Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (September 7, 2025)
Back in 2022, Jurassic World: Dominion wrapped up a trilogy that started with 2015’s Jurassic World and continued with 2018’s Fallen Kingdom. Given that each movie made less than its predecessor, I thought this might put the dinosaur-centered franchise on ice for a while to let audiences regain interest in the subject matter.
However, even though profits decreased with every successive film, all three still made biggity bucks. Yes, the series went from $1,671,537,444 worldwide for the 2015 movie to $1,310,469,037 for Fallen Kingdom and then $1,001,978,080 for Dominion, but the $1 billion mark remains rare air.
With a total of $856,552,674, Rebirth fell short of that level. Nonetheless, even with a budget somewhere around $200 million, Rebirth clearly made money so I expect another Jurassic World flick in a few years.
Years after the public got to know real-life dinosaurs at the Jurassic World park, these species struggle to survive and largely need to remain in equatorial domains to stay alive. Authorities bar humans from travel to these territories but pharmaceutical executive Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) recruits covert operative Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) to infiltrate an island to obtain samples from three species in an alleged effort to form new medication that thwarts heart disease.
New York paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) comes as a consultant and Zora also works with local specialist Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) and his boat-based team. They venture into dangerous territory to get the biological samples and also deal with a family who become shipwrecked on the island.
When Universal announced Rebirth, plenty of folks moaned at the prospect of yet another Jurassic flick – and I got it. Not only does Rebirth become the seventh in the franchise but also it delivered the fourth across a decade.
Given the semi-repetitive nature of the movies, this means the series threatened to become tedious. After all, how many ways can humans be chased by dinosaurs before we get bored?
Of course, each new Jurassic introduces fresh dinos, and that creates some novelty. Also, after three Jurassic World flicks that focused on the roles played by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, we finally move on to some new participants.
Even with these changes, though, Rebirth can feel “been there, done that”. Sure, the focus on mercenaries gives the tale a different vibe, but we already saw characters like that with 1997’s Lost World.
A family in peril? That hearkens back to 2001’s Jurassic Park III.
Without a lot of new territory to mine, Rebirth depends entirely on execution. In the right hands, the tale could produce excitement, even if it feels like we’ve seem similar Jurassic stories already.
Does director Gareth Edwards manage to find thrills here? Meh.
At no point does Edwards bring real spark to the proceedings. However, he also fails to really let down the material.
Perhaps because the story and characters just don’t seem especially compelling. David Koepp’s script essentially relies on the basic “humans running from predators” concept to do all the work for him, and that means everything else seems somewhat rudimentary.
Indeed, I get the sense Koepp didn’t feel a lot of confidence in the movie’s main plot and thus we get the involvement of the shipwrecked Delgado family: dad Reuben (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), young adult daughter Teresa (Luna Blaise), adolescent daughter Isabella (Audrina Miranda) and Teresa’s slacker boyfriend Xavier Dobbs (David Iacono).
Perhaps Koepp felt the movie needed some “regular people” to add to the danger. If so, he believed incorrectly.
Instead, the Delgados feel tacked on and unnecessary. The basic quest that involves Zora and the rest delivers more than enough potential drama to fill the flick’s running time, so added civilians just become a distraction.
Conversely, Rebirth could’ve simply been about the Delgados and their quest for survival. The combination of the two leaves the impression the filmmakers didn’t have a lot of faith one narrative or the other would carry the day.
This means we end up with an oddly bifurcated tale. While Rebirth manages to connect the mercs and the Delgados, I still can’t help but think it’d work better if it lost one of those two sides.
With all those characters, none of them develop very well. Granted, no one goes to a Jurassic movie for three-dimensional roles, but the 1993 original depicted its roles well enough that audiences came to love Doctors Grant, Sattler and Malcolm.
I doubt any similar bonding will take place with the folks in Rebirth. The actors do their best to expand the parts, and we find a nice cast, but they can’t overcome the sketchy nature of the roles as written.
It probably doesn’t help that Rebirth makes a bizarre misstep right out of the gate when we’re told humans quickly got bored with dinosaurs and those zoos/exhibits failed.
I get that Koepp probably meant this as a commentary on modern attention spans, but it seems like utter nonsense. People remained fascinated with dinos for decades when all we had to go on was old bones – we’re going to suddenly no longer care even when actual living critters walk the land?
Even worse, the narrative doesn’t need this silly assertion. It doesn’t really play into the overall narrative in any kind of meaningful manner and seems irrelevant in the long run.
Despite this idiotic story point and a lack of real creativity, I don’t regard Rebirth as a bad movie. The action basics manage to keep it afloat for its 134 minutes.
However, it winds up as a lesser Jurassic film just because it doesn’t bring much new to the table and director Edwards fails to find the thrills necessary to overcome the impression that we’ve already seen similar tales. Rebirth keeps us moderately engaged across its running time but it never emerges as anything especially thrilling or compelling.
