“A new era is born.” is the promise, but Jurassic World Rebirth mostly confirms that this franchise is long past rebirth. Three years after Jurassic World Dominion and decades after the singular magic of Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, Gareth Edwards steps in with a clean slate and a prestige cast, yet the result is another groaning carousel of CG set pieces that never find awe or fear. It is especially frustrating because Edwards has proved he can revitalize legacy IP with scale and tact. Godzilla (2014) remains the best American take on the kaiju, Rogue One is the standout of the Disney Star Wars era, and even The Creator made striking worldbuilding on a smaller budget. Here, the spectacle looks expensive but rarely convincing, and the tension never lands.
On paper, Jurassic World Rebirth sounds like the first Jurassic World entry in years with a fresh hook. Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali), and Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) embark on a clandestine mission to harvest genetic material from the three most massive dinosaurs on Earth, a gambit pitched as a breakthrough for cardiovascular disease. That ethical thread hints at a sharper movie about science, access, and profiteering, but the script treats it as garnish, rushing back to the next chase or chomp. A parallel storyline involving a family they collect en route only clutters the frame, padding the roster so the carnage can thin it out later without anyone leaving much of a mark.
The comparison that keeps surfacing is not fair yet impossible to ignore. Jurassic Park married cutting edge effects with tactile animatronics, staging danger with clarity and rhythm so every footstep and flashlight beam raised your pulse. Jurassic World Rebirth doubles down on digital mayhem that looks glossed over and oddly weightless, then stacks sequences until they blur together. Edwards’ usual feel for scale and geography goes missing, replaced by frantic coverage and green screen sheen. The set pieces swing for the fences without a single moment that etches itself into memory.
Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey are more than capable of anchoring a survival thriller, but they are stranded in exposition and mission briefings, asked to emote at screens and sprint down corridors. The movie keeps insisting it is about something bigger than dino chow, teasing corporate medicine and black ops oversight, yet every potentially thorny idea is sanded down into boilerplate peril. When the bodies start dropping, the violence registers, the losses do not.
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If the plan was to reboot without leaning on cameo nostalgia, Jurassic World Rebirth at least avoids the legacy parade. It just forgets to replace it with personality. Gareth Edwards has made monsters feel massive and moral choices feel heavy in Monsters, Godzilla, Rogue One, and The Creator. Here he is boxed in by an IP machine that prioritizes volume over vision. A new era is announced, but it plays like more of the same.
Score: 4/10
Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)
- Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, Audrina Miranda, Philippine Velge, Bechir Sylvain
- Director: Gareth Edwards
- Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
- Runtime: 134 minutes
- Rated: PG-13
- Release Date: July 2, 2025
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