Review: 'Jurassic World: Rebirth' is a (Pretty Good and Mostly Entertaining) $180 Million Syfy Channel Original Movie

‘Dino Park Massacre 7’ is a well-acted and visually lovely adventure, with copious spectacular set pieces, that works as a placeholder amid grander franchise ambitions.

Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)
- 2025/133 minutes/Rated PG-13
- Directed by Gareth Edwards and written by David Koepp
- Produced by Frank Marshall and Patrick Crowley
- Starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Manuel Garia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, Audrina Miranda, Philippine Velge, Bechir Sylvain, Ed Skrein
- Cinematography by John Mathieson, Edited by Jabez Olssen, Music by Alexandre Desplat
- Production - Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment and The Kennedy Marshall Company
- Opening theatrically courtesy of Universal Pictures on the week of July 4.

Yes, at its core, Jurassic World Rebirth is a skewed rehash of Joe Johnston’s pretty enjoyable Jurassic Park III. It is likewise mostly a no-bullshit, no-pretensions adventure about a handful of folks struggling to survive on a deserted dinosaur island. Even noting the film’s subtitle, there is no real intent to “reinvent” or “reestablish” the ongoing series and indeed no explicit nods toward a new franchise after the absurdly successful Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard-starring trilogy. If anything, this Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali-led Jurassic movie feels like an in-between chapter, a bonus episode, buying Universal and Amblin additional time to figure out how to proceed long-term.

It is perhaps odd that an $180 million movie positioned as one of the biggest releases of the year — bearing the title of one of the most successful Hollywood franchises of all time — goes out of its way to avoid designating itself as a must-see event. However, that framing allows for a certain forgiveness of its “trespasses,” as it nails the arguable fundamentals of its promises. Simply put, it is a visually spectacular adventure (shot on film, no less) with good actors giving weight to thin characters and a slew of clever and compelling “Look out, dinosaurs!” action setpieces qualifying as “worth the price of admission.

It shares some of the issues with both Jurassic Park III and the latter Jurassic World sequels, including a reluctance to get nasty in terms of who lives and who dies. I’ll still blame the idiotic online backlash to Katie McGrath’s over-the-top Jurassic World demise, which the Merlin and Supergirl actress herself requested, but I digress. While that film’s plot concerned a hoodwinked Dr. Alan Grant (offhandedly name-dropped here in a movie otherwise mostly free of past-tense references) helping two parents search for their missing son, this flick concerns mercenaries grabbing items which could lead to a medical breakthrough. Hey, that hook worked in Jungle Cruise… I suppose?

While the 2001 entry was a shockingly lean 93 minutes, this one runs thirty minutes longer. This is mainly achieved by repeating a single objective—finding a dinosaur and collecting a blood sample — with three different dinosaurs. Additionally, David Koepp’s screenplay is in no hurry to rush to the island, with much of the first half focusing on a King Kong-ish seafaring adventure. It is at sea that we meet a civilian family whose sailing trip goes off course. They eventually separated from the fetch-questing mercenaries. It works in terms of pacing and — since Scarlett Johansson and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo are obviously compelling actors — consistent audience engagement.

Yes, the film seems set on making both Johansson and Ali into Hollywood’s nicest gun-toting mercenaries. Jonathan Bailey’s Dr. Henry Loomis is likewise deeply inconsistent in terms of his level of cynicism and arguable obliviousness. Nitpicks aside, it provides a give-and-take between the “nice” adventurers and the less idealized pharmaceutical representative (Rupert Friend) alongside more self-aware mercenaries (personified by Ed Skrein). No, these aren’t the deepest bunch of characters you’re going to encounter this summer. However, they merit our rooting interest and, even amid a mostly “Run! Look out!” screenplay, benefit from a few “smart characters talk about interesting issues” sequences that have been this franchise’s non-spectacle hallmark.

As far as spectacle, Gareth Edwards delivers in spades. We get plenty of engrossing and varied dino-centric peril, utilizing catch-and (mostly)-release suspense and Edwards’ signature mastery of scale. The best beat is loosely adapted from the original Jurassic Park novel, but it works on its own bruised-forearm merits and repositions the T-Rex as a cranky house cat. Yeah, Godzilla x Kong did it first, but few things are scarier than a pissed off kitty. Since the film won’t be getting IMAX screens and will likely have to compete with F1 for related PLFs, I should note that it looked and sounded big and beautiful in a regular auditorium.

Jurassic World Rebirth is more of a “Don’t fuck it up” entry than anything aggressively bold or transgressive. There’s nothing like Fallen Kingdom’s dino auction or Dominion’s “What if Jason Bourne… but with dinosaurs?!” set piece, furthering its apparent purpose as a mega-budget SyFy original movie franchise placeholder. It’s still pretty good for what’s essentially the seventh Dino Park Massacre movie. It provides the core ingredients (non-superheroic people of varying occupations, priorities and morals adventuring around and sometimes alongside giant dinosaurs in a big-budget action spectacle ecosystem) that differentiate the Jurassic franchise from its tentpole competition, offering franchise-specific entertainment value in a relatively unpretentious and refreshingly unapologetic fashion.

That Rebirth is not the grand epic of our time is both unsurprising and not a dealbreaker. The franchise, especially the most recent entries, has suffered critical slings and arrows from a generation of reviewers who grew up (justifiably) lionizing Steven Spielberg’s 1993 classic amid an ecosystem where more adult-skewing genre films barely exist at the theatrical level. It used to matter less whether Space Jam was anything other than diverting since Ransom was still available on the same marquee. Warts and all, this unambitious but enjoyable sci-fi actioner delivers the franchise-specific goods. Beyond that, well, go watch Materialists or The Life of Chuck while you still can.