Let’s begin with a truth so obvious it might as well be carved into amber: dinosaurs don’t need branding deals. They are the brand. In 1993, Steven Spielberg didn’t just make a film; he made the film. Jurassic Park wasn’t just a box office hit. It was a global cultural tremor. It launched a thousand CGI ships. It changed movie sound design (those dinosaur roars are still etched into our DNA). It gave us Goldblum’s chest and Laura Dern in a pink button-down, whispering sexy things about chaos theory and triceratops poop. For those who experienced it in real time, it was a moment; one that made you believe, if only for two hours, that science and story could resurrect the impossible. We were promised that life, uh, finds a way. And apparently, so does brand fatigue.
Which brings us to Jurassic World Rebirth, the seventh installment in a franchise that should have been gracefully fossilized long ago. But Hollywood, like the bloodthirsty carnivores it keeps CGI’ing into existence, has no intention of going extinct. Not when there are Happy Meals to fill and action figures to mold.
To its credit, Rebirth arrives with a sheen of respectability: Gareth Edwards (Godzilla, Rogue One) is directing, and David Koepp (who actually wrote the original screenplay for Jurassic Park) is back at the keyboard. Scarlett Johansson signs on, reportedly as a lifelong dinosaur fangirl. Mahershala Ali wanders in, perhaps looking for a better movie. There’s even Jonathan Bailey, playing a nerdy, dashing paleontologist named Dr. Loomis (not to be confused with the other Dr. Loomis who chased Michael Myers around Haddonfield; though that crossover might have been more entertaining). But beneath the familiar roars and lush digital jungle lies the unmistakable stink of creative decay.
It all begins, as all good disasters do, with a candy bar. A Snickers wrapper, yes, really, a wrapper gets sucked into the gears of a high-tech security door at a dinosaur facility. The system crashes, dinosaurs escape, people die, and capitalism claps politely from the sidelines. It’s like Willy Wonka & the Velociraptor Factory. You’re not sure whether to laugh or start texting your you congressmen.
What follows is a story so paint-by-numbers it might as well ship with a crayon set. A pharmaceutical conglomerate; led by Rupert Friend as Martin, a man whose ethics are as vague as his accent; believes the key to curing heart disease lies in dinosaur blood. You heard me. Dinosaur. Blood. His solution? Hire a ragtag team of mercenaries to sail to an island and extract it. This dream team includes Johansson’s Zora (think Lara Croft with more product placement), Ali’s Duncan (a man who mostly broods in cargo pants), and Bailey’s Dr. Loomis, who does a lot of talking about “cell fusion” while looking really good doing it.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the script, a nuclear family of four takes a boat into uncharted waters; because of course they do; and gets shipwrecked during a dino attack. The family includes a spunky little girl who, I kid you not, seems to be modeled after Dora the Explorer. Backpack? Check. Endless supply of candy? Check. Ability to tame wild animals with said candy? Double check. It’s less Spielbergian wonder and more YouTube Kids algorithm brought to life.
Now, let’s talk about the dinosaurs. Or rather, what’s left of their dignity. In Rebirth, these creatures have been fully demoted from majestic monsters to bumbling mascots. Raptors once cunning enough to open doors are now too distracted to eat a stoner who’s peeing in the jungle. The mighty T-Rex; the same one that gave us that iconic “closer than they appear” rearview mirror shot; is reduced to flopping on its back like a puppy begging for belly rubs.
And, naturally, there’s a baby dinosaur. Because of course there’s a baby dinosaur. Ever since Baby Yoda (sorry, Grogu) melted hearts and sold millions of plush toys, no franchise is safe from the toddlerfication of its monsters. This one, predictably, becomes best friends with the Dora-esque child after eating some Twizzlers or maybe a Twix. It’s less “clever girl” and more “aww, cuddle buddy.”
Plot-wise, Rebirth plays like someone dropped the scripts for Aliens, The Croods, and an expired CVS receipt into a blender. Characters are introduced, then discarded. Motivations shift like sand. The stakes are vague, the peril inconsequential. Dinosaurs seem weirdly uninterested in eating anyone. The family, despite being wildly unequipped for survival, gets separated, reunited, and escapes without so much as a scraped knee. It’s survival horror as envisioned by the Disney Channel.
And yet, amid the chaos, there’s one shining scene. One fleeting moment where the film dares to remember its roots. It happens in a golden field as massive herbivores graze peacefully, the John Williams theme swelling in the background. For a brief, nostalgic heartbeat, Rebirth captures the sheer awe of Jurassic Park; that sense of being small in the presence of something ancient, beautiful, and sublime. But like a mosquito trapped in amber, that moment is frozen in time and never reappears.
Instead, the movie leans hard on cheap homage. There’s the obligatory flare sequence. A tossed-off “objects in mirror” callback. These aren’t nods to the fans; they’re condescending nudges. It’s the cinematic equivalent of someone elbowing you during dinner and shouting, “Remember this thing you liked? We remember it too! Please buy our limited-edition Doritos!”
And I get it. I do. This franchise was never going to rediscover the lightning-in-a-bottle brilliance of Jurassic Park. But it didn’t have to be this lazy. This transparently commercial. This aggressively mediocre. When your film about apex predators and scientific hubris feels safer and more sanitized than a dinosaur-themed Applebee’s, you’ve officially lost the plot.
The worst part? Audiences will still show up. We’ll go, hoping to feel that old thrill again. Hoping to hear that iconic roar and forget, for a moment, the world outside the theater. But Jurassic World Rebirth doesn’t reward that hope. It exploits it. It commodifies wonder. It merchandises awe. And in doing so, it reminds us that sometimes, the scariest monster isn’t a genetically engineered hybrid; it’s the corporate committee who signed off on this thing.
In the end, Jurassic World Rebirth is not a rebirth at all. It’s a Frankenstein sequel, stitched together from better films, lurching forward on nostalgia fumes and product tie-ins. An Afterbirth if you will. It’s not a movie; it’s a cautionary tale about what happens when you take something beautiful and keep reviving it until all that’s left is a hollow echo of its own roar. These dinosaurs deserve better. And so do we who still believe a T-Rex should be terrifying, not cuddly.
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TL;DR: A guy who still drops Notting Hill references doesn’t think a movie sequel compares to the original that he saw over thirty years ago.
File under: Things Said By Fanboys About Every Franchise Since Star Wars.