Jurassic World Rebirth, 2025 - ★★★½
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Jurassic World: Rebirth surprisingly arrives as a new sequel following the last trilogy, set five years after Jurassic World: Dominion. This movie marks a return to the franchise's roots, emphasizing suspense and survival horror rather than simply dinosaurs running around and fighting each other off. While the previous trilogy had taken a somewhat comical turn, Rebirth refocuses on genuine tension, incorporating elements of horror and mystery instead of relying solely on CGI-driven action sequences.
Although I believe the film takes a positive step in the right direction, the film script really holds it back big time; there’s just no heart in the story.
The narrative feels forced and obligatory, lacking the heartfelt passion that could have elevated it beyond a routine dinosaur movie. The story struggles to establish a compelling purpose, missing the emotional depth needed to make us truly care about the characters and dinosaurs.
The cast delivers solid performances, but they are weighed down by awkward dialogue and a clunky screenplay. Characters come across as underdeveloped, with only occasional glimpses of engaging interactions. Unfortunately, the film barely scratches the surface of their backstories, motivations, and personalities. As a result, these characters lack the magnetism required to carry future installments, should the franchise continue. Such a missed opportunity.
However, the most disappointing aspect of this movie, in my opinion, is the design of the new dinosaur. It’s baffling how they resemble creatures from the Alien franchise more than dinosaurs. As a dinosaur movie, one would expect creature design to be a priority, but the new dinosaur falls short and feels off-putting. This mutant dinosaur seems shoehorned in merely to add fresh elements rather than enrich the story. While it may be forgivable to overlook the human elements in a dinosaur-centric film, failing to make the dinosaurs themselves intriguing and memorable is such a let-down. (And no, one cute dinosaur doesn’t compensate for this!)
Despite its flaws, Jurassic World: Rebirth shines in its action sequences that are consistently thrilling with edge-of-your-seat moments. The film's dynamic camera work, immersive sound design, and powerful score combine to effectively create tension between the situations and characters. This craftsmanship makes this movie a little more worthwhile.
Overall, If you are looking for a good story, this is not it. But it's still enjoyable enough to recommend it for dinosaur enthusiasts—just try to overlook the final creature. If you can imagine it as an alien rather than prehistoric beasts, it might make the experience a bit more enjoyable.