Movie Watch Diary #15: Jurassic World Rebirth – A Disjointed Dino Disappointment

Welcome back to my Movie Watch Diary on Bookimov: Books & Movies! For my fifteenth entry, I finally got around to watching Jurassic World Rebirth (2025), directed by Gareth Edwards and written by David Koepp. As a fan of the Jurassic franchise, I was hoping for a thrilling return to dino-mania, but sadly, this one left me bored and frustrated. Despite a few gripping moments, the film feels like a mishmash of ideas that never gels. I’m giving it a 5/10, and here’s why. As always, I need your movie picks for my next diary!

Jurassic World Rebirth (2025) - A Promising Start That Fizzles Out

The opening minutes of Jurassic World Rebirth are electric—a tense, exciting setup that had me hooked. The film kicks off with a bang, promising the kind of dino-driven thrills the franchise is known for. But that excitement fades fast, replaced by mundane dialogue, drawn-out team-building scenes, and a disjointed story that feels like it’s trying to do too much. The pacing drags, and by the time the dinosaurs take center stage, I was already checked out.

The Plot: A Fragmented Mess

Set five years after Jurassic World Dominion (2022), the planet’s ecology has become inhospitable to dinosaurs, confining them to equatorial zones. A pharmaceutical company, led by Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend), sends a team headed by ex-military operative Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson) and paleontologist Dr. Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey) to extract DNA from three massive dinosaurs—a Mosasaurus, a Titanosaurus, and a Quetzalcoatlus—for a heart disease cure. Meanwhile, a shipwrecked family—Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his daughters Teresa (Luna Blaise) and Isabella (Audrina Miranda), and Teresa’s boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono)—gets caught in a Mosasaurus attack and crosses paths with the team. The groups separate, reunite, and face mutated dinosaurs, including a lab-created “Distortus rex,” on a dangerous island once used by InGen for experiments.

The story feels fragmented, jumping between the family’s survival and the team’s mission without a cohesive thread. The two groups’ interactions are brief and lack depth, making the narrative feel like a patchwork of unrelated events. The film tries to showcase every type of dinosaur—sea, land, and air—but it comes off as a checklist rather than a unified story.

A Critique of Clichés and Missed Opportunities

The film’s biggest flaw is its lack of focus. It spends too much time on tedious setup—recruiting the team, the family’s boat chatter—that kills the momentum. The dinosaur scenes, meant to be the heart of the movie, feel repetitive and uninspired. The T-Rex sequence, in particular, is dull and overdone, while other dinosaurs attack in predictable patterns. The “Distortus rex,” a mutated T-Rex teased in the opening, is underused—shown briefly, shelved, then brought back in a confusing, anticlimactic finale where characters inexplicably wander unscathed amid chaos. I found myself wishing for a fast-forward button.

Another tired trope is the inclusion of a young child, Isabella, facing dinosaurs. The franchise’s reliance on kids in peril feels clichéd and forced, especially 30 years in. The film does hit one smart note: dinosaurs are no longer awe-inspiring to humans in this world. A scene where a giant dinosaur causes a traffic jam, met with annoyance rather than wonder, mirrors the franchise’s own fatigue. After decades, Jurassic films struggle to recapture the magic of 1993’s Jurassic Park—and Rebirth feels like proof the series may have lost its spark.

A Glimmer of Praise

Despite my gripes, a few moments shine. The opening sequence is genuinely thrilling, and the idea of dinosaurs losing their novelty is a clever commentary on the franchise’s stagnation. The cast, including Johansson, Bailey, and Mahershala Ali as team leader Duncan Kincaid, tries hard, but the script gives them little to work with. The visuals are solid, though not as groundbreaking as earlier entries.

Ratings and Final Thoughts

Jurassic World Rebirth has a 6.1/10 on IMDb (from 88,000 votes) and a 51% Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score (from 249 reviews, audience score 72%). Critics call it a mixed bag—some praise its action, others lament its lack of originality. I wanted to give it a 3 or 4/10 for its disjointed story and tired tropes, but the strong start and the effort put into it nudge my rating to a 5/10. If you’re a die-hard Jurassic fan, you might enjoy it, but you’re better off rewatching Jurassic Park (1993) for real thrills.

What did you think of Jurassic World Rebirth? Did the dinosaurs still excite you, or did it feel flat? Share your thoughts below! Also, I’m hunting for my next Movie Watch Diary pick. Got a movie you think I should watch? Drop your suggestion in the comments, and it might star in my next post on Bookimov: Books & Movies. Until next time, leave the dinosaurs in the past!

See also: Movie Watch Diary #14: Mickey 17 – A Sci-Fi Satire with Bite and Heart