Released: June 11, 1993
Director: Steven Spielberg
Run Time: 125 minutes
Rated PG-13
Cast:
Sam Neill: Dr. Alan Grant
Laura Dern: Dr. Ellie Sattler
Sir Richard Attenborough: John Hammond
Jeff Goldblum: Ian Malcolm
Bob Peck: Robert Muldoon
Joseph Mazzello: Tim
Ariana Richards: Lex
Samuel L. Jackson: Ray Arnold
BD Wong: Henry Wu
Wayne Knight: Dennis Nedry
Okay, hands up: Who here doesn’t like dinosaurs? No hands? Fantastic. I love dinosaurs. Always have. I grew up reading about these magnificent and legendary beasts. Over 65 million years ago these incredible animals ruled the world. Tyrannosaurus Rex, triceratops, brontosaurs and the like have been a part of our imagination for decades upon decades since their first official discovery during the mid-19th century. While the fossils have been known for millenia, we really didn’t get into studying these creatures until towards the end of the 19th century as we uncovered more and more fossils belonging to creatures of unbelievable size. As a kid, I was absolutely fascinated with the subject. I’ve been to several museums and read hundreds of books. The movies were also a great source of entertainment when it came to dinosaurs. In the early days of cinema, one of the first movies to feature dinosaurs was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World in the 1920s. Since then we’ve seen many movies with dinosaurs in them, including one of my all time favorite classic monster movies, Dinosaurus!. In 1990, a small science fiction book written by Michael Crichton was published: Jurassic Park. This was the book that the 1993 film of the same name was based on. And what a movie it was.
The film begins on a mysterious island with a group of people awaiting a large cage. The cage, containing unusual creatures, accidentally opens and one of the workers is killed. Later, in Montana, we see two scientists, Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler uncover a new dinosaur skeleton when they get a visit from their benefactor, John Hammond. Hammond is experiencing some legal issues and requires some outside opinions on a new kind of park that he’s built. Being offered funding for 3 more years, they accept his offer to take a look at his park. When they land, they witness the impossible: Live dinosaurs roaming the fields. At this point, everybody should know the story by now. But it isn’t the story that makes Jurassic Park so special. It’s the dinosaurs. What makes them so special in this movie? It’s the way they are presented. Over the past several decades, dinosaurs were depicted as these gigantic, ugly lumbering morons. It wasn’t until the mid 20th century that we learned that dinosaurs weren’t exactly the way we had anticipated. The way they actually moved was vastly different than how they were presented earlier films. Jurassic Park made them realistic and graceful, not the lumbering monsters that we first imagined them to be. They are portrayed as actual animals in Jurassic Park and that makes for a far more compelling experience. With the aid of famous visual effects artists such as Dennis Muren, Phil Tippett and the late Stan Winston, Jurassic Park reinvigorated interested in dinosaurs and broke new ground on visual effects. The combination of puppetry and CG, the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park came to life.
All the visual effects in the world don’t mean a thing if the rest of the film isn’t good. Thankfully, Jurassic Park is more than up to the challenge. The story is absolutely fantastic, as the film was adapted from Michael Crichton’s book which had some basis in real science, so that makes the ideas presented in the movie even more believable. The idea of cloning an actual dinosaur is fantastic. Is it possible to do? Scientists have been talking about it, but I have no idea. The characters are fantastic and believable. Led by the fantastic Sam Neill as Alan Grant, these characters come across as real human beings caught in extraordinary circumstances. Richard Attenborough is wonderful as John Hammond, the eccentric billionaire who had a dream about a dinosaur park. Jeff Goldblum nearly steals the show as Ian Malcolm. Everybody in the film steps up to the plate. We even get a decent performance from Samuel L. Jackson, who would go on to be a major super-star himself.
The moment you first see that brachiosaur, you knew what kind of movie this was going to be. It is an incredible action-adventure film filled with incredible chase sequences. Jurassic Park is one of the most intense movies I’ve ever seen. There’s a palpable sense of danger to every major sequence. It also doesn’t take itself too seriously. There’s plenty of humor here. Grant’s reaction to Tim and Lex is absolutely hilarious, but as the movie goes on you see that relationship change. Every aspect of this movie came together perfectly. The music by the legendary John Williams is absolutely iconic. 22 years later, it all still stands up perfectly well. It takes a very special kind of movie to pull that off, and Jurassic Park is by far one of the greatest achievements in film. It broke records and is heralded as one of the best adventure movies ever made. It was so good, that it got several sequels. The Lost World: Jurassic Park was also based on Michael Crichton’s book of the same name, and was released in 1997. Jurassic Park III was released in 2001, but wasn’t received very well. Fourteen years after that, we get Jurassic World. This one I have already reviewed, and it was pretty decent, but pales in comparison to the original film. Jurassic Park’s tagline is “an adventure 65 million years in the making.” It was definitely worth the wait. If you haven’t seen this movie…..why the hell not? Jurassic Park is the kind of movie you go to the theaters for. 10/10 is my final verdict for this movie. It’s a movie that truly captures the imagination and wonder of anybody who sees it. Because of Jurassic Park, interest in dinosaurs skyrocketed. We’re still discovering new species, so there’s potential for new stories. With the runaway success of the latest film, we can expect more dinosaurs in theaters. I can’t wait. Jurassic Park is a classic film in every sense of the word and I will stand by that until the day I die. I can’t recommend this movie enough. It’s a must-own.