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For the first time in a decade, the Jurassic Park franchise is wiping the slate clean of familiar faces and embarking on a truly new adventure with Jurassic World: Rebirth, the fourth (standalone) installment in the Jurassic World saga.
Attempting to pave a new path forward for the franchise while honoring the lore established in previous installments, Gareth Edwards’ Jurassic World Rebirth is an aimless, uninspired entry that falters as both a standalone action-thriller and a continuation of an already endangered franchise.
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey, Jurassic World: Rebirth follows Zora Bennett (Johansson), a wise-cracking mercenary who leads a team including paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Bailey and crew leader Duncan Kincaid (Ali) on a covert expedition to retrieve live DNA samples from mutant dinosaurs on an abandoned island.
Despite the protestations of pharmaceutical representative Martin Krebs, who is bankrolling their expedition, Zora and her team alter course after picking up a distress call from a family under attack (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, and Audrina Miranda), only to discover that aquatic dinosaurs are hunting them.
Shipwrecked but determined to collect the live samples they came for, Zora and her team embark on a trio of up-close encounters with the island’s mutant inhabitants as the Delgado family (on the opposite side of the island) struggles to find their way back to civilization.
Taking place in the wake of (but not explicitly mentioning) Jurassic World Dominion, Rebirth’s first hour trudges by thanks to a clunky script from original Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp, who frontloads Johansson’s early dialogue with a boatload of exposition.
Though Chris Pratt’s Owen Grady isn’t the most memorable personality in cinematic history, Zora and her Jurassic World team hit a franchise low when it comes to personality, which is baffling considering the combined starpower of Johansson, Bailey, and Ali.
But while Zora may be played by a familiar (even beloved) face, Koepp’s script renders her devoid of any discernible personality traits, and she ping-pongs between being a stone-cold commando fighting for survival and a glib adventurer looking to get rich.
Zora is less of a character and more a conglomeration of cliches, and in turn, Jurassic World Rebirth is absent a cinematic sense of self. Mahershala Ali’s beret-clad Kincaid is another character who should work on paper but struggles to click when all the pieces are in place. Though Ali’s (Oscar-winning) acting chops aren’t in question, Kincaid is a similarly vague, sometimes-glib, sometimes-grim hero type moving through the motions of a Jurassic Park adventure.
Of the main trio, Jonathan Bailey’s bright-eyed, soft-hearted Dr. Loomis is the most vivid character: though he (like the other characters) is boiled down to the bare essentials of a paleontologist archetype, Bailey plays him with an endearing tenacity, injecting the film with brief but much-needed moments of wonder.
Though they spend a majority of the runtime separated from the rest of the cast (at times forcing the film to an excruciating crawl), the ill-fated Delgado family is also highlight of the Jurassic World ensemble. Iacono is pitch-perfect as Xavier, the devil-may-care boyfriend of teen daughter Teresa, while Audrina Miranda (Isabella) makes for a charming new addition to Jurassic Park’s canon of child characters.
Once everyone is on the island, the film (thankfully) picks up, with danger on all fronts and plenty of new mutant dinosaur breeds to terrorize unsuspecting adventurers. Jurassic World Rebirth is at its best in the throes of Edwards’ many blockbuster setpieces, rendering maximum dramatic potential from seeing young children in distress and delivering a handful of respectable scares and frightening visuals.
But while the abundance of action may keep things moving, the film’s ‘get the samples, then get out’ conceit forces the film to run in slow motion as we split time between following both the Delgados and Zora’s crew of expendable outlaws. Outside of the few aforementioned scares, Jurassic World Rebirth isn’t a particularly frightening film, but it also lacks the whimsy and the action-adventure spirit that make the franchise’s best entries so well-loved.
Without consistent chills or fully realized characters, Rebirth ends up a tepid, stale film whose bloated script struggles to deliver on the premise of a new chapter for a now decades-old adventure Despite how much time we spend with the ensemble of Jurassic World Rebirth (2 hours and 15 minutes) we don’t fundamentally know any of them, and the film suffers for it.
In the end, Jurassic World Rebirth is a franchise non-starter: a lengthy action-adventure abundant in setpieces but lacking in personality. Though Edwards has had success with monster movies and action-adventure films in the past (Godzilla, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), his stab at a Jurassic Park story lacks the ethos that made Spielberg’s ‘93 adaptation a classic.
Grade: C
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Jurassic World Rebirth
When Zora's operation intersects with a civilian family whose boating expedition was capsized, they all find themselves stranded on an island where they come face-to-face with a sinister, shocking discovery that's been hidden from the world for decades.
Release Date: July 2, 2025
Director: Gareth Edwards
Cast: Scarlett Johansson , Mahershala Ali , Jonathan Bailey
