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Review: ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ is a Back-to-Basics Sequel that Returns the Iconic Sci-Fi Adventure Franchise to Its Primal, Survivalist Roots
July 2, 2025Ben MK
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When the original Jurassic Park released three decades ago, audiences everywhere marvelled at its groundbreaking visual effects. Still, for all its jaw-dropping spectacle, what has helped Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster avoid cinematic extinction is its compelling story and endearing characters. More than just a VFX sizzle reel, Spielberg's adaptation of Michael Crichton's bestselling novel appealed to moviegoers' on a primal level, a quality that has been somewhat lost as the sequels strived to world-build, introducing convoluted sub-plots and even more ambitious visuals. With Jurassic World Rebirth, however, Rogue One director Gareth Edwards is aiming to take the franchise back to its primordial beginnings, in this seventh, back-to-basics installment of the iconic series. Set 32 years after the original and five years after the events of Jurassic World: Dominion, in a world where the general population's interest in dinosaurs has waned about as much as moviegoers' real-life interest in the venerable franchise, the story finds a new group of characters once again returning to an island populated by the prehistoric creatures, all in the name of corporate greed. Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) is a mercenary-for-hire who's recruited by Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), a representative for Parker Genix, a pharmaceutical company that has developed a lucrative drug that could essentially cure heart disease. The catch, however, is that in order to complete the drug, Parker Genix will need blood samples from three of the largest land, sea and air dinosaurs that ever roamed the Earth — a scavenger hunt that will require Zora to lead an expedition to the remote island of Ile Saint-Hubert, the location of a now-abandoned InGen research facility where several dangerous dinosaur mutations such as the Mutadon and the D-Rex were created and unleashed. Accompanied by dinosaur expert Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and aided by her friend and fellow mercenary Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali) and his crew, Zora will journey deep into the heart of the dinosaurs' kingdom, where those who venture rarely return alive. What she and her elite team never expected, though, is to encounter another group of travellers — a family of four on a sailing trip gone awry. And when their top-secret mission shifts from being a hunt-and-shoot to a search-and-rescue, it foreshadows the trouble that lies ahead for their expedition. After running afoul of a vengeful Mosasaurus and suffering some traumatic casualties, Zora and her team must now not only find a way to carry on with their mission, but also to escape the island and make their way back to civilization. Unfortunately for this crew, not all of them are destined to make it out alive. And when the rest of them come face to face with Ile Saint-Hubert's terrifying mutant inhabitants, they may have to make a crucial choice — one that comes down to completing the mission or survival. Written by David Koepp, who penned the first Jurassic Park and its 1997 follow-up, The Lost World, the result plays like an homage to the original trilogy, borrowing familiar beats from the first movie, the return-to-the-island aspect of its sequel, and the tourists-in-trouble angle of Jurassic Park III, and blending them into an amalgam that's equal parts nostalgic throwback and reinvigorated reboot. What Jurassic World Rebirth doesn't attempt, however, is reinventing the wheel. And while the previous Jurassic World films set out to rebrand the series for a new generation, this latest installment is perfectly comfortable treading in familiar territory, trading the amped-up ambitions of the last trilogy for a more scaled-back, creature-feature approach. It all adds up to an adventure 65 million and 32 years in the making. Yet, while those who grew up with the original movie will get the most mileage out of this go around, audiences expecting a fresh new take on the tried-and-true Jurassic formula may be disappointed with the more-of-the-same nature of this seventh series entry. Suffice to say, Jurassic World Rebirth delivers enough thrilling dino action to qualify it as one of the franchise's most crowd-pleasing sequels. As for whether it actually warrants excavating the series for a new batch of films, that really depends on how much you enjoy reliving the glories of cinema's prehistoric past. Jurassic World Rebirth releases July 2nd, 2025 from Universal Pictures. The film has an MPAA rating of PG-13 for intense sequences of violence/action, bloody images, some suggestive references, language and a drug reference. Its runtime is 2 hrs. 14 min. |
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