134 min | PG-13 | July 2, 2025 | Universal Pictures
Gareth Edwards reboots Jurassic World with a new cast and familiar formula. Scarlett Johansson hunts dinosaurs. The film delivers competent spectacle without surprise or vision.
The Jurassic franchise has been chasing the original for thirty years. Every sequel promises something different and delivers the same beats. People go to an island. Dinosaurs are dangerous. Capitalism and hubris cause disaster. Rebirth follows this template with professional efficiency. Five years after Dominion, a covert ops team led by Zora Bennett gets contracted to extract genetic material from massive dinosaurs. They encounter a stranded family. Everyone fights to survive. The premise is functional. The execution is predictable.
Scarlett Johansson plays Zora with action-hero competence that never develops into character. She runs, shoots, and makes tactical decisions without personality or depth. Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey fill out the team with performances that are professional and entirely forgettable. Rupert Friend, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Ed Skrein play roles that exist only to move plot. The stranded family provides emotional stakes that the film never earns.
Gareth Edwards directed Godzilla and Rogue One. He knows how to stage spectacle and use scale. The dinosaur sequences here are well-executed. The practical effects blend with CGI effectively. The film delivers the money shots of humans running from prehistoric predators. But the whole thing feels obligatory. David Koepp’s script recycles beats from better entries in the franchise. The mystery about what’s been hidden on the island lands with a thud.
This is franchise filmmaking as obligation rather than inspiration. The film exists because Jurassic Park makes money. It delivers dinosaurs attacking people and people barely escaping. That is enough for some. Not for anyone who remembers what made the original special.