers to each other but to us this has all the tension and excitement of a TV pilot.

Characters are very one dimensional. There is no growth or depth beyond a surface glance. You know everything you need within a few seconds making caring about things they do unimportant because there is nothing there.

Early on team paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) openly says to Zora that he wants to open source what they find rather than turning it over to the evil pharmaceutical company. She is a complete stranger that gets paid to shoot and break things but he thinks she will be totally cool. Not that we are ever worried on that front or on his chance of success.

Gone is the sense of wonder or just a sensation of what you are looking at being cool when the dinosaurs come on. That is when we do get them. Perhaps it is because they are moving away from dinosaurs and going to strictly monsters. Or maybe it is because this series has gone on too long and they are out of ideas. 

Other than to get some civilians in the mix, why did that dad go into dangerous waters? It was no secret that big water dwelling prehistoric creatures lived in the area and boats were not supposed to be there. They try to cover it up with him saying there are dozens of boats in the area but that does not make excuse it. He is supposed to be a really concerned father taking his family on an outing. It does not explain why he decided it was a good idea to go into known dangerous waters. You do not go swimming in shark infested water. Why would you go sailing in water with prehistoric sea beasts that will probably eat you just because you are easy snacking?

Rather than mixing things up Rebirth feels like more of the same. Nothing special here. The setting is not particularly unique and the goal of retrieving something only found on yet another dinosaur island is uninspired. Of all the environments on Earth that the dinosaurs were previously in, we go to one seen in all the other films.

To create danger characters conveniently look one way when they should be looking the other. Once that might work, but when it is done every time it becomes cliché. One would think Gareth Edwards and David Koepp were above such laziness. Then again there is a lack of imagination here.

There are noticeable moments of CGI used in this. I am not referencing the dinosaurs. I am talking about background on the boat or to make someplace appear as NYC. If the problem is the boat moving while filming then stop it and film. If you are not in New York City, then point the camera down so you do not get a look at the skyline. So much fakery breaks the illusion.

It’s coming down very much against big pharma. It’s not off the mark to say that pharmaceutical companies are a business, but the characters have high ideals of outsourcing this technology to the whole world though how you get the samples open source I don’t know. How do you get the limited supply to everybody to analyze and synthesize the wonder drug?

Sometimes I think no matter how much I want to see another movie, a franchise should stay dead. I think this is the case based on what we get in Jurassic Park Rebirth. I would love to see another Jurassic Park movie but not like this. Not one lacking dinosaurs or excitement or thrills. This is just a generic monster movie with the name of another franchise on making this a disappointment. Skip.