Jurassic Park (1993)
On a remote island, a wealthy businessman creates a theme park featuring living dinosaurs drawn from prehistoric DNA. Before opening to the public, he invites top paleontologists and his grandchildren to experience the park to help calm panicked investors. Some of them don’t feel the park is so safe with carnivorous creatures running around. Needless to say one small act of industrial sabotage and this park won’t be safe for anyone…but no one might leave the island alive to tell the story.(Frankly, I’ve been running my website for going on 6 years and only recently have I noticed my competitors putting up reviews for “non-horror movies” on “horror review websites.” SO I’ve been reviewing all the “questionable” films and this series, particularly this film, I felt was close enough to the border.) Overall: When I first saw this movie, it was at a 1000-seat theatre in Newport Beach, California, back when 1000-seat theatres barely existed. The theater was packed to the hilt, the surround-sound was pumped up and the theatre shock with the bass of the sounds. I walked out of the film thinking this was the scariest movie in my life. I’ve backed away from those thoughts since then but frankly, in a large auditorium with sounds amped up, this film sooooo worked. Some people get scared by serial killers, others by scary fictional creatures and then we have this film. We all know dinosaurs are extinct but as the decade has passed since the film was released, we have cloning and the Human Genome project and frankly, this film doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore. On top of that, the film does a great job at giving you convincing enough science that suspending disbelief isn’t that difficult. The film has an excellent cast, which if anything is a bit of a flaw. There’s so much going on that the characters don’t get fleshed out enough in 2 hours to really make the story concise. Samuel L. Jackson barely got used and frankly I’ll never understand in the scene where velociraptors are attacking and the girl is logging into the computer, why the boy stands there doing nothing while the other people are struggling to grab a gun 2 feet out of their reach. He’s just standing there! The movie is based on the story by Michael Crichton and clearly this film does not copy the story very well. This film had it’s own agenda and did it’s own thing while using the book as guidance. In fact, some of the book ended up in part 2 because of those who complained. But the film still works despite its divergence. One major thing the film did was to publicize and popularize Velociraptors. Now tell the truth, had you ever heard of these creatures before this film? Yeah, I didn't think so. But the film shows them as smart, mean and aggressive creatures. Not necessarily as "bad guys" but more like "mean s.o.b's." The scene at the beginning as Dr. Grant explains the creatures with the long talon was absolutely classic and worked so well. And look what occurred later? Bunches of films with them as the "antagonist" creature and even a basketball team named after them. The film really does a great job of keeping your attention, slowing scaring you and even giving you some laughs. Bar none the best performance was by Jeff Goldblum and that echoed by the decision to bring him back in part 2. Great film and no reason not to watch this film. The effects and imagery were state of the art at the time and even today most films struggle to copy it. Comparison: Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend meets Alien |
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