What The Hell Is Distortus Rex? Jurassic World's Mutant Donosaur Explained — GeekTyrant
This isn't just another hybrid dinosaur in a long line of "what-if-we-gave-it-more-teeth" experiments. Distortus is a mutant abomination birthed from InGen's hubris and desperation.
We first meet this creature in the opening minutes of Rebirth, during a chilling flashback to a containment failure at an InGen research facility.
It's montrous, it's violent, and it wastes no time grabbing a poor soul and vanishing into the darkness. That's your first taste. But the real story picks up 17 years later, when a squad of mercenaries and scientists land on the island to recover valuable genetic material believed to hold life-saving medical potential. Naturally, their noble cause turns into a bloody survival horror.
As the crew ventures deeper into the ruins of InGen's forgotten experiments, the mystery of Distortus Rex unravels. What they're dealing with is a full-blown genetic disaster.
Distortus Rex began as a modified T-Rex. According to the film's unfolding exposition, 'With DNA fragments from other animals introduced into the genome, the Distortus Rex became a mutant monstrosity, which was even harder to contain.'
How monstrous are we talking? This thing stands 26 feet tall, stretches 47 feet long, and weighs over 20,000 pounds. This beast has distorted features that look more like an alien breed than real dinosaurs. It's unsettling to look at.
The visual effects team clearly went all-in on making Distortus Rex feel totally unnatural. The thing carries itself with a horrifying elegance, an apex predator reimagined as a walking science experiment gone feral.
Naturally, Distortus Rex becomes the final boss of the film, barreling into the climax with all the subtlety of a freight train.
Whether you love the franchise for its grounded cautionary tale or its chaotic dino mayhem, Jurassic World Rebirth is dead set on pushing the franchise into darker, more monstrous territory.
Jurassic World Rebirth stomps into theaters July 2, 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Magazine
32 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
6 'Jurassic Park' Callbacks You Might Have Missed in 'Jurassic World Rebirth'
Warning: This post contains spoilers for Jurassic World Rebirth. Following a trilogy of Chris Pratt-led Jurassic World movies that all grossed over $1 billion at the box office despite experiencing a notable decline in critical reception, the franchise is back with a standalone sequel featuring a new island, new characters, and a whole new lineup of dinosaurs. Directed by Gareth Edwards (Rogue One, Godzilla) and written by David Koepp (Jurassic Park, The Lost World), Jurassic World Rebirth, now in theaters, centers on a pharmaceutical company's mission to obtain dinosaur DNA for a breakthrough drug that could cure heart disease. The only problem is the drug requires live samples from the three largest species of dinosaur (land, sea, and air) still in existence, and the only place in the world where these creatures have been able to survive is an island near the equator where infamous bioengineering company InGen performed some of their most risky dino gene meddling. Oh, and it's also highly illegal to travel there. Given these extenuating circumstances, pharma rep Martin Krebs (Rupert Friend) recruits covert ops specialist Zora Bennett (Scarlett Johansson), paleontologist Henry Loomis (Jonathan Bailey), and a handpicked selection of Zora's most trusted colleagues to ensure the expedition's success. En route to the island, the crew ends up rescuing a civilian family—Reuben Delgado (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), his daughters Teresa (Luna Blaise) and Isabella (Audrina Miranda), and Teresa's boyfriend Xavier (David Iacono)—whose sailboat was capsized by a Mosasaurus in the midst of a recreational ocean crossing. Naturally, the situation only gets more dire from there for everyone involved. As Jurassic World movies tend to do, Rebirth features callbacks to a number of films in the franchise. However, it pays particular homage to the original—and greatest dinosaur movie to ever do it—Jurassic Park. Here are six of the best nods to Steven Spielberg's 1993 classic. Read More: Jurassic World Rebirth Finally Makes Dinosaurs the Stars of the Show The opening attack Jurassic Park memorably opens with a sequence that masterfully sets the scene for what's to come. As game warden Robert Muldoon (Bob Peck) and his team attempt to transfer a Velociraptor into its holding pen at the park, their quarry manages to outsmart them and get its claws on the worker in charge of opening the pen's gate. The highly-intelligent carnivore then viciously drags its prey into its transport container and begins devouring him