Below is the recording script for the video, should you prefer to read the review.
Jurassic Park is our favourite live-action film of all time and we will generally take any opportunity to engage with paleo-media. Despite this we had never seen a single Jurassic Park film in cinemas. Yesterday, July 2nd 2025, we finally got to rectify that with the release of Jurassic World: Rebirth.
We’ll get into a spoiler-free review of the film in just a moment, but first we want to talk about what a great experience going to the cinema was. Because it was a bit of a special occasion, we dressed up in an Alan Grant cosplay and handed out dinosaur toys to our partner and friends who were also at the cinema. As the crowd of people slowly made its way towards the screening we loudly stated “they do move in herds” which made a few people laugh.
The cinema had gone all out, or at least as all out as a small local cinema in the south of Sweden can go. They had a giant Jurassic Park gate you passed through while heading in, papier-mache dinosaur sculptures, giant posters, a person in a T. rex costume welcoming everyone and before the film started they threw out boxes of dinosaur crackers to the audience.
Having missed out on the original Jurassic Park trilogy in the cinema due to a mix of being too young to see them by ourselves and not living anywhere near a cinema until 1998 and then skipping the previous Jurassic World trilogy due to a strong dislike of Chris Pratt for reasons that aren’t relevant to this review and as such will not be detailed, it felt truly magical to be here alongside so many Jurassic Park fans about to experience something new.
The point here is to highlight what going to the cinema should be. A special experience that makes it worth it to schedule seeing something with your friends. Regardless of how we felt about Jurassic World: Rebirth, this solidified why cinemas will never truly be replaced by streaming and other home video options, because while the convenience of such options may be great and absolutely should be available – they’re an entirely different thing.
With that said, let’s talk about Jurassic World: Rebirth. No spoilers beyond what was shown in the first two trailers will be detailed here, so let’s go.
Rebirth is written by David Koepp, who co-wrote the original Jurassic Park film as well as being the only credited writer on The Lost World, and directed by Gareth Edwards who have directed other blockbuster hits such as Rogue One and the 2014 Godzilla film. Koepp and Edwards both have a particularly difficult task ahead of them as Rebirth sets out to be three things at once – a narrative sequel to the Jurassic World trilogy, a thematic sequel to the Jurassic Park trilogy and also a soft reboot of the franchise.
For the most part, this works quite well. The story does follow the events of Jurassic World: Dominion, explaining that climate change has led to the cloned prehistoric dinosaurs having struggled to survive among humans. While they’re not extinct, they have mostly flocked to the equator with a few islands in particular thriving with them due to the climate being more suitable, resulting in an international treaty forbidding human visitors on said islands.
A pharmaceutical company is looking to develop an all-purpose cure for heart disease which requires them to obtain samples from three gigantic creatures that can only be found in the vicinity of these islands. The company sends in a team led by mercenary soldier Zora Bennet, played by Scarlett Johansson, museum paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis, played by Jonathan Bailey and captain Duncan Kincaid, played by Mahershala Ali.
Naturally, things go awry, and the team gets stranded on the island alongside a family following a series of dino-related accidents and the group now needs to both finish their mission while finding a way off the island. However, it turns out that the island is not just full of dinosaurs but also discarded experimental hybrids that InGen deemed unfit for the Jurassic World park but also as too expensive projects to simply euthanize.
The ties to the Jurassic World trilogy is clear here, with it also having a fondness of the hybrid dinosaur themes, but it also feels somewhat reductive to effectively undo the big status quo change that happened at the end of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom as dinosaurs were released across the world.
Granted, Jurassic World: Dominion was the first film to try and walk this back, with it focusing its story on dinosaurs being moved to a valley reservoir, but this still feels like the bigger “reset button” as it’s literally putting dinosaurs back on islands not meant to be visited by humans. This would not be an issue if the story told felt justified in this change, but it kind of feels a bit pointless.
Yes, the company needs samples from the largest creatures, but then why not just specify that the largest clones were the ones that couldn’t survive? Was there really a need to basically suggest that the last two films, and the excellent Netflix series Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, largely amounted to nothing? It feels a bit cruel, especially given that the creative team on Chaos Theory seemingly were not consulted or informed about where the new film was going despite that series still being ongoing.
At that point, why not just call the film Jurassic Park IV and say this is set in its own timeline where the Jurassic World trilogy didn’t happen? It’s effectively the same thing but at least it won’t prevent the storytellers working on other Jurassic World things from continuing their stories should they wish to.
We want to be clear, we actually really like this film and the story itself is good. But the basic framing of the story does not contribute enough for it to feel like it was necessary. In fact, the biggest problem with the film is the first act and how it sets things up.
This film has a very slow start. Not slow in the sense that it’s building mystery and character, but rather in the sense that characters repeat a lot of information over and over to each other while also just kind of meandering about. Sometimes it felt like the actors were improvising with how strange some of the lines and reactions were.
At the very beginning of the film we see a title card saying “seventeen years ago” before a short prologue depicting an accident at InGen’s R&D facility. It then gives us several more title cards explaining that in present day dinosaurs are dying, except the ones that are moving to or already living around the equator and that people’s interests in dinosaurs have waned. This is all well and good, but in the next twenty-five minutes the film will have the characters explain and show all of this information, which is just very awkward.
