Review of Jurassic World Rebirth, directed by Gareth Edwards

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

About a year ago (at the time of typing this) I quit my job as a professional film critic to explore what was out there in the world when it came to publishing about the movies and books I wanted to see, not just what was popular in the moment. Digital media and working within it can be fun and all, but it can be grinding when you’re just chasing after all the latest trends and clicks for SEO.

I started this blog four years ago, during the pandemic, but never really took it seriously beyond the occasional post here and there about what I was up to. In 2023 I began to realize the impact this blog was having on me, and other people were reaching out about reading it, so I expanded. Once I quit my job, I decided to focus on the blog more while job hunting, as I do make a few pennies here and there from the display ads on the screen.

Context aside, the theme of summer 2025 for me has been physically going to the movies! After a year off of my film critic job, and also losing my car and being forced to give up my local movie theater’s subscription service where you can now see four movies a week for only $28 a month, my sister and I decided to get the subscription again and have a hot movie girl summer.

Today’s movie actually was at a different chain though, as my mother and I were babysitting my teenage nephew and niece and needed something to do with them. This heat wave has been brutal, so outdoor activities have been a no-go during this time and indoor stuff has been in. We landed on Jurassic World Rebirth, despite none of us having ever seen any Jurassic Park movies in the past, and man what a time it was.

Let’s get into the review before I start rambling too much!

A team gets together to extract the blood of three dinosaurs for a pharmaceutical company—but not without some major complications.

This edition of Jurassic World opens seventeen years prior to the events of the movie, specifically in 2010. In an island near the Equator InGen is trying to make mutated dinosaurs that have mixed DNA, but when an employee drops his Snickers bar wrapper and it gets sucked into the system, taking down the containment, one of their D-rexes, which is a massive tyrannosaur with six limbs, wreaks havoc and kills that employee.

This forces the laboratory and island to be abandoned by the researchers, and the dinosaurs now roam around freely. No one goes there because it is so dangerous, and when the Earth’s climate is unable to keep the dinosaurs alive, this is one of the only places where they can live. Governments refuse to allow people there, though, making it completely isolated.

But seventeen years later, Martin Krebs, who is high up at a pharmaceutical company, wants to use the dinosaurs and their blood in order to make a medication that will help people live longer. He recruits a former military operative named Zora to help him out, then convinces a paleontologist named Henry Loomis to join them because of his knowledge.

Zora hooks them up with her old friend Duncan in Suriname to help them out, despite Martin being annoyed that Zora and Duncan get more money out of him beforehand. He brings along his crew of LeClerc, who mainly speaks French, Nina, and a guy named Bobby who’s easily willing to shoot at the dinosaurs.

The crew heads out for the island on their boat, but along the way we meet a family consisting of Reuben, Isabella, Teresa, and Teresa’s bum of a boyfriend Xavier. They’re trying to sail to Cape Town, but when they get too close to the island, a mosasaurus takes down their ship. Despite protests, Duncan decides to accept their mayday call and rescue the family, but they’re horrified to see this group is trying to get the mosasaurus’s blood.

And Zora does get it with the help of Henry, but then they get caught by a group of spinosaurus who eat Bobby before they can get away. When Martin almost kills Teresa, as the ship is being run aground, all of the Delgado family jumps overboard to help Teresa, despite Zora’s protests. The remaining crew makes it to shore, but as they’re lugging the emergency supplies, Nina is nabbed by a spinosaurus that eats her.

Haunted by what just happened but determined, the remaining crew sets out into the jungle. Zora reveals that she has a rescue helicopter coming in 24 hours, but they need to be at the former lab and ready to go at its helipad or they’ll be left behind. Both the crew and the Delgados wander separately in the jungle, narrowly avoiding the perils contained within.

Notably, Isabella befriends a little herbivore dinosaur (lovingly named Dolores) by feeding it licorice candy she had in her backpack, and it helps them out by sensing danger. When the Delgados try to get a raft, they narrowly escape being eaten by a t-rex, then they head downstream when the raft also survives the onslaught.

The other crew manages to get their titanosaurus sample, but next up they have to climb high to get a sample from a quetzalcoatlus egg. Zora and Henry narrowly survive an encounter with one, but LeClerc, who saved them by making noise outside, is swallowed whole by the dinosaur. Duncan is more distraught at the entire loss of his original crew, but they have to keep going.

Everyone ends up at the laboratory at nightfall, much to Zora’s relief, but that’s when the mutated dinosaurs come out to play. Martin pulls out his gun and takes the samples when Zora and the crew realize that he was the one who left Teresa to die in the water. That’s when the mutated dinosaurs attack. The Delgados flee into the tunnels they find inside a convenience store, Martin takes the UTV nearby, and Duncan and Henry learn the tunnels lead to an emergency exit boat at the docks.

When Henry gets the helicopter to come back around (originally they didn’t spot anyone), the d-rex destroys the helicopter and it explodes on impact with the ground. Everyone ends up in the tunnels, Zora shoots a dinosaur dead down there and they end up right by the harbor where they need to be.

However, the gate is locked and only Isabella can fit. As she squeezes through and tries to open the gate, the d-rex approaches her and prepares for a small feast, but then Martin rolls up. He’s eaten instead, Isabella opens the gate, and then Henry grabs the samples.

But when they all reach the boat, the d-rex is upon them. Duncan sacrifices himself with the flares to distract the d-rex, and Zora, Henry, and the Delgados get on the boat and prepare to leave. Zora is distraught until she sees a flare go off, meaning Duncan is alive. He swims to their boat and they all get on.

The movie ends with Zora mentioning Henry something he kept bringing up earlier in the movie: what if they could use the samples to help everyone for free? She agrees they should do that as the boat zooms off into the open sea.

Overall Thoughts

As someone who has never seen any Jurassic World or Jurassic Park movies, I didn’t expect the amount of violence in this movie. I came into it completely blind, which might have been a mistake, but this was pretty solid for an action movie. There are pockets of humor woven throughout (like Xavier almost dying while taking a piss), but there were some gold moments as well (I enjoyed Xavier finally being accepted by the father, who disapproved of him at first).

The acting was really good, but I feel like we don’t get to know the characters enough in a way that feels productive to me. Maybe this is indicative of the entire series—I can’t speak for that—but it was so focused on the dinosaurs and the classic theme that the only characters I felt like I knew somewhat well were Duncan and Henry.

I prefer a character-driven story, so this was disappointing to me in some ways. I did enjoy watching this movie though, and it was a solid summer blockbuster.

I recommend it if you’re bored, can afford it, and need something to do on a Friday night. I don’t know if I’ll watch the other Jurassic movies after this—I kind of get the vibe that if you see one, you’ve seen them all, but correct me if I’m wrong!

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