Jurassic World Rebirth arrives dead in the water

Jurassic World is born again and this time it comes with complications. Rebirth had high hopes of reinvigorating the franchise with a fresh, new cast on a mission to pillage the land of the lost dinosaurs. Unfortunately for the shipwrecked creative team, these ambitious aspirations and expectations are dashed on the rocks.

Scarlett Johansson is given the lead role of Zora Bennett and she's on a mission to visit dinosaur island because she needs the cash.

There's a gleam in Johansson's eye in the first scene and for a minute, one might think her time with Colin Jost might have paid off with some humor in this project. That quickly fades away as viewers will see that both she and her onscreen character are only here for a paycheck.

The story starts with a “17 years later…” projected across the screen, then hops around in time and takes place five years after Jurassic World Dominion. A pharmaceutical company wants to extract samples from several prehistoric species that are living on a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean. A ragtag team set out on a wet adventure by boat, which makes Jurassic World more like Water World and adds in Jaws-inspired sequences thanks to a behemoth from below.

After surviving more contrived situations, the group reaches the remote research facility, where more danger awaits in the form of mutant dinos. The standard lizard has lost its luster and the special effects department had to juice up the lineage by adding appendages to the creatures.

Longtime fans of the franchise may struggle to connect with an outrageous Mutadon and the wildly impossible situations the actors are tasked with, such as surviving a long, plunging fall.

Some people are saying Rebirth is better than the last few Jurassic installments, but have these reptilians sunk so low that they can only top themselves?

This episode of Land of the Lost, minus the Sleestaks, drones on for 133 minutes and overstays its welcome. It's not over-the-top enough to be camp like M3GAN or smart enough to be satire like Sinners. The strange thing is that Rebirth takes itself seriously in a World full of forced situations. The script is badly written and there's no Jeff Goldblum this time with his talented tongue-in-cheek delivery. The director, Gareth Edwards, sets the tone and gives it the old college try, but it might be time to put these fossils out to pasture.

Jonathan Bailey dances through dinosaur life wearing glasses as Dr. Henry Loomis and is so busy being in awe of the creatures that he ignores danger at every turn. There is a Latin family along for the ride who have a Bad Bunny-ish boyfriend in their ranks and are terrorized by a rich, white man. There's no escape from the real world in Jurassic World and also no likable or relatable characters to be found in the process. Even a Land Before Time moment with Delores the baby dinosaur can't drum up the necessary feels and looks fake from afar.

It's time to throw the baby out with the Jurassic bathwater and Rebirth needs to be rebuilt from the ground up with a new cycle of life. Rebirth should have aborted this mission before it started and the only thing to blame for bringing this beast back to life is a pesky Snickers wrapper.

Jurassic World Rebirth bites into the US box office on July 2, 2025.