Dr. Loomis in particular has it the worst with this because most of his dialogue in the first act is just repeating information that the audience, and sometimes the characters too, already know. It’s a testament to Bailey’s performance and Koepp’s ability to write engaging characters that despite this he still is an instantly likable co-lead and arguably the high-point of the cast.
The accident scene in the prologue is itself an issue because it has the opposite effect where most of the film continues as if the audience has not seen it, trying to treat the reveal of the “Distortus Rex” a secret up until effectively the third act despite it being in all the trailers, on the posters and, of course, in that opening scene in the prologue. It’s jarring and frankly you can probably cut out half of the runtime in the first act and it would make for a better viewing experience and improve the general storytelling.
Speaking of cutting things, the subplot of a family also being stranded on the island feels like it was spliced in from a completely different script. The two stories work fine together, but still felt a bit disjointed in the way far too many films do lately. It made us wonder if they were originally a larger part of the film before being cut down to a handful of scenes in editing or possibly during redrafting of the script. It all had a very Jurassic Park III-feel to it, which normally would be a good thing as we’re a big defender of that film, but the troubled production side of the film is not exactly something to strive for.
In fact, the film has a lot in common with Jurassic Park III. While it pulls in some anti-capitalist threads from The Lost World and attempts a bit of commentary on things like inaccessible health care, climate change and the racism in modern America, it is mostly concerned with being a film about dealing with trauma, reigniting what you’re passionate about and running from scary killer animals on a jungle island – just like Jurassic Park III.
When the film finally gets going after its slow first act, it does not stop and has the right amount of majestic wonder and terrifying suspense that you want from a Jurassic Park film, knowing when to do new things and when to pay homage to past things. The variety in dinosaurs and their behavioural patterns is also appreciated and giving them all their own mostly self-contained scenes allowed for them to feel more like real animals and less like slasher villains monotonously following their victims throughout an entire film.
A particularly great scene, which has been partially shown in trailers, is when the team encounters the titanosaurs. It’s a beautiful scene that harkens back to some of the best moments in the series such as Grant seeing the brachiosaurus in the original film and in Jurassic Park III, without feeling derivative or self-serving. It might genuinely be one of the best scenes in the entire series.
Sadly, the third act suffers from the opposite problem of the first act. It feels too fast and when the film wrapped up we genuinely kind of expected a twist that would throw another set piece into the mix because of how everything just kind of suddenly stopped. The D-Rex in particular, while really menacing and memorable, is barely in the film. It reminded us of Dominion in that way, except even the giganotosaurus had a bit more presence than this.
This is as good a time as any to talk about how great the film looks. John Mathieson is the cinematographer and he and Edwards have done tremendous work making this film look amazing. The environmental shots, the colours, the blocking of the fairly large cast, it’s all just perfect from start to finish. ILM have also put out some of their best work in years with Rebirth, as all the special effects seamlessly blend in with the reality on screen. If this review was solely about the visuals, we’d probably say Rebirth is the best in the series. It’s basically perfect.
Which leads us to the score composed by Alexandre Desplat. While it’s never bad, it is certainly not as striking and memorable as the visual presentation. Much of the soundtrack is rearranged versions of John Williams’ famous score and the original music ranges from inoffensive to fine. Given that Michael Giacchino’s score on the past trilogy was arguably the best part of those films it’s a bit of a let down, but it’s also hard to actually feel bad when it is still recognizably Jurassic Park and fits the tone of the film.
We mentioned that Bailey’s performance as Dr. Loomis is a high-point of the cast, but that’s not to say the rest of the cast isn’t delightful as well. We were surprised at how much we liked Johansson as Zora and Ali as Kincaid steals the show over and over again throughout the film. Perfect casting and excellent writing for them all, to the point where we genuinely feel bad having suggested that Johansson was a bad pick for the film in the past. We were wrong, and we’re happy to have been wrong.
The Delgado family, whose name we had to look up because while we’re sure it’s said in the film they’re such a small part of it that it did not come up enough to stick in our memory, is also really good for the most part. Reuben, played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is extremely good as the well-intentioned but clearly imperfect father of the two daughters Teresa and Isabella, played by Luna Blaise and Audrina Miranda respectively.
Miranda might actually have Garcia-Rulfo beat, however, as the best performance out of the family. She spends a lot of the film completely silent and yet manages to give an extremely nuanced and believable performance at a mere 12 years old. She might be a generational talent in the making and we wish her nothing but the best should she wish to continue her career into adulthood.
However, there’s also Teresa’s boyfriend. Xavier Dobbs played by David Iacono. No shade to Iacono, he does great with what he’s given, but he might be the most obnoxious character in the film and this film includes a morally black pharmaceutical CEO played by Rupert Friend and a needlessly macho white dude with a gun played by Ed Skrein. Xavier’s annoying aspects are clearly intentional, as he’s meant to grow out of them, but as we established the family’s sub-plot is a small part of the film so his development doesn’t really feel earned.
In conclusion, Jurassic World: Rebirth is an imperfect and flawed film. But it is, without a doubt, a good film. It’s fun, it’s gorgeous, it has important things to say, it has new ideas to show, it’s tremendously well-acted and perfectly cast. On its own it is a film worth watching and as part of the greater Jurassic Park series it is a strong sequel even if some of the narrative decisions bothers us.
Without a doubt, it’s the best film bearing the Jurassic World name so far.
Lesbiandrea! 