Tell me that you have an expedition movie with clear objectives and unlikely odds, anchored by a compelling cast of characters, and you have my attention. Add dinosaurs and you have my money. Make it all work—especially within the context of the Jurassic franchise—and you have a miracle.
Jurassic World Rebirth indeed feels miraculous, given how misbegotten these installments became in the wake of 1993’s Jurassic Park. Rebirth isn’t quite a return to that Spielbergian form, but as written by Park scribe David Koepp and directed by behemoth specialist Gareth Edwards (Monsters, 2014’s Godzilla), the film succeeds—largely by following in the footsteps of the recent Godzilla and Kong films rather than worrying about any sort of Jurassic legacy.
Scarlett Johansson, having just the right level of fun, stars as Zora Bennett, a mercenary with a heart of, well, maybe bronze. Zora has been hired by a pharmaceutical company to pull blood samples from three of the most massive species left on Earth: the gargantuan, oceanic Mosasaurus; the avian, aggressive Quetzalcoatlus; and the gentle giant of the bunch, the lumbering Titanosaurus. All three can only be found around a remote island, one which also houses an abandoned lab that once specialized in dinosaur genetics. And so Zora sets off with a corporate rep (Rupert Friend) and a dino specialist (Jonathan Bailey) on the boat of a fellow mercenary (Mahershala Ali).
Despite the talented cast, none of these characters register beyond the basic “types” that movies like this require. Thankfully, we meet others whom we actually come to care about—even when they’re not in immediate danger. Sailing in the vicinity of the island is Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his young daughter Isabella (Audrina Miranda), his teen daughter Teresa (Luna Blaise), and Teresa’s dopey, lazy boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono). When a Mosasaurus swamps their ship, we initially hope the useless Xavier gets swallowed up. But it’s a credit to the performances and the screenwriting—which paint a relatable, evolving dynamic between father, daughter, and boyfriend—that as the movie proceeds, we hope Xavier comes away without a scratch.
Of course, this isn’t why we go to movies like Jurassic World Rebirth. If these characters are slightly more than adequate for the genre, the action scenes are slightly more adequate than that. There is a terrifying cold open—a flashback to the days when the island’s lab was operational—that makes clever, economic use of a wayward Snickers wrapper, in a way I won’t spoil. Later, the Mosasaurus assault on the Delgados plays like an extended, exhilarating Jaws homage (one of a few explicit nods to Spielberg films beyond Jurassic Park). On the island, the Delgados narrowly escape a T rex in a sequence that Edwards stages with admirable patience and an eye for tactile detail—as when Isabella hides beneath a yellow raft and the dino’s teeth protrude into the rubber, stretching it to the breaking point. Add a climactic, flare-enfused encounter with the beast from that cold open, who has been nursing its mutant wounds for nearly 20 years, and Rebirth delivers the dino goods in a way we haven’t seen since Jurassic Park.
The movie also brings back a Spielbergian sense of wonder, something that was only a sporadic element in the other installments (and nearly altogether missing in the particularly cruel Jurassic World). By the time Rebirth picks up this story, humans have become so accustomed to dinosaurs that they’re mostly seen as annoyances, as in an early scene where a roaming Brachiosaurus (I think) causes a New York City traffic jam, its grandeur met with annoyed honks. Still, the moment has a tinge of awe to it. Deserved reverence for the creatures is explicitly expressed later, when Bailey’s Henry, who has never seen a dinosaur in the wild, reaches out to touch the massive trunk of a Titanosaur’s leg and responds with tears. Rebirth respects its monsters, in a manner that allows for both pathos and terror. That’s more than enough for it to clear the low bar that this series has set.
(7/1/2025)
