In Jurassic World Rebirth, Gareth Edwards crafts a visually rich and wildly entertaining revival that blends awe, absurdity, and prehistoric peril—making it the most imaginative entry in the franchise since the original.
In Jurassic World Rebirth, scale is everything—and director Gareth Edwards knows exactly how to play with it. From a tiny candy-bar wrapper triggering catastrophe to towering mutant dinos prowling in vapor-shrouded jungles, this latest installment in the Jurassic Park/World franchise pulls off the nearly impossible: making the ridiculous feel thrillingly real again. It’s a film where terror lurks in vents, beasts rise from the mist, and the entire genre gets a much-needed evolutionary jolt.
Every movie in the Jurassic saga has grappled with one fundamental challenge—how to make the impossible seem tangible. Jurassic World Rebirth not only embraces that challenge but upends it in unexpected, often gleeful ways. The film opens not with thunderous roars or epic landscapes, but with the smallest of details: a stray candy-bar wrapper drifting into a lab vent. That bit of litter, propelled by the gust of a sliding security door, sets off a deadly malfunction in a secret dinosaur-engineering compound, leaving a technician as a quick meal for a barely-seen, steam-shrouded creature with a skull the size of a semi-truck.
It’s a clever wink from Edwards, known for 2014’s Godzilla, who treats Rebirth like a cinematic sugar rush—big, bold, and tailor-made for popcorn season. And much like that fallen wrapper, once the movie gets swept up in its own momentum, there’s no slowing it down.
Set years after dinosaurs were unleashed into the wild, Rebirth begins with extinction redux. Most of the Jurassic creatures have perished, save for those clustered around the equator—where sweltering jungles still allow prehistoric life to fester and thrive. Officially, the area is off-limits to humans. Unofficially, it’s a playground for smugglers, thrill-seekers, and pharmaceutical moguls with big ideas and even bigger egos.
Enter Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), a morally ambiguous bigwig who believes dino blood holds the key to a miracle heart drug. His plan? Extract samples from three species—land, sea, and air—and cash in. To do this, he enlists Zora Bennett (a badass Scarlett Johansson), a cold-eyed mercenary who walks like she owns the jungle. Joining them are paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey, trying hard to leave Bridgerton behind), and riverboat captain Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali, effortlessly charismatic).
Naturally, things go sideways. Their mission strands them on an isolated island teeming with abandoned labs, bio-engineered dino mutants, and one unfortunately placed family led by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo. The survivors find themselves being hunted by beasts straight out of a paleo fever dream—including one creature that looks like a moldy cucumber with a mouthful of razors.
The film takes its time getting to the carnage, indulging in a glut of exposition and jungle trekking. But once the action erupts, Rebirth becomes a relentless thrill ride. It delivers a string of creative, high-stakes set-pieces—think Mysterious Island by way of King Kong—where danger pops from the shadows, creatures swoop in from the skies, and no one is safe from becoming lunch.
What sets Rebirth apart is Edwards’ refined eye for scale and immersion. His jungles are dense, humid, and claustrophobic, while open plains are painted with quiet dread. In one brilliant sequence, Johansson and team inch through towering grass fields with nothing but silence and suggestion to fuel tension—until the inevitable eruption of chaos.
Edwards resists the urge to make every dinosaur appearance a spectacle. Instead, his beasts feel integrated into the environment—predators gliding through smoke, thundering through ruins, or vanishing into moonlit fog. The terror comes not just from size, but presence. These aren’t theme park attractions; they’re apex monsters reclaiming a world.
The cast holds its own amid the CGI chaos. Johansson brings icy precision and just enough vulnerability to make Zora compelling. Ali, as ever, radiates gravitas even when feeding exposition. Bailey, however, feels underutilized—his professor too often reduced to a stock “nervous expert.”
But none of that matters much once the movie hits its stride. Rebirth isn’t here to win awards for subtlety. It’s here to entertain—and it does so with abandon. The film may be grounded in biological mumbo-jumbo and capitalistic villainy, but its real currency is spectacle. And it spends lavishly.
Ironically, while Rebirth trades in fantasy, it reflects a Hollywood truth: there’s still juice left in dinosaur IP—when handled with vision. Edwards resurrects not just the monsters but the sense of wonder that’s been missing from the franchise since Spielberg’s original. The film is goofy, gripping, and occasionally glorious. It may even be the most fun Jurassic entry since 1993.
And lucky for us, dinosaurs don’t trigger the same existential dread as zombies or aliens. They’re primal, sure—but also beloved. Maybe that’s why, even after six films, audiences keep coming back.
Jurassic World Rebirth is the shot of adrenaline this fossilized franchise needed. It’s not just about the dinosaurs—it’s about scale, atmosphere, and unapologetic fun. Edwards proves that even in a cinematic world overflowing with monsters, there’s still room to be amazed.