Jurassic Park Review
By Colton Gomez | 04/06/24 | 1:46 A.M. Mountain Time
Adventure, Thriller | Rated PG-13 | 1 hr 50 min | Film Release Date: June 11, 1993
Steven Spielberg’s “Jurassic Park” will forever be part of my childhood and forever a treasure of cinema. Only a master director, like Spielberg, could bring dinosaurs to life in such a thrilling, frightening, and magical way. This film has so much to say about scientific endeavors, academic responsibility, professional accountability, embracing the future, primal fears, and keeping loved ones close. John Williams’s score is breathtakingly beautiful and significantly enhances Spielberg’s film. (Also, I didn’t know Sam Neil didn’t have an American accent until I watched Taika Waititi’s “Hunt for the Wilder People” in my teens.)
"Jurassic Park" is the newest project of entertainment attraction artist and businessman, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough). His genetic engineers have performed scientific miracles and brought ancient and preserved dinosaur DNA to life in the forms of brachiosaurus, triceratops, t-rex, velociraptor, among others. Hoping to gain endorsement and pass off his park as legitimate and safe and awesome, he invites paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and his lawyer (Martin Ferrero), brings his own authority, chaotician Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum). Also along for the ride are Hammond's grandchildren, Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello).
Fascinated and appalled by Hammond's achievements, the trio of scientists warn Hammond that he cannot control the awesome force of mother nature and he should not have created a theme park about such dangerous and ancient animals, especially ones they cannot predict. What ensues is an adventure of evading close calls with big teeth and learning that these animals are far more intelligent than they previously thought, while trying to restore power to the island to call for help and escape.
Along with the dinosaur carnage, a disgruntled computer programmer (Wayne Knight), commits corporate espionage to revenge Hammond's low pay. He steals viable dinosaur embryos to sell to a rival company to receive the compensation he feels he deserves for his intense and high efficiency programming. To do this, he turns off cameras, electric fences, and other security measures to cut through the park when no one's watching and make the boat before the hurricane hits the dinosaur island, off Costa Rica, in full force. With the system offline, the dinosaurs escape and quickly adapt to their surroundings, in which the carnivores resume their reign and prey on the humans.
Even though I wasn’t alive in 1993, this film played a huge role in my childhood. It was a movie I’d turn to when I was sick in bed. I’d watch it with my family on a Sunday night. And every time I look in my side-view mirrors, I’m reminded of the T-rex chasing Muldoon, Ellie, and Malcom.
Sometimes this film gave me nightmares of velociraptors invading my house and finding me under the family computer room desk—a nightmare I had several times. This nightmare was definitely inspired by Lex trying to close the metal cupboard, only for the velociraptor to hit her reflection. Our desk was wood and the door to the computer room was closed in my nightmare, but I knew they were lurking in the hallway. I think maybe they did find me once. Maybe this explains why the T-rex was always my favorite dinosaur; seeing it eat the velociraptors at the end.
Beyond my childhood, I watched this film when I had my wisdom teeth out. I studied it multiple times as my love for cinema and filmmaking was developing. To get through excruciating math homework sessions, I’d listen to the score, and my mood would instantly improve. This film has been with me all my life and watching it freshly just a couple of hours ago, I was filled with emotions of nostalgia, and welled up as the brachiosaurus introduced me again, to “Jurassic Park.”
I really enjoy this film, but it's always obvious when characters are tailored to their situation, rather than characters being tested with tailored situations. I can't say I turn on "Jurassic Park" to watch my favorite characters wrestle with internal flaws and overcome them in a triumph of humanity and love. I watch it because I love Spielberg's style of visual storytelling. It's exciting, it's really fun, Spielberg respects his audience and smartly tells this story. It's just unfortunate that the story took a bit of a back seat.
Really, this film is just a fun adventure film with a scientific explanation of how dinosaurs could feasibly be alive today, while warning against certain scientific endeavors. The characters here are made to fill the story and personify and act out the themes that the entire idea represents. These characters are very well made to fit the story, but it's really not about them. I love this movie and the moments in it from great to quiet, but the characters are pawns and aren't driving the story. It makes it a great event film, but in terms of story, it is satisfactory but not compelling.
Spielberg knows how to entertain an audience. The way he positions his camera and lets his characters move around in the frame is masterful. In the scene where Grant is speaking with Muldoon in front of the raptor pen, Ellie is speaking with Hammond. Grant is in the background, but his audio is in the foreground. You have so much to see in the frame and the way the characters are positioned leads your eye towards Grant and Muldoon. For a second, you want to look and listen to Ellie and Hammond, but the audio pulls your eye towards the pair in the back, having a conversation about velociraptors and the details of their behavior. Hammond is blabbering and just wants to eat lunch, but what will be necessary to survive later is being discussed now.
The way he crafts his scenes is intensely efficient. This is something that, at a certain level, can’t be taught. Spielberg lives and breathes story, and it is on full display here. All of his scenes are dripping with subtext, character, and story. There is not one wasted moment in this film. I love Jeff Goldblum’s line about the mountainous volume of triceratops excrement. I love how Tim harasses Grant with dinosaur questions and flails accusations about his dinosaur knowledge at him. I love the blood-sucking lawyer telling the kids not to mess with heavy and expensive night vision binoculars. All of these moments have something to say about character or offer subtext, often in the way that the characters interact with each other; Malcom frequently ending up alone speaks to his magnetic presence among his contemporaries.