alive. This time around, a prologue set 17 years before the rest of the events of Rebirth shows how a hastily disposed of candy wrapper results in a gate system malfunction at the aforementioned InGen lab that allows a mutant Distortus Rex, or D-Rex, to get loose inside the research facility. What happens next isn't pretty. A T-Rex close call Considering Jurassic Park's Tyrannosaurus Rex attack sequence is one of the most iconic scenes not only from the original film, but arguably in movie history, any attempt to replicate it seems doomed to fall short. Still, Jurassic World Rebirth makes a valiant effort to put its own terrifying spin on the source material. As the desperate Delgado family sails down a river on an inflatable raft, a T-Rex follows in hot pursuit, eventually flipping the raft just as its predecessor started flipping jeeps after escaping its enclosure in Jurassic Park. To make things worse, a young kid once again experiences the brunt of the trauma. Dinosaur awe When paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) see a real-life Brachiosaurus for the first time upon arriving at Jurassic Park, their emotional reactions combined with John Williams' soaring score make for a truly awe-inspiring movie moment. As the resident paleontologist in Rebirth, Jonathan Bailey's Henry Loomis puts on a similarly earnest show when he catches sight of the new island's pod of hybrid herbivore Titanosauruses—to nostalgic effect. Just enough romantic tension Like Ellie and Alan in Jurassic Park, Zora and Henry are presented as a dynamic professional duo with inherent chemistry whose relationship never explicitly crosses over into romantic territory. This likely harkens back to Spielberg's decision to cut a scene from the original movie that showed Ellie and Alan passionately embracing while working at the Velociraptor dig site at the start of the first film. Not to mention that an illegal dinosaur-hunting expedition-turned death trap doesn't really seem like the right setting for a first kiss. The Mutadons set a trap As Jurassic World Rebirth barrels toward its final dino confrontation, a pack of Mutadons—a winged cross between Pteranodons and Velociraptors—arrive to take on the role the raptors fill in the first movie. But rather than cornering our protagonists in a visitor center kitchen, the Mutadons choose an abandoned convenience store as their point of attack. The whole sequence pretty blatantly draws from the original, with the Mutadons even taking chase through an underground tunnel system just as the raptors followed the Jurassic Park survivors through the vistor center air ducts. Flare chase When chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) uses a flare to draw a rampaging T-Rex away from attacking the Murphy kids in Jurassic Park, it's a brave—if also a bit misguided—maneuver. Relying on the exact same move to give the Jurassic World Rebirth crew a chance to escape the island feels a bit on the nose, especially once it's revealed Duncan (Mahershala Ali) survived the D-Rex's pursuit. But we guess there are only so many ways to feasibly distract a man-eating dinosaur from its desired prey.
Cosmopolitan
3 hours ago
- Cosmopolitan
Love Island spoiler: Dejon and Yasmin have major argument over Billykiss during challenge
Tonight'sLove Island sees a major row between Dejon and Yasmin take place during the challenge, after she suggests he's more into Billykiss than Megan. Eek. As well as Helena asking Harry to finally make a decision between her and Shakira, and Toni and Harrison potentially making up, tonight's episode [3rd July] of Love Island sees Dejon see red over a comment made by Yasmin. The Islanders are taking part in The Superman Challenge; during which, Yasmin and partner Gio are asked who is the "least dedicated" to their partner. When they choose Dejon, Yasmin explains, 'I don't feel like you've dedicated yourself fully to the whole experience. I hope you've only dedicated to getting to know one person…" Dejon replies, "I didn't know when all of a sudden it's become a problem wanting one woman" to which Yasmin says, "There's other girls in here like Billykiss who picked you to go on a date because she was obviously attracted to you..." Meg then interjects with "Well he clearly doesn't want her" to which Billykiss says, "Well he didn't say that." She then tells Dejon, "You say you're open then when she's not around you don't act like you're closed." He replies, "Please Billykiss, is this like your five minutes of TV or what? I don't understand why you're still going on." Later, Billykiss says to Dejon, "You don't want to hear the truth which is why you're feeling sour." Wow, we were not expecting this drama to unfold. Is a new love triangle emerging? Love Island continues on ITV2 at 9pm.
