Jurassic World: Rebirth Review – A Franchise Back from Extinction

I still remember the exact theater where I saw Jurassic Park on June 9, 1993 and the friends I was with at the time. I can feel the chill of the air conditioning and was just examining the special grey plastic popcorn tub (one of the first “collectors” vessels readily available today) from which we chowed down during the film’s most thrilling sequences. That first roar of the T. rex rattled something loose in my chest and my heart. I went back twice that same weekend, my imagination expanding with each subsequent viewing. Director Steven Spielberg made you believe that dinosaurs had returned. It was that simple.

The awe from that original film hasn’t been replicated since, although 2015’s Jurassic World made a champion-level effort. The two sequels that followed both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World mostly collapsed under their increasingly overextended scale, losing their way in lackluster corporate maneuvers and a watering down of what made the highlight entries so special. So, when I heard that another quasi-reboot was happening, with original screenwriter David Koepp returning and Spielberg producing, my feelings were split between nostalgic hope and deep-seated dread. Here’s the surprise: Jurassic World: Rebirth isn’t just another dino cash grab. It reanimates the franchise, course-correcting with a satisfying jolt of prehistoric power.

Rebirth returns to the origin of Michael Crichton’s original bestseller, a self-contained adventure in an isolated setting. Smartly jettisoning the unsatisfying continuity the filmmakers of the disappointing Jurassic World: Dominion left behind, whatever long-range plans may have been laid out are extinct in Koepp’s script within the first fifteen minutes. Five years after the events of that film, when dinosaurs and humans were adapting to coexistence, Earth’s environment has proven hostile to the surviving species, forcing the creatures into remote equatorial zones that are forbidden to any outsiders.

Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson, Asteroid City) is a covert operative recruited by Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend, Companion), a representative from pharmaceutical giant ParkerGenix to infiltrate the mysterious Ile Saint-Hubert, a former InGen outpost now overrun with prehistoric life. Alongside paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey, Wicked) and her colleague, boat captain Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali, Green Book), their mission is to retrieve genetic material from the largest remaining land, sea, and air dinosaurs to engineer a revolutionary heart disease-curing drug. But when the sea-based Mosasaurus sinks a civilian boat and strands a single father and his daughters with the team on the island, the objective turns from extraction to survival.

What begins as a straightforward heist evolves into something far more sinister when Zora and her crew discover the abandoned island harbors mutated dinosaur abominations that have thrived in isolation for decades. Chief among these horrors is the Distortus rex (D. rex), a six-limbed, bulbous-headed mutation that represents everything wrong with playing God. Part Alien xenomorph and part Star Wars rancor, this creature is terror and tragedy in one mean and hungry package. Recent sequels have upped the ante by introducing freakish dino-hybrids to varying degrees of success, but this monstrosity is one of the best creature designs the franchise has offered in decades.

Pivoting from the overly global sprawl of its immediate predecessors, the scale of Jurassic World: Rebirth is manageable, but the stakes are enormous. Director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) demonstrates why he was the perfect choice to helm this project. He narrows the focus of this seventh installment to a single location, restoring a Spielbergian sense of restraint and discovery in the process. Gone is the relentless exposition and rehashing of established knowledge. Instead, we get long, suspenseful sequences where the dinosaurs are held off-screen, revealed slowly through sound or shadows until their presence can’t be denied. When they arrive, they’re magnificent.

Johansson, who had campaigned hard to join the franchise for decades, commands the screen without overplaying it. Zora is no superhero; she’s pragmatic, driven by guilt and grief, and fully aware of how close death constantly is. This isn’t Black Widow 2.0; this is a more humanistic performance that channels grief into fierce determination. Bailey is a welcome foil as Loomis, avoiding both the bumbling scientist trope and the overnight action hero transformation. His “everyman researcher” (who studied under Dr. Alan Grant) contributes intellect rather than firepower, playing the role with a refreshing heart. Ali brings his usual understated charm to Duncan, while Friend effectively embodies the corporate smarm that hasn’t changed since the dawn of time.

The supporting cast, including Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Mary) and his fictional family, Luna Blaise as his eldest daughter, David Iacono (Fear Street: Prom Queen) as her extra chill boyfriend, and especially young Audrina Miranda as his scrappy pre-teen, have a rocky start with an awkwardly introduced subplot, but they earn their keep in the ensemble. They’re part of one of Rebirth‘s most edge-of-your-seat sequences involving a fan-favorite dino and a rocky ride down rolling rapids. Having been around the block with these adrenaline-fueled passages of the franchise, I have to say that this is one for the record books. One piece of advice: don’t get attached to any character who doesn’t have a backstory.

On a technical level, Rebirth is a marvel. Edwards insisted on shooting on 35mm to capture the tactile grit often missing in modern blockbusters. While John Mathieson’s (Gladiator II) cinematography is occasionally subdued for a dinosaur action flick, it avoids the tropical postcard look, instead giving us fog-covered ruins and sun-bleached coastlines that feel ancient and unstable. Alexandre Desplat’s (The Piano Lesson) score merges John Williams’ iconic themes with moody, brooding compositions that swell at just the right moments.

Production designer James Clyne creates a compelling world of ruined temples, decaying tunnels, and hazardous research facilities that feel genuinely perilous rather than relying on tired “abandoned facility” aesthetics. Industrial Light & Magic continues to push boundaries in creature design, bringing the dinosaurs to life through seamless blends of animatronics and CGI, even if the six-week pre-production design crunch occasionally shows in the less essential creatures.

It’s not a complete walk in the park, however. There’s a weirdly persistent tendency in the first forty-five minutes to pause the forward momentum completely for bizarre emotional dumps. These backstory revelations arrive out of nowhere and evaporate just as quickly. Zora lost a mother, Duncan lost a son, and someone else might be a lost love. To the cast’s credit, they sell each moment with sincerity, but these gap-filling nuggets feel artificially inserted rather than organically developed. The stranded family subplot, while effective in the long run, arrives with no warning and significantly interrupts the main thread.

The real magic comes when the film embraces spectacle. The sea-based set pieces are relentless, evoking memories not just of JAWS but also of its underrated sequel. A suspense sequence involving a cliff descent into an ancient temple, where the Quetzalcoatlus has made a nest, is a legitimate pulse-pounder. When characters first encounter the island’s inhabitants, there’s a genuine awe that echoes back to Sam Neill and Laura Dern’s initial reactions back in 1993. These moments of wonder punctuate the terror, reminding us why humans remain fascinated by these ancient creatures despite their obvious and imminent threat. Edwards knows how to hold these beats and milk them for tension without sacrificing momentum.

Jurassic World: Rebirth stands as both a worthy franchise entry and a breakneck blockbuster that succeeds on its own merits. Koepp and Edwards have performed their own genetic engineering here, making Rebirth more of a Resurrection than anything. Combining the best elements of past installments while introducing enough fresh material to justify the expedition, this installment pares down the hackneyed chaos and keeps the science fiction engaging.

The franchise, much like its prehistoric subjects, has found a way to evolve and survive. It might not reach the genre-defining highs of Spielberg’s 1993 original or the respectful grandeur of Colin Trevorrow’s 2015 relaunch, but it’s easily the best the series has delivered in some time. Scary, innovative, and self-contained, if this is the future of the franchise, sign me up for another ride, even if the road is still full of teeth.