Jurassic World Rebirth review: like the Jurassic Park itself, it's a promising experiment that goes wrong

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I've been a stalwart fan of the Jurassic World revival of the Jurassic Park franchise, even if the quality took a tumble towards the end. So when visionary director Gareth Edwards was announced to helm a continuation of the franchise, one which would double down on the horrifying concept of mutant dinos, I was fully in.
Unfortunately, the resulting movie Jurassic World Rebirth doesn't live up to the hype. It's overlong, frustrating and lacking in thrills, so much so that I look back at the widely-panned Jurassic World Dominion fondly in comparison.
Jurassic World Rebirth is set several years on from Dominion, and sees an expedition of mercenaries travel to a remote island to collect DNA from isolated dinos, only to have their plans scuppered when the dinosaurs start to attack them. Who would've thought that would happen?
Here's how to watch the Jurassic Park movies in order
At the same time we follow a family on a sailing trip who likewise are attacked by a dinosaur, and have to find refuge on this dangerous island. In its opening text crawl, the movie sweeps under the rug the Fallen Kingdom-introduced idea of dinos joining the Earth's ecosystem in a permanent and disappointingly-limiting way, keeping action limited to one island.
The team consists of Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend and some future dino fodder, while Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is the patriarch of the family. None of the characters are given much to work with, but props go to Audrina Miranda for playing perhaps the most convincing child of the Jurassic Park franchise.
The plot is driven along by a series of coincidences, contrivances and bizarre logic, and you'll want to scream at the screen for how infuriatingly little sense any of it makes. The premise for the island, the reason the original base there shut down, the relationship between the stranded family members, an unending string of hair-pullingly idiotic decisions by characters; all of these make it impossible to get engaged with the movie, though serve as fodder to complain about to friends over a beer later. The more you think about it, the more you wonder: "why is there a gas station selling tourist tat on a remote island which ever only housed a scientific research base, and has no roads?"
There's a lot more that's frustrating for how it's not addressed. Two of the main characters have traumas they describe during one laborious conversation scene and barely bring up again; most of the other characters have "arc"' that are either resolved the scene after they're brought up or are completely forgotten. You don't watch Jurassic movies for their characters, but at least you get a sense of who Ian Malcolm, Ellie Sattler, Alan Grant, or the World characers actually are.
Clocking in at 2 hours and 14 minutes, Rebirth is the second-longest movie of the franchise, despite its simple plot. It feels long too, with a sluggish first half that spends far too much time at sea, and a stop-start pace once characters get to the island; the story rarely instills a sense of excitement or danger. A few punchier scenes, like the brief appearance of a T-Rex and an attack by the aquatic Mosasaurus, are so prevalent in the trailers that they lose their impact, too.
The movie is surprisingly bloodless and kid-friendly, more so than past entries. Almost all dino kills are out of view, with the creatures dragging victims off-camera at every opportunity (maybe they're just shy eaters), and the child character befriends a baby dinosaur that proceeds to travel around in her backpack like we're watching a Disney film (admittedly this dino, Dolores, was the highlight of the movie to some people I spoke to). Fans who loved the harrowing dino disaster and brutality of past Jurassic World movies will find it toothless.
This is despite Rebirth being marketed as a horror movie. The new big bad Distortus Rex is only creepy in its first scene, then disappears for the vast majority of the movie, and when it re-enters at the eleventh hour it's nonthreatening and looks daft. In fact the premise of the island being home to an ecosystem of mutant dinos only manifests in the D-Rex and one other creature, which you'd think was just a normal dino if not for a quick dialogue aside.
Instead of blood, Rebirth is chock-full of "jokes", however, the vast majority land with a resounding 'thud' (more of a 'thud' than the footsteps of the lumbering behemoths, that characters inexplicably fail to hear throughout the movie). I smiled at one line near the beginning, but the further the film goes on, the more the incessant attempts at humor deflate any atmosphere the movie has created.
Dino fans will appreciate the appearance of some big-name debuts to the franchise like Quetzalcoatlus and Titanosaurus, but if you don't know your Stegasaurus from your Triceratops, then all these new dinos will do is remind you of scenes from the original trilogy, which Rebirth is clearly aping.
Despite not following Dominion's footsteps by bringing back the original cast, Rebirth plays on nostalgia even more than the reboot trilogy. I liked the use of Jurassic Park's color scheme, but there are too many shots lifted wholesale from the original, and the classic score is dropped in at baffling points. The original theme, evoking wonder and excitement, is used when one character is telling another of their PTSD!
Universal has dubbed Jurassic World Rebirth a stand-alone movie, rather than the start of a new trilogy, but it's hard to see where the franchise can go from here given the status of dinos within the movie. Out of the movie, Rebirth has squandered my enthusiasm for future installments, and it feels like a hiatus is well due (reports suggest a new movie will come in 2028, but one can dream!).
Watch Jurassic World Rebirth exclusively in movie theaters; it releases on Wednesday, July 2.
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