Read @ Joe’s

Title: Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) Director: Gareth Edwards Writer: David Koepp Studio: Universal // Amblin Entertainment IMDb Plot: Five years post-Jurassic World: Dominion, an expedition braves isolated equatorial regions to extract DNA from three massive prehistoric creatures for a groundbreaking medical breakthrough. Joe Says: Jurassic World: Rebirth is loud, chaotic, and aggressively dumb.

When Jurassic Park stomped onto screens in 1993, the movie was a full-on thrill ride. Cool scientists. A stranded family. Some good old-fashioned corporate betrayal. And dinosaurs. Lots of them. The plot, adapted from Michael Crichton’s novel, was original. The dialogue? Eh. To be polite: functional. But the action? A relentless, dino-sized jolt to the system that electrified the tired and rubberized monster mundane. “It’s alive!” indeed. David Koepp’s screenplay helped bring Steven Spielberg’s vision to life like Frankenstein with a billion-dollar f/x budget and John Williams conducting the thunder.

Cut to thirty-two years and a few too many sequels later. Koepp’s back with Jurassic World: Rebirth. Same formula. Slightly different bottle. Observe: awkwardly hip scientist; endangered family unit; shadowy businessman. But whatever. Like Dirty Harry once expressed, the movie knows its limitations. Director Gareth Edwards brings the dinosaurs. And for most of Rebirth, that’s enough.

Sort of.

The central scheme this time? Big pharma businessman and punchable ghoul Martin Krebs (Homeland and Companion’s Rupert Friend) wants to formulate dino blood to radically improve that of humanity’s health – or at least humanity’s oligarchy. He hires avenging merc Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and dino expert Dr. Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) to lead the prehistoric heist.

There’s also the scoundrel Duncan (Mahershala Ali, wonderfully smooth, even when he’s delivering dialogue that reads like it was scraped off a napkin), and papa grande Ruben Delgado (Lincoln Lawyer’s Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), who is trying to keep his daughters safe after an alarming out-at-sea plesiosaur encounter. Koepp churns out pages and pages and pages of pointless dialogue and unnecessary exposition. Loomis tries to flirt with Zora. Zora and Duncan trade memories that have zero relevance to the audience. Ed Skrein flexes his muscles… because clearly they are more-inflated than his brain. 

All the makings of a low budget streamer with hiding-in-the-shadows monsters are present. But Jurassic World: Rebirth was supposed to be the opposite. 

Yet here’s the punch: the three leads? They’re good. They have screen presence. Hero energy. You actually want to watch them do things. You just don’t want to hear them say things. Because the dialogue is downright prehistoric. 

When Edwards finally lets the leash off the dinos, the movie does what it came to do – and what fans of Godzilla (2014) expect. Roar. Wreck stuff. Break laws of both physics and narrative logic. And yes, it’s fun. Zora, Duncan, Loomis, and the team must extract dino DNA from land, sea, and air creatures giving Edwards and his f/x crew plenty of monster movie magic. This is old-school popcorn bliss. Dumb, loud, glorious. 

Jurassic World: Rebirth recalls its history and makes nods to such, as well as to a host of other pop culture moments. Ever wonder how the S.S. Minnow grounded onto Gilligan’s Island? Jurassic World: Rebirth provides a decent idea! There’s even a dino-meets-Godzilla hybrid that might make Toho lawyers wince. What matters is this: you will not be bored. Confused, maybe. Frustrated, definitely. But never bored.

Jurassic World: Rebirth is loud, chaotic, and aggressively dumb. The heroes are solid. The action sings. The dialogue belongs in a museum, and not one that Dr. Henry Jones would curate.

Call it a mess. Call it a thrill. Just don’t call it extinct. At least not yet.