Jurassic Park
A wealthy entrepreneur secretly creates a theme park featuring living dinosaurs drawn from prehistoric DNA. Before opening day, he invites a team of experts and his two eager grandchildren to experience the park and help calm anxious investors. However, the park is anything but amusing as the security systems go off-line and the dinosaurs escape.
- Released: 1993-06-11
- Runtime: 127 minutes
- Genre: Adventure
- Stars: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, BD Wong, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, Samuel L. Jackson, Wayne Knight, Gerald R. Molen, Miguel Sandoval, Cameron Thor, Christopher John Fields, Whit Hertford, Dean Cundey, Jophery C. Brown, Tom Mishler, Greg Burson, Adrian Escober, Richard Kiley, Brad M. Bucklin, Laura Burnett, Michael Lantieri, Gary Rodriguez, Lata Ryan, Brian Smrz, Rip Lee Walker, Robert 'Bobby Z' Zajonc
- Director: Steven Spielberg
Comments
- aherdofbeautifulwildponies - 15 December 2022
A Class Act to the Bone
The fifth and latest sequel to Jurassic