Dinos roar again in sixth sequel, with an all-new cast and Spielberg-ian overtones of the 1993 original
Jurassic World Rebirth
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey & Rupert Friend
Directed by Gareth Edwards
Rated PG-13
In theaters Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Dinosaurs became extinct some 66 million years ago, until, that is, director Steven Spielberg brought ‘em back in a big way. His Jurassic Park in 1993 established a dino-mite film franchise that’s still roaring, now into sequel number six.
In Jurassic World Rebirth, set several years after the events of the previous film, 2022’s Dominion, the Earth’s climate has proven unwelcoming to laboratory-bred dinosaurs. (Despite the franchise title, it’s just not “Jurassic” enough.) So, a team of covert operatives infiltrate an abandoned dino research facility on a remote island now inhabited by crossbred dinosaur mutants, which continue to thrive in the wilds of the equatorial tropics. They’re on a mission to extract dino DNA, while there are still some dinos around to provide it, that a pharmaceutical company intends to use for medical purposes.
What could possibly go wrong?
Scarlett Johannson stars as a mercenary for hire, lured by a multimillion-dollar payday. Ditto for the boat captain played by Oscar-winning Mahershala (Moonlight) Ali. They’re both working for a tagalong pharmacy rep (Rupert Friend), who also enlists a hunky-nerd paleontologist (Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey, who also starred in Wicked). To keep things interesting, they all cross paths with a papa Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (from The Lincoln Lawyer) and his three kids, who just happen to be on their own collision course with dinosaur island.
It’s a Jurassic movie, so of course there are monsters—in the water, in the air and romping and stomping and snarling all over the place. Director Gareth Edwards creates some intense, dramatic encounters with an array of menacing creatures, including some crossbred amphibious mutations like the terrifying Distortus Rex, with a bulbous head and six limbs, and the Mutadons, flying carnivores the size of military F-16s.
Spielberg, who only directed two Jurassic flicks, remains onboard as a producer. Maybe that’s one reason so much of Rebirth seems to be retreading the past, with scenes that echo moments from the 1993 film and callbacks to the original, like a big unfurling museum banner that reads “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth,” which appeared in the closing shot of the first movie. One character misdirects a lurking dinosaur with a red flare, as Sam Neill did more than 30 years ago, and there’s another, whose greed leads him to a fate akin to Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) when he tried to smuggle dino embryos off the island.
There’s still that good ol’ Spielberg sentimentality, too, especially with a little girl (Audrina Miranda) who becomes a hero, her big sister’s wayward-teen boyfriend (David Iacono, from Netflix’s The Summer I Turned Pretty) who also proves his worthiness, and a cute little tagalong dino nicknamed Delores, which you’ll most likely be seeing as a mass-merched kids’ toy.
There’s plenty of talking in between the post-prehistoric action, including discussion about the situational ethics of dinosaur breeding and big pharma spending mega money to make even more mega money. It’s hard to miss the parallel to the entire Jurassic franchise, which continues to mine movie dinos for astronomical profits.
And now, in the world spawned by Jurassic Park, humans and dinosaurs continue to coexist, even though the dinos don’t really have much use for the ongoing exploitation of us puny bipeds. “They may be through with us,” says the movie’s pharmacology dude, “but we’re not through with them.” Somewhere in the distance, I hear the roar of an eighth Jurassic movie…
—Neil Pond
The Media Tourist 