Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025 | US | 133 minutes | Gareth Edwards)
Taking place in the “Jurassic” universe, a secret scientific lab set up on a remote island not only cloned, but spawned super-beasts both grotesque and lethal. Jump ahead thirteen years to Mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansen) being offered unimaginable wealth by an overly eager big pharma rep, to lead a team that will extract dino DNA from live specimen near the now defunct lab. Bennett, her ragtag crew, the pharma rep and reluctant, recently unemployed, paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) seek out three specific species to snatch some blood then gtfo before you can say “Hold onto your butts”. Just as their expedition begins, they rescue a family in distress having capsized their sailboat in the middle of nowhere. Thankful for the rescue, little did they know their saviors got them out of the frying pan just to pull them into the fire.
I was dazed (not dazzled) by the non-stop, jam-packed script that crammed as much action, nostalgic nods, annoying tropes and bad one-liners (not even groaningly funny like Goldblum delivers in the original) as was humanly possible in the little more than two hour run time. Throughout the experience I held my head in my hands, laughed sarcastically and shook my head more times than I can count. In a film like this you have to commit to the vibe. Either go cheesy, sarcastic and funny like Goldblum, or Pratt in the first entry of this trilogy, or go all in with an unmistakable seriousness in script, acting and directing that makes your heart race. Rebirth offered moments of sweetness, some jokes, some seriousness, and some ridiculousness, but none had the persistent and committed tone we needed. Zora’s Johansen is plenty capable of nuanced and skillful acting, we’ve seen her as a loveably dangerous superhero for goodness sake; but at times she donned an odd half smile/smirk in places that felt serious and then intensity in places that should have been more thoughtful and light. Those are a few reasons Rebirth just didn’t work.
On the other hand, if the extraction team was a side story and the “rescued” family took center stage, that would have been a worthy two-hour experience. Each of the four actors (father, two daughters and good-for-nothing boyfriend of the eldest) gave great, occasionally nuanced, performances that made you wish the dinosaurs ate the crew while the family escaped. Is that too brutal? However, worth noting was Mahershala Ali’s believable and admirable performance as the broken-hearted boat captain recovering from the recent loss of his infant son and dissolution of marriage that followed.
Director Gareth Edwards is no stranger to working on a franchise sequel with deep history in the box office, but only Rogue One seems to have risen above mediocrity. With a cast of experienced actors, solid director, and writers entrenched in the entire Jurassic universe, it’s a mystery how this film ended up the way that it did. The nostalgic nods weren’t cheeky or satisfying enough, attacks ending in “profound” loss of crew weren’t affecting enough, character depth of such a large ensemble cast was nearly impossible and an end goal reached far too easily just simmered together to create an underwhelming experience.
There was one small saving grace “twist” at the end of the film that made me sigh with a bit of relief, but I won’t spoil that just in case you decide brave this exasperating story to see it in the theaters over the Independence Day weekend.
Jurassic World: Rebirth arrives in theaters 7/2.