Movie Review: Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025)

Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) directed by Gareth Edwards

Zora (Scarlett Johansson) is hired as security by a big-pharma guy (Rupert Friend) who promises to pay ten with six zeroes after it, so that motivates her to sign up for a dangerous trip. He wants to go to the forbidden tropical region and get some samples from larger Jurassic dinosaurs where they haven't died out yet. Their tissue samples, which need to be taken from live dinos, will help cure heart disease, so that motivates phrama-guy because of an even bigger payoff than ten with six zeroes. To recognize the right dinos, they bring on Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), a paleontologist whose museum is closing because the general public has lost interesting dinosaurs. He's never seen the creatures in their own habitat, so that motivates him. They head off to an island that has three targeted mega-dinos, one in sea, one on land, and one in the air. They all join up with Captain Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), an old friend of Zora's who is willing to do dirty work. Meanwhile, a dad sailing with two daughters and the eldest daughter's boyfriend have their a transatlantic voyage interrupted by dino mayhem very near where Zora and company are located.

The set-up to the movie is not very convincing, a problem underlined by lackluster performances from the cast. Once they get to the tropical island, the action picks up and the performances get better. Edwards does a good job directing and has some exciting action sequences that are well paced.

The film relies on the formulaic plotting of other Jurassic movies. Zora and Henry have an on-going conversation about the morality of the big-pharma guy's plan and how it would be better if the heart disease cure would be available cheaply to everyone, so the scientific responsibility theme. The random ship with a family (including an eight-year old) adds imperiled child(ren), another staple of the series. Most of the dinosaurs are new, hybridized monstrosities that up the ante on terror and menace, something the movie hangs a lantern on by stating that this island was a research facility looking to make bigger, better, newer dinos for a public that was getting bored of seeing the same old ones. Do they mean the public in the movie's world or the viewer's world?

The movie ticks all the Jurassic trope boxes and has an entertaining second half. It is not much more than a summer B-movie with A-level special effects. I enjoyed it but wasn't wowed.

Mildly recommended--at this point, you probably know if you are "the audience" for this movie.