The film itself is fantastic and would have succeeded without John Williams’s score, but it would not have had nearly the same impact and resonance that it exhibits. The musical work of Williams is what creates the enduring spirit of “Jurassic Park.” Spielberg said of Williams’s 1975 score for “Jaws,” “It’s half the movie.” Nobody but John Williams could have scored this film to give it the lasting life it continues to enjoy. Williams delivers such an incredibly beautiful and triumphant score; I never get tired of hearing it. His ability to manifest memorable music that uplifts the film, empowers characters, and has the audience humming it decades after its release, is perhaps unmatched among the all-time cinema-scoring greats. It’s incredibly dynamic in its quiet moments with just a piano playing high notes as characters reflect to its fantastic features of a full-fledged orchestra becoming ecstatic with its anticipation of arriving at the island and seeing dinosaurs in the flesh.
The groundbreaking special effects that Spielberg employs in this film are simply remarkable. I used to watch behind the scenes of the T-rex paddock scene and admire the work that went into creating such lifelike creatures. It’s where I first learned Stan Winston’s name and got to know his incredible contribution to this film and others, such as “Terminator,” “Aliens,” and “Predator.” I loved seeing the animatronic T-rex freeze up into stutter motions when it got wet from the rain machine and seeing the crew dry it with towels in between takes. I am always blown away by such innovative and convincing visual effects, like the seamless cuts from animatronic T-rex and real car to digital T-rex and digital car.
I especially have a mental keyframe at the moment when Lex almost falls through the ceiling to the floor, but grabs hold and looks directly into the camera. The stunt girl that performed the fall accidentally looked down the barrel of the lens and VFX artists had to replace her face with the actress who played Lex, which was undoubtedly much more difficult in the early 90s than it is today. The quality these artists were able to achieve is still referenced and talked about in the modern age of CGI. Filmmakers have certainly learned from this film about intercutting practical and digital effects and the grounding that it brings to a scene. Many filmmakers and VFX artists have claimed “Jurassic Park” as their earliest or biggest source of inspiration. A huge part of this film’s cinematic triumph is its technical feats.
This film is beautiful, and I watch it with great fondness. Even so, this film is not flawless. There aren’t any glaring issues with the overall picture. All I can do is poke and prod at some elements here and there, but even if they were fixed, the film would not greatly improve. Certain scenes are lacking continuity, the architecture can change back and forth, which makes you question how some events could have happened in the first place. Some of the graphics look a little bit dated, but there’s nothing really of substance to fault the film for. Continuity issues can be easily forgiven and forgotten if the rest of the film holds up and makes up for it. This film certainly does.
The sound of the movie is also one of its trademarks. The staccato vocalizations of the velociraptors, the shrill rattle of the dilophosaurus, and the iconic bellowing scream from tyrannosaurus rex make this film a feast for the ears. While John Williams’s score perpetuates much of the film, no music is heard at the film’s halfway point: the t-rex paddock scene. What we hear is music, but it’s not Williams’s music. The sound design is carrying so much weight in this scene to deliver tension. The beginning rhythmic footsteps of t-rex that shake the water in the cup build such a terrifying presence and lets the characters and audience stew in their apprehension. The low growling hiss of t-rex and her brief exhalations make such an impact when it cuts the silence. Tim closing the door or t-rex breaking through the fiberglass car roof are such big moments in the scene. When t-rex bellows into the night and echoes distantly, the audience understands the magnitude of threat that this creature poses. It’s made all the more effective to surround these moments with very quiet sounds, to give the audience the feeling of silence.
The film is about evolving; not moving backwards to animate the past but moving forwards and making the changes necessary to survive, like growing tolerant and even fond of the idea of starting a family with your beloved partner. This is a smart movie, and it tells its story incredibly well. So much so, that I just have fun while watching it and never get bored or tired of seeing everything unfold.
Sometimes while watching movies, to keep myself from falling asleep, I’ll start to analyze the movie to see why it’s not working for me. I was watching this film, and I was worried that I didn’t know what I was going to write about. Not for a moment did I stop to think about how the movie was failing me. I stopped for a moment to analyze the film thus far, but I stopped immediately, because it was robbing me of being in the moment and experiencing the film.
I’m reminded of exactly how good a filmmaker Steven Spielberg is, knowing that he made “Jurassic Park” and “Schindler’s List” at the same time. Both films were released in 1993, with the latter taking home the best picture Oscar at the academy awards. Any gripes I have with this film are merely nitpicks. I love this film and could gush about it all day for its value to my childhood, to cinematic study, or culture. Steven Spielberg is one of my all-time favorite film directors and he brought his A+ game for this film. His team of digital artists, special effects creators headed by Stan Winston, sound designers, editor Michael Kahn, writers David Koepp and Michael Crichton, and of course, composer John Williams, also brought their A+ games. Everyone that worked on this film contributed significantly to its immense and deserving success. It is one of my favorite films of all time.
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