It’s incredible really that only 18 years separated the releases of Jaws and Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg’s two films which each changed the whole nature of “popcorn movies” – and then 32 years have passed since the latter’s release, and so far nobody’s really changed the formula again. Jurassic World Rebirth is the sixth sequel to that film and this time round, the plot revolves around a group of people trapped on an island with dinosaurs who would rather they weren’t there.
David Koepp – who wrote the screenplays for the first and second ones – returns, and taking over directorial duties is Gareth Edwards. Musically of course, Edwards picked his Godzilla composer Alexandre Desplat to score his previous big franchise movie (Rogue One) but after post production was taken out of his hands, the composer was replaced by Michael Giacchino (who delivered a wonderful score). Giacchino has also scored the previous three Jurassic movies, but the revolving door has turned 180 degrees back to Desplat for this latest entry.
Desplat is one of my favourite film composers but despite successfully scoring a few big tentpole Hollywood action movies (including Edwards’s Godzilla of course, but also the last couple of Harry Potters) he is seen primarily as a composer of more serious drama and has departed a couple of high-profile projects quite late in the day (Black Widow and Barbie). In particular his action music style is rather polarising – I think he’s demonstrated in a wide variety of scores that he’s really good at it (the big fantasy action music of The Golden Compass and Valerian is terrific; I have to mention Godzilla for the third time already, because its angry, gnarling style is sensational, by an absolute landslide the best music written for an American film featuring that character; and while the Potters are perhaps most of all not everyone’s cup of tea, I thought he did a good job of finding the balance between paying homage to the great John Williams while still writing in his own style).
Giacchino’s three scores for this franchise are really good. He is very much as distinctive a composer as Desplat and found some great themes and spectacular action music in each of the his efforts. Despite having “World” not “Park” in the title, the French composer does not reference any of Giacchino’s material, fashioning what is for the most part something that is entirely his own, but which does reprise the two iconic Williams themes (and for my money, they are genuinely amongst the legendary composer’s very best, which is really saying something) for some key moments.
It all kicks off in “Opening Lab” – a few jungle-type sounds are heard before ominous, slow-moving chords from the brass section and choir build on each other to leave little doubt that “something has survived,” to coin a phrase. Growling trombones then play off with gently fluttering flutes before trumpets make things more urgent, leading to shrieking violins and doom-laden horns for a distinctly Herrmannesque finale to the cue. It’s quite the start.
In the brief “Bridge of Deal” we get a bit more Herrmann actually, in more psychological mode this time from the shimmering strings, before “Natural History Museum” opens with a glimpse of one of Desplat’s two major new themes for the score, developing the material from the previous cue into a proper theme. Within a couple of minutes he already sends it through two very different variations – opening very warm, it quickly becomes suspenseful and we hear it for various soloists as the cue develops, such as bassoon and later horn. Just as the piece seems to be heading for a very sad conclusion, up pops Williams’s Journey to the Island fanfare to bring a smile to everyone’s face (though we haven’t heard it before with a downer of an ending quite like it has here).
In “Team Gathered”, the other Williams theme goes on to make its first appearance, as part of a playful little scherzo which is quite delightful. Then to open “Voyage” Desplat goes big with his own theme with a rousing rendition that serves as an early highlight. It’s not long before we’re back into suspenseful territory – I can imagine the composer really enjoyed playing his own theme off in that mode with Williams’s theme subtly interjecting occasionally on harp. Clever.
There are hints of the composer’s Potter music in “Dart Show”, an delightfully entertaining vignette, before things get more serious with a gorgeous piano melody in “Zora and Kincaid” – it’s a subtle display of emotion and perhaps affection, not a big love theme, which is not common in the music for this sort of film (but very much common in the music of Alexandre Desplat). The feeling doesn’t last long however because everything goes south in “Mosasaur Attacks Yacht”, and this is where I must reference Godzilla for a fourth time, because the pounding orchestral forces that gradually rise up to fever pitch inevitably recall that score. It is so carefully constructed – the orchestration so precise and so intricate – a far cry from most 2025 blockbuster action music, and frankly a reminder of how much can be brought to that style beyond the crash/bang theatrics that inevitably work in context but don’t always make the most compelling albums for people like me (and I assume you).
So far I’ve talked about the album’s opening eight cues, which run for about 22 minutes – so there are still 80 minutes of album remaining. Precious few film scores, even ones written by composers as talented as this one, can really sustain themselves for that long – and “Zora and Loomis Chat” feels like the first piece which is somewhat superfluous to the listening experience, lovely as the Williams variants are. “Mayday” is another gentle piece for the most part (despite its title), and it’s fascinating to hear Desplat using the piano to create tension in the simplest way possible, but just as I’m wondering if it really needs to be here, we hear the first snippet of the score’s second major theme, a warm “familial relationship” type piece. “Mosasaur Bumps Boat” is a relatively subtle piece of suspense, somewhat anonymous.
We’re very much back on track however in the fabulous “Boat Chase”, with a real 1990s action/adventure feel to the way the composer opens the cue with a brassy version of his theme before taking it very much into action mode – there’s a lot going on, with heroic rises and terrible falls. I find it exhilarating and it leaves me with a smile on my face – can’t really ask for much more than that – and I love that Desplat waiting this long before going truly big with it (one of the frustrations of so much modern film music is the way it tends to go big all the time, leaving no real sense of building up to things).
