My quick rating – 6.1/10. Five years after the somewhat lackluster finale of Jurassic World Dominion, Universal decided the dinos weren’t quite extinct at the box office. So here comes Jurassic World Rebirth, dusting off those prehistoric giants for another run, this time led by covert ops expert Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), who’s been hired to secure genetic material from the three biggest dinosaurs on Earth. Naturally, she brings along a team that feels like it was pulled straight out of the Action Movie Team Starter Pack, including Mahershala Ali as the smooth, capable Duncan Kincaid.
When their mission collides with an unfortunate civilian family whose vacation boat trip gets wrecked (because, of course, it does), everyone winds up stranded on a remote island teeming with dinosaurs. The classic John Williams themes still manage to give you goosebumps, echoing back to that first majestic Brachiosaurus reveal. What follows is your standard-issue survival adventure, sprinkled with a conspiracy twist involving a decades-old secret that’s predictably more sinister than anyone bargained for.
On the bright side, the cinematography by John Mathieson is fantastic. Whenever the action ramps up, dinosaurs sprinting, clawing, or soaring across the screen. It’s genuinely thrilling to look at. Director Gareth Edwards pulls it all together nicely. The creatures themselves are beautifully rendered; the visual effects team made sure the dinosaurs still pack a punch, even if they no longer deliver that jaw-dropping-in-the-theater awe we all felt back in 1993. Similar to that first theater viewing of Avatar, or what I had recently, with a feeling like I was in the room during my VR watch of The Faceless Lady.
But that’s also part of the problem. The sense of wonder feels automated now. The technology has reached a point where seeing a dinosaur on screen is almost mundane, expected, rather than exhilarating. It’s like going to a fireworks show you’ve seen a dozen times: still pretty, but it doesn’t get my heart racing. The mutant hybrid dinosaurs — now culminating in the so-called D-Rex, which looks suspiciously like a T-Rex bred with Jabba’s pet Rancor — didn’t exactly help. Honestly, dinosaurs were plenty fascinating all on their own. Turning them into monster-movie bosses just cheapens it.
The family subplot mostly felt shoehorned in, a group of hapless civilians there to boost the available targets and give Zora’s team something else to fret over. A baby dinosaur pops up to score “aww” points, but its presence is about as essential as an inflatable pool float in a hurricane.
In the end, I walked out of the theater feeling satisfied but not exactly stunned. Jurassic World Rebirth gave me what I expected: solid dino thrills, a few well-shot chase sequences, and enough nostalgia hits to keep me entertained. But that spark of cinematic magic, the kind that made you believe you were seeing real dinosaurs for the first time, is long gone. Maybe some fossils really are best left buried.
Aside from the theaters, Fandango at Home is the only streamer carrying this right now. Amazon already has it set for January 2026.