FILM REVIEW: "Jurassic World: Rebirth" resets by digging up old bones
Jurassic World: Rebirth, aptly titled, is the latest entry in a franchise that acts as a cautionary tale of reanimating life, but has itself attempted multiple resurrections of its own story. Ever since the opening of Jurassic World (it’s bigger now!) back in 2015, they have been so preoccupied with whether or not they could churn out sequel after sequel, but have they stopped to think if they should? This time, Rebirth answers this question by setting its sights on the impossible: recapturing the wonder of its progenitor, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park.
After some experimentation in world-building and genre-blending in the previous Jurassic World trilogy: flirting with cloning, dabbling in haunted house horror, and awkwardly attempting to reconcile prehistoric creatures with modern society, Rebirth hits the reset button once again. Gone are Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and the increasingly convoluted attempts to make dinosaurs a metaphor for climate change, capitalism, or coexistence. In their place, director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Rogue One, Monsters) offers a simpler, more focused proposition: a return to the core of the franchise - awe, spectacle, and good old-fashioned people running away from dinosaurs.
Structurally, Rebirth almost plays like a heist movie. Pharmaceutical exec Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) invites Zora Bennet (Scarlett Johansson), special ops not-a-mercenary, to put a team together for ONE LAST JOB - extracting DNA samples from specific dinosaurs who now live in a forbidden zone along the equator, for the usual Big Pharma reasons. She recruits her old friend Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) as expedition lead, palaeontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), among others.
Anchored by the very watchable pairing of Johansson and Bailey, Rebirth crafts a family-friendly adventure-thriller that strings together breathtaking dinosaur sequences with the thinnest of connective tissue. The plot serves mainly to shepherd the audience from one majestic prehistoric encounter to the next. For families and younger viewers, that may be enough. The film feels earnest, and the performances are sincere enough to carry the runtime.
But look closer, or think too hard, Rebirth begins to show the seams in its fossil record. It’s still occasionally mired in the typical narrative trappings of big-budget franchise sequels that feel too big to fail. A bizarre opening scene involving a Snickers wrapper sets the tone for a film that juggles two barely connected threads: Zora’s research expedition and a parallel family survival plot. When they finally intersect, the big emotional beats don’t quite feel earned, weighed down by the film’s tendency to tread water. It gestures toward deeper themes—scientific responsibility, sacrifice for the greater good—but never fully commits. At times, it feels like the seed of a potentially strong Pixar movie whose emotional core never quite crystallised.
Still delivers on the promise of dinosaurs - big, beautiful, and believable - and in fleeting moments, evokes the awe that made Jurassic Park a classic. But does Rebirth justify its own existence? It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor does it bring a radically fresh perspective to the table. Instead, it settles for being good enough. And maybe that’s all some resurrections need to be.
