Jurassic World Rebirth Review — A retread that still has plenty of bite

I was a kid when I saw the first Jurassic Park in theaters, and it ignited my love for dinosaurs that persist to this day. But after years of watching subsequent Jurassic Park—now Jurassic World—movies, the franchise has turned these majestic creatures passé. Jurassic World Dominion even unleashed dinosaurs all over the world, making them as mundane as graffiti in a New York City subway.

That is, until Jurassic World Rebirth drops like an extinction-level meteor that wipes the slate clean for director Gareth Edwards to bring dinosaurs back to being the main attraction instead of Chris Pratt. While I'm glad they're rebooting a franchise long in the tooth, whether the scorched earth approach is successful or not remains to be seen.

In Rebirth, dinosaurs have all but died out, unable to survive our polluted air and rising temperatures. The only place where dinosaurs thrive is in tropical climates their prehistoric ancestors were used to. ParkerGenix, a pharmaceutical company, sends Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) to recruit mercenary Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson getting that bag) to help them collect DNA samples from the biggest dinosaurs alive for use in their research of life-saving medicines. Or so they say.

Joining them are wide-eyed paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) and Zora’s frequent collaborator Duncan Kincaid (Mahershala Ali). Their top-secret mission will bring them closer to dinosaurs than anyone else on the planet—and closer to dangers none of them are prepared for.

This back-to-basics approach pares the movie down to a brisk 2-hour adventure with few lulls and plenty of fun scares. With less distractions, the action set pieces are laser focused to provide the maximum thrills, and Rebirth mostly keeps up that pace until the end.

In case that isn't exciting enough, a B plot involving a helpless shipwrecked civilian family (played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Luna Blaise, Audrina Miranda, and David Iacono) trying to survive dinosaurs and each other is added to the mix. But like oil and water, the two branching storylines never quite gel, turning Jurassic World Rebirth into a loose double feature that leaves both plots feeling underbaked.

At the very least, Gareth Edwards brings back a sense of Spielbergian wonder—and a bit of Jurassic Park fanservice—to the proceedings. From using John Williams’ iconic score to low angle shots of towering Titanosaurus herds, Edwards coaxes the awe you felt seeing dinosaurs for the first time in 1993. There is a case of being too nostalgia driven, though, and oftentimes Rebirth feels like a Greatest Hits mishmash of all the previous Jurassic movies.

Still, I sat in the theater holding my breath, gripping my seat, and sitting slack-jawed in awe for two hours that passed by very quickly. In that sense, Jurassic World Rebirth succeeds in being a fun time at the movies despite the feeling we've seen all of this before.