Jurassic Park (1993) Universal/Sci-Fi-Adventure RT: 127 minutes Rated PG-13 (brief strong language, violent images, scary moments, too intense for young children) Director: Steven Spielberg Screenplay: Michael Crichton and David Koepp Music: John Williams Cinematography: Dean Cundey Release date: June 11, 1993 (US) Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Ariana Richards, Joseph Mazzello, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson, B.D. Wong, Cameron Thor, Miguel Sandoval, Gerald R. Molen, Richard Kiley (voice). Box Office: $350.5M (US)/$914.6M (World)
Rating: *** ½
As some of you may recall, I reviewed Jurassic Park when it was rereleased in 3D last year. It wasn’t a very positive viewing experience for reasons spelled out in the review. I decided to extend director Steven Spielberg the same courtesy I extended to George Lucas when I re-reviewed The Phantom Menace (another 3D conversion rerelease) this past summer. I must say that the absence of 3D is an improvement. This is the Jurassic Park I remember seeing in summer ’93. Granted, watching it at home takes away from an experience best shared with an enthusiastic audience. It’s still pretty awesome though.
At the time, Jurassic Park was groundbreaking as it’s one of the first movies to utilize CGI effects. They still look damn good by today’s standards as do the animatronic dinosaurs created by Stan Winston (Aliens). This is a perfect example of CGI used properly. Spielberg doesn’t allow the effects to overpower the story. He doesn’t bombard the viewers with a bunch of fake-looking images. Is it loud? It sure is! But it’s nowhere near as migraine-inducing as the soulless noisefests that pass for summertime entertainment these days. Jurassic Park was the first movie with digital sound meaning that every step of the larger creatures reverberated throughout the theater. It was amazing!
Based on the best-selling novel by Michael Crichton, I doubt anybody reading this review doesn’t know what Jurassic Park is about. It’s all about the dinosaurs, am I right? In the interest of consistency, I’ll still provide a brief synopsis however unnecessary. A new race of dinosaurs has been created by a team of geneticists at InGen from DNA found in a fossilized mosquito. Billionaire CEO John Hammond (filmmaker Attenborough) has built a theme park on Isla Nublar, a tropical island near Costa Rica, populated by cloned dinosaurs.
As expected, a few glitches occur like a park worker being killed by one of the prehistoric beasts. In order to appease the park’s concerned investors, Hammond agrees to allow experts to visit the park and declare it safe. He invites paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Neill, The Final Conflict) and his girlfriend, paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler (Dern, Wild at Heart) to spend the weekend along with mathematician/chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm (Goldblum, Independence Day) and his two grandchildren, Lex (Richards, Tremors) and Tim (Mazzello, The River Wild). What nobody knows is that disgruntled computer architect Dennis Nedry (Knight, Seinfeld) plans to sabotage the entire system to cover his theft of dinosaur embryos for one of InGen’s main competitors. Throw in a fierce, rapidly-approaching tropical storm and you have the recipe for one huge disaster. In other words, all bloody hell is about to break loose along with that rampaging T. Rex.
Did I forget to mention that the visitors end up being chased all over the place by dinosaurs set free after the system gets shut down? I shouldn’t have to. Everybody knows that this is an inevitability in a movie like Jurassic Park. It plays exactly like a theme park thrill ride with plenty of good scares along the way. Spielberg knows his way around a “man vs. nature” thriller like this. This is, after all, the guy that defined the term “summer blockbuster” with Jaws back in ’75.
I have to admit that I still find Jurassic Park cool, but we all know that movie enthusiasts like me tend to big kids at heart, so you’ll excuse me if I sound more like a teenage movie geek than a film critic. The special effects are just that, special. I still look upon the dinosaurs with a sense of awe. They are truly impressive. What’s more, Jurassic Park is legitimately scary. The shot of the T. Rex in the jeep’s side-view mirror (“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”) still gives me a jolt.
The acting is about what you’d expect in a movie like this. Attenborough delivers his character’s malevolence with a mischievous gleam in his eye. He’s playing God but having a hell of time while doing it. Goldblum turns in an interesting performance while sporting a style (dig those cool shades!) that makes him resemble the late Roy Orbison. I didn’t notice this back in the day but Ariana Richards is a terrible actress. Between her flat line readings and exaggerated facial expressions, I was secretly hoping that one of the adults would feed her to that T. Rex. I found myself snickering every time the script called for her to show fear or cry.
Jurassic Park also has a solid storyline going for it. It’s like a highly-polished version of a 50s B-movie with much better special effects. It perfectly illustrates what summer moviegoing should be about. It’s fun and very well-made. It doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator by insulting the collective intelligence of the audience. Rather, it presumes intelligence on the part of its audience in raising questions about our right to play God. It posits the age-old question, when will scientists learn not to fool around with Mother Nature? Most importantly, Jurassic Park is a damn good movie. It gets my full endorsement.