The action continues in the two-part “Fins Attack”, this time built on a string ostinato that the composer adds brass to for added weight when required – again there are so many little touches of flair throughout, it’s so satisfying to hear. Xylophones in action music are perhaps an acquired taste, but if you’ve acquired that taste then by all means fill your boots here.
“Cave Swim” features some lovely, flowing music – an idyllic outing – before, oh no, things get dark (who could have seen that coming?) A minor key piece which seems to build from the same DNA as the lovely main theme emerges from the murky depths and then everything’s happy again – there’s quite a lot of feelings compressed into a four-minute piece, handled with aplomb. In “Hurry”, there’s what is surely a nod to The Lost World, as the suspense-laden strings and winds are joined by jungle percussion.
A classic “something bad is about to happen” feel dominates “Walking the Swamp”, tension building as the by-now-familiar theme takes a darker turn. The very sparse string phrasings towards the end of the piece bring Jerry Goldsmith to mind. Tension continues to build into “The Pistol / Scare in the Trees” (combining a flute played towards its highest register with bass-heavy percussion is very clever) and ratchets up still further as Desplat uses all of his brass section but it never quite explodes as he hints it might (which is, of course, the point).
We do get a brief respite from the tension in the opening part of “Do the Job”, which then turns into an absolutely lovely piano theme, perhaps the closest we get to a real “love theme” moment. It’s been a while by this point since we heard the first of the main themes, but we are treated to a very nice version of it (with warmth continuing – for now) in “Dino Lovers” – the solo violin passage towards the end is really quite something, the heavenly choir very much recalling the sound of the softer moments in Williams’s original. And speaking of Williams, his main theme gets a very nice airing in “Dino Spectacle”, conjuring memories of that moment we saw the dinosaurs for the first time in Jurassic Park.
The nostalgic warmth doesn’t last however, as the crash that opens “What’s This Smell?” brings a bump back to the dangerous reality. The 8-minute “Crossing the River / T-Rex” is then another real highlight. I absolutely love the subtle nod to Vertigo for the opening of the cue before an arresting passage for male choir ushers in a spectacular action track. Thunderous foreboding comes from the brass, we head through a passage of suspense punctuated with a couple of stingers, and then the most doom-laden arrangement of the score’s theme so far brings us to a delightfully Williams-like piece of action (specifically, the Williams of The Lost World) with Desplat playing very careful homage with the call-and-response type writing for the different parts of the brass section that Williams has done so well, so often over the years. When the jungle percussion comes in late on, I want to punch the air. Then the gigantic conclusion with the brass and choir going hammer and tongues – wow!
The composer knowing that the painstaking little touches will likely never get heard by audiences in the cinema itself, but doing them anyway – what a joy to hear that again.
The very brief “Clifftop” offers a pause for breath before we’re going back at it in “Climbing the Wall”, a variety of woodwind phrases offering little colours of psychological terror – the art of writing music like this for films like this, the composer knowing that the painstaking little touches will likely never get heard by audiences in the cinema itself, but doing them anyway – what a joy to hear that again. That’s why I started listening to film music in the first place. The action is much more straightforward in “Bird Strike” – the furious string runs, bombardment of brass and percussion – fantastic.
We get another pause for breath in the 30-second “Let’s Go Home”, though this time it is not straight back into grand theatrics because “Gentle Boat Ride” does live up to its name, vaguely recalling the opening moments of the earlier “Cave Swim” but here having more of a new age feel to it – it is no surprise that the mood darkens as the piece goes on and indeed we’re back to shimmering Herrmann strings by the time it ends. “Mutadons Fly In” is an interesting track – lots of it is traditional action material but there’s a little reprise of that “love theme” in the middle which I like a lot.
“The Old Lab” reprises the male choir suspense style we heard a couple of times earlier in the style and also adds some action material, though it doesn’t hit the heights of the highlight cues. “Tunnel / Helicopter” doesn’t quite, either, but it does have some good moments, particular when Desplat builds the action music off his main themes, and it has a breathlessly exciting closing minute or two. “Run to the Gate” sounds just like you would expect a piece of film music called “Run to the Gate” to sound, breathlessly exciting passes built on little cels of music which get thrown together so creatively.
The action briefly continues into the opening of “Bella and the Beast”, the Lost World percussion making another welcome (if brief) appearance, before we hit the finale and Desplat allows his themes to swell, all the tension finally relieved, the dramatic grandstanding more than earned. The score concludes with “Sailing Away”, the Williams theme for piano as it was in the original film.
You will have discerned just how much I like this score. It is so detailed, there is so much going on at all times – every listen reveals something new – there’s action and excitement and textbook tension-building. It’s just great musical storytelling. Now, having said that – opinions are just opinions and while only a few days have passed since this film and its music were released to the world, it is already very apparent that this is a polarising score. A few people seem to share my opinion, but plenty of others (including those who grew up with the same music as I did) have said it leaves them cold. So take my views with a pinch of salt (as always).
I’ve already mentioned the length of the album, and that is the one thing I can very much understand people not falling for. Here’s a suggested playlist – tracks 1, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 23, 25, 26, 28, 32, 33, 34 – that runs 64 minutes so is probably more or less the soundtrack that would have been released back in the 90s.
For what it’s worth, this is not just my favourite new film score of 2025 by such a cavernous margin, I can’t really remember the last time I was as excited by one as this. I can’t stop listening to it and am awe-struck by how it manages to be both so delicate and intricate and at the same time so big and powerful. There hasn’t been a bad score in this franchise so far – but I don’t think there’s been one as good as this since the last one that Williams himself wrote.
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