Cast: Scarlett Johansson; Mahershala Ali; Jonathan Bailey; Rupert Friend; Manuel Garcia-Rulfo; Ed Skrein
Director: Gareth Edwards
Platform: In Cinemas
Rating out 5: ★★★
Franchises don’t usually come back from extinction. They limp, mutate, shed feathers, get noisier, meaner, more desperate. Jurassic World Rebirth shouldn’t work, not after the last cycle of dino fatigue and corporate franchise drift, but it does, at least enough to rattle the bones. Call it a new blip, not a full resurrection. It’s smarter about where to point the camera, humbler about story, and aware that wonder, if you frame it right, still draws a crowd.
The reset strategy is simple: get back to basics. Universal drafted original Jurassic Park scribe David Koepp and handed the reins to Gareth Edwards, who’s made a career out of scale you can feel (Godzilla, Rogue One). Instead of globe‑trotting narrative sprawl, we pivot after some scene‑setting to a tropical danger zone, where humans once again trespass on nature’s territory. The film wears its Spielberg influence on its sleeve, storm clouds, flashlights against wet scales, silhouettes in fog and that self‑awareness feels almost like an apology for recent missteps. It’s not new, but it’s clean, motivated, and pitched to the thing that made the original stick: awe plus dread.
The plot is pulpy in a way that works if you let it. A slippery Big Pharma exec, Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), dispatches a small strike team to a restricted equatorial island Île Saint Hubert to draw live blood samples from three target species (land, sea, air) believed to hold compounds with massive medical applications. Leading the mission: ex‑military operator Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson); brainy palaeontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey); and resourceful boat captain Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali). En route, they cross paths with a civilian family adrift at sea, who become the film’s “civilian stakes” thread once everyone is marooned among very hungry residents. It’s uncluttered adventure math: three samples, hostile terrain, corporate clock ticking.
Image: IMDb
Johansson shines and no two ways about it and you feel that in every frame where Zora takes tactical control without grandstanding and her chemistry with the lead works very well.
Bailey and Mahershala Ali give the film a steadying counter‑rhythm. Bailey’s Loomis, all earnest brainpower and museum dust, becomes the audience’s curiosity as he is the one who still geeks out at a living fossil. Ali, playing long‑suffering pro Duncan Kincaid, brings warmth and a weathered patience; the film could have used more of him. Together they create the rare blockbuster team you wouldn’t mind following into another movie, if the scripts sharpen up.
Not everyone’s sold on the side‑story family that drifts into the main mission. The civilians—dad Reuben (Manuel Garcia‑Rulfo), teen daughters, and a tag‑along boyfriend—exist to humanise the stakes and provide non‑combat peril, but the cutbacks to their subplot bog pacing down a little and maybe, we don’t even really need them.
Let’s talk about the look because there is, genuinely, some beautiful vista imagery here. Edwards and cinematographer John Mathieson shot on 35mm with anamorphic glass; Thailand’s jungles double for the island and give the film textured greens, steep karst silhouettes, and low cloudbanks that feel lived‑in rather than digitally composited. When the camera pulls wide and a herd breaks cover against a misty ridgeline, the kid in you sits forward.
Set‑piece quality is uneven but often effective. The much hyped T‑Rex raft sequence earns its tension and is great action design.
Tonally, the movie aims for a travel‑into‑danger adventure that balances scares, humour, and human scale. That classic Amblin cocktail light banter before teeth, shows up in beat‑for‑beat construction, and when it clicks, you feel the echo of 1993 without drowning in nostalgia bait. The film works best when it leans into survival disaster energy and remembers to let things go wrong and we can see Gareth Edwards’ clear affection for Spielberg’s original grammar even as it acknowledges the film doesn’t reinvent the wheel.
The knocks are real. Characters can be thin; motivations sketched. If you need layered drama, you’ll leave hungry; if you just want competent dino peril framed with craft, you’re in decent hands.
So where does that leave Rebirth? Somewhere in the zone where craft, cast charisma, and situational awe overcome recycled DNA and thin scripting, at least this once. It’s better than the last outing, more focused, and occasionally achieves the wide‑eyed scale that put this franchise on the map. Not a full evolutionary leap, but a welcome course correction.