Jurassic World: Rebirth is the seventh outing in the dinosaur franchise, which continues to rake in billions of dollars. Photo: Universal Pictures.
The Jurassic World/Park franchise is such an enigma.
The 1993 original is almost universally considered the best. Every film in the franchise since has struggled to meet the cinematic highs of the Steven Spielberg masterpiece.
Despite most moviegoers acknowledging this fact, these movies still make A LOT of money regardless of the quality. The newest film in the franchise, Jurassic World: Rebirth is no different.
Set five years after Jurassic World: Dominion, the worst movie in the franchise, Rebirth follows Zora (Scarlett Johansson), a contract mercenary called on by a pharmaceutical company looking to revisit one of the islands on which the dinosaurs have migrated.
Looking to gather the blood of three specific species in hopes of finding a cure to heart cancer, Zora is joined by palaeontologist Dr Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and fellow mercenary Duncan (Mahershala Ali), sent to identify the dinosaurs whose blood is needed.
Rebirth starts off on the right foot. It ditches the painfully awkward cast of the previous three films, most notably Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas-Howard, and instead focusses on a far more entertaining and charismatic trio in Johnassson, Bailey and Ali.
While none of their characters are super fleshed out in any meaningful way, the chemistry between them makes it easier to overcome the written shortcomings than Pratt and Dallas-Howard ever could.
They get along, yet they all have clearly different views on what the mission means for them and the future. It’s a nice little conflict of interest.
Their interactions with the dinosaurs – and the awe they hold for the creatures – are also the best since the original.
But the issues arise with the supporting characters and the almost identical plot threads to its arguably worse franchise films.
Outside the central trio, a family finds itself stuck on the island… akin to the plot of Jurassic Park III, a notoriously awful film. The family is not interesting in any way, shape or form and outside of a few laughs, I found myself desperate to get back to the other plot threads.
But these threads aren’t super original either. A greedy multi-billion-dollar company wants to steal dinosaur DNA to make even more money. It’s literally the plot of four out of the seven movies in the franchise, and it’s getting really, really old.
To Rebirth’s credit, it’s not as painfully cartoonish as some of the other films. But it’s not fresh enough to warrant a revisit.
The product placement is also super egregious in Rebirth. If you weren’t thinking about eating a Snickers or M&Ms before the film started, you will be by the end of it.
Another slightly disappointing aspect of the film is the poor use of CGI, specifically in some of the biggest set pieces. Despite being 32 years old, the original is hailed as one of the best-looking films of all time. And while Jurassic World and its sequels weren’t great in the writing department, the effects were always top notch.
This isn’t the case here. Outside of a unique ocean set, some scenes look awful. One scene based on a mountainside is particularly hard to watch as each character feels composited onto the screen, almost like a cutout character glued onto a printout of a landscape artwork.
This is particularly surprising because director Gareth Edwards has made some of the best-looking movies of the last 15 years and on a fraction of the budget e.g. The Creator, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Godzilla (2014).
Outside of a charismatic lead trio, this film doesn’t do a lot of new or better in a franchise that has a history of diminishing returns. This hasn’t affected its box office though. It just set the biggest opening weekend of 2025 so far, passing Minecraft and Lilo and Stitch, and is well on its way to becoming the first billion-dollar movie of the year.
While not as insane or frustrating as the three Jurassic World films before, Rebirth still doesn’t do a lot with its beloved dinosaur premise.
Rebirth is showing in cinemas across the country.
