Jurassic World Rebirth Review: Nearly a New Beginning

In its first two scenes, Jurassic World Rebirth doesn’t feel very much like a rebirth at all. In the first, a mutant hybrid dinosaur called the Distortus rex gets loose from its pen and wreaks havoc on a bunch of scientists. In the second, New Yorkers complain about a traffic jam caused by a dying brontosaurus.

Both the idea that humans have grown tired of the dinosaurs who were resurrected in 1993’s Jurassic Park and the flashy mutant dinos created by scientists were major parts of the Jurassic World trilogy masterminded by Colin Trevorrow. By the time that cycle concluded with Jurassic World Dominion, released just three years ago, we were inundated with bland mutants, little girl clones, and giant locusts, all a far cry from the original premise of dinosaurs in the modern world.

Fortunately, Jurassic World Rebirth bucks that trend with a pulpy adventure that (mostly) focuses on classic dinosaurs doing dino things. Of course Rebirth never reaches the majesty of Steven Spielberg’s original film, but it is never as crass as the Jurassic World movies were. Instead Rebirth understands that cool set pieces and awesome dinos are all we really need for an entertaining couple hours out at the park.

After a bit of place-setting, Rebirth kicks in when smarmy pharmaceutical exec Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) hires adventurers Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), along with paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), to sneak onto a dino-infested island to take samples from three specific species, which Krebs’ company can use to make expensive heart medicine.

Also in tow are Kincaid’s crew (Ed Skrein, Philippine Velge, Bechir Sylvain), each of whom are so marked for death that it’s shocking they never wear red shirts. Along the way, the team picks up a stranded family consisting of loving, if unwise, father Rueben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his daughters (Luna Blaise and Audrina Miranda), and the older girl’s doofy boyfriend (David Iacono).

If that sounds overstuffed, that’s because it is. Rebirth marks screenwriter David Koepp’s return to the franchise after Koepp co-wrote the 1993 film with Michael Crichton and has a solo credit on The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Koepp has also worked on some of the biggest blockbusters of the past 30 years, including 1996’s Mission: Impossible and 2002’s Spider-Man, and he clearly has the chops to craft a propulsive popcorn film. Yet he remains an incredibly uneven screenwriter, as he reminded us in his two collaborations with Steven Soderbergh released this year, the dull Presence and the thrilling Black Bag.

Rebirth finds Koepp at his best and his worst. The plot has video game clarity and the dialogue is functional, with most of the gags and one-liners landing. Most importantly, the script leaves ample room for strong set pieces in which people scramble to stay atop a boat capsized by a mosasaur, evade a T-Rex while riding the rapids, or dodge a quetzalcoatlus while rappelling down a cliff.

These sequences also show off the talents of director Gareth Edwards, who proved his ability to shoot massive figures in Godzilla (2014) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016). In Rebirth, the mere sight of the mosasaur’s back emerging from the depths is enough to fill the viewer with terror. Later in the film, a T-Rex rises from his slumber and moves toward a potential meal, looking bigger and more menacing that it did even in Spielberg’s movies.

So great is Edwards’ ability to capture scale that Rebirth’s best callback to the first movie actually works. When the team finds a pack of massive plant eaters in a field, we viewers once again get that sense of awe, and not just because composer Alexandre Desplat (whose solid score is strangely underutilized in the movie) reuses John Williams’ Jurassic Park theme. Between Edwards’ camera and the elation of Bailey’s Loomis, we once again are reminded that dinosaurs are amazing.

Sadly Rebirth doesn’t always have the wisdom to stay focused on dinosaurs. Despite the big names in the cast, none of the human characters stand out. In and of itself that isn’t a problem; we’re here for the dinosaurs. But Koepp constantly pauses the story for long stretches so Johansson and Ali can share their traumas, and Bailey can lecture the audience about medical ethics. The latter is forgivable because Bailey sells his character’s wide-eyed conviction, making his performance—along with those of Garcia-Rulfo and Iacono—the best in the film. Ali and Johansson, however, could not be less interested in their one-note characters, a point underscored by the latter’s strange decision to play the supposedly troubled Zora like a chipper Midwestern mom.

And then there are the mutant dinosaurs. To its credit, Rebirth builds most of its adventure scenes around traditional dinos or chimeras whose mutations aren’t terribly important (see: the whip-like tails added to the bronto-types in the aforementioned field). But it can’t keep the mutants off screen forever, and they all converge with the humans in the movie’s climax.

For the most part, the climax is well-choreographed and well-conceived, save for a couple unnecessary winks to the first movie. But no amount of visual storytelling fundamentals can make up for the fact that the mutant dinos are ugly and uninspired. The finale includes several winged creatures with raptor talons and big, stupid bullfrog necks. Worse is the much-hyped Distortus rex, a lumbering doofus with a bulbous head and extraneous arms. Edwards has talked about the creature’s classic horror inspirations, and the D-rex does feel a bit menacing when obscured by red smoke. But once viewed in full, the D-rex disappoints, looking less like any of its antecedents and more like a bunch of clay dinosaurs smushed together by some glue-eating dimwit in kindergarten class.

The mutant-filled climax frustrates not just because the D-rex is an excessive and ugly monster; it frustrates because it succinctly captures everything wrong with Jurassic World Rebirth. There is an excellent B-movie dinosaur picture here with functional characters, clear stakes, and fantastic adventure set pieces. These moments understand that dinosaurs are cool, raging rapids are cool, and jungles are cool—all time-tested truths that go back to the early days of cinema. But the movie constantly stops so Duncan can remember his dead kid (as if he needs motivation to not let the family get eaten?), or so we can see some uninspired new mutant.

If we take the movie’s name literally, then most of its missteps can be forgiven as the mess that comes with the birthing process. Perhaps the movie’s use of mutant dinos and its bloated story with too much non-character development are the shell from which the true thing emerges, the pulp adventure that these movies are meant to be. Hopefully, when the inevitable sequel comes, it will follow Jurassic Park Rebirth‘s march away from the problems of the previous Jurassic World movies and back to the fun, dinosaur-centric heart of Jurassic Park.

Jurassic Park Rebirth opens in theaters on July 2, 2025.