Jurassic World Rebirth is supposed to roar, but it mostly just wheezes. Set 32 years after dinosaurs were first resurrected, the film opens by telling us humanity is bored of them—and by the end, audiences might be too. The problem isn’t the dinos. It’s the franchise, now more lumbering and lifeless than ever.
This reboot of a reboot plods along in predictable fashion, aiming for blockbuster box office glory while delivering little more than a dull, overlong CGI parade. Even the introduction of a grotesque new hybrid—half T-rex, half Alien xenomorph—is more laughable than thrilling. Where past entries like Fallen Kingdom managed moments of campy, haunted-house fun, Rebirth is just plain dumb.
There was room for cautious optimism: original Jurassic Park writer David Koepp returned, director Gareth Edwards (Godzilla 2014) was at the helm, and the cast boasts talent like Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey. But what follows is a flat, joyless slog.
Zuckerberg’s latest pet project—sorry, wrong billionaire. Pharmaceutical rep Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) hires a mercenary (Johansson), a scientist (Bailey), and a boat captain (Ali) to collect dinosaur DNA in hopes of creating a heart disease cure. Naturally, this takes them to a remote island where InGen once created monster mashups. Surprise: it’s overrun with oversized predators.
The film insists on front-loading backstories for its leads—trauma, grief, emotional baggage—but the attempts at depth fall flat. These scenes stall the action rather than elevate it. Side characters exist only to be eaten, and even the obligatory kid-in-danger subplot feels shoehorned in, featuring a young girl and her cute mini-triceratops sidekick named Dolores.
Set pieces are predictable, and emotional stakes are virtually nonexistent. A late-sequence battle between a T-rex and a life raft is a rare highlight, but it’s too little, too late. Even the climactic showdown with the so-called D-rex lands with a thud—it looks more silly than scary, and by then, the film’s attempts at tension have long since deflated.
Jurassic World Rebirth is a franchise on autopilot, coasting on nostalgia and spectacle while offering none of the awe or terror that made the original a classic. The dinosaurs might be evolving, but the storytelling is extinct.