Buzz Feed
4 hours ago
- Buzz Feed
Jurassic World Rebirth: Reviews Are Mixed, But There's 1 Thing Critics Can Agree On
While the combination of Jonathan Bailey and Scarlett Johansson might be a guaranteed seat-filler when Jurassic World Rebirth hits cinemas, whether or not it's worth the trip to the cinema depends on which critic you ask. The first reviews are out for the latest instalment in the Jurassic Park series, with the most glowing suggesting that Rebirth is the best movie in the franchise since the original. Others are somewhat less impressed, though, suggesting that the latest iteration pales in comparison to the best in the series – and questioning whether it even needs to exist in the first place. And while one thing critics can seem to agree on is that Rebirth manages to hit many of the same beats as the best films in the franchise, they're less unanimous on whether that's a strength or weakness. Here's a selection of what is being said about Jurassic World Rebirth so far… Variety 'Entertaining as it can be at times, stripped of the silliness that tainted the second trilogy (but also the saga-advancing narrative), Rebirth doesn't necessarily make the same case for itself. The movie offers an updated version of the same basic ride Spielberg offered 32 years earlier, and yet, it hardly feels essential to the series' overall mythology, nor does it signal where the franchise could be headed.' BBC Culture (2/5) 'There is a definite whiff of staleness about the latest Jurassic film [...] Jurassic World Rebirth has major stars in Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey, and better-designed creatures than ever, but so few thrills that it may be the weakest of the Jurassic franchise.' The Guardian (4/5) 'What a comeback [...] against all odds, these dinosaurs have had a brand refresh: a brighter, breezier, funnier, incomparably better acted and better written film, with unashamed nods to the summer smashes of yesteryear, that makes sense of the dino-spectacle moments that earn their place.' Empire (3/5) 'It's not doing much daring or different, but this delivers a fun, well-made summer theme-park ride, with fast highs and slow lows. Pleasurable, though it doesn't linger.' 'There are some mighty new monsters on the prowl, but this is primarily an assembly of recycled story beats.' Time Out (3/5) 'The best dinosaur action since Spielberg [...] the 'Rebirth' in this Jurassic World sequel's title is apt because this seventh entry is a renaissance of sorts for a franchise that looked ready to curl up and turn to fossil.' The Independent (4/5) '[Jonathan Bailey is as] charming as usual (see: Wicked, Bridgerton, his entire back catalogue), but also crucially nails the 'man who dedicated his life to dinosaurs sees a dinosaur for the first time' sequence. Former dinosaur kids may shed a tear or two.' Radio Times (4/5) 'Despite its popularity, [the Jurassic Park movies have] never quite seen any subsequent entry top that 1993 masterpiece. Directed by Gareth Edwards, the first British filmmaker to join the franchise, Rebirth comes close. A loving tribute to the spirit of the original, it's easily the best Jurassic in a decade.' IndieWire (C-) ' Rebirth doesn't do itself any favours by so frequently harkening back to the original. Bad as some of the previous sequels have been, none of them have been so eager to measure themselves against Spielberg's masterpiece [...] The Jurassic sequels were bad enough when they made an effort to evolve — they're even less worth seeing now that they already come pre-fossilised.' The Telegraph (5/5) 'Easily the best film in the series since the original [...] Jurassic World Rebirth is a giddy resurrection for a franchise many had feared extinct. While technically the seventh in the series about cloned dinosaurs running amok, it feels like a brand new thrill ride.' 'Audiences may not have run out of enthusiasm for what the Jurassic Worlds are selling, or at least they haven't yet, but the people tasked with making them sure are out of ideas. Rebirth, as though fulfilling its franchise's own prophecy, really does manage to be boring.' Little White Lies 'Even working at full pelt, there's just too much that's wrong and silly and derivative about this tired, tired run-out. The actors are competent; there are a few tasty zingers; the effects are seamless. But the whole enterprise just feels like the same thing we've seen over and over again.' LA Times 'A cold-blooded clone in which wonder has gone extinct [...] Hold on to your water glasses because you can hear the plot of Jurassic World Rebirth coming from a mile away.' 'There's a disappointing amount of 'same old thing' to Jurassic World Rebirth. Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and the rest of the cast are intriguing and sympathetic throughout, but Gareth Edwards doesn't quite recapture his signature flair for grand-scale visuals, nor does David Koepp find the magic of his original Jurassic Park screenplay,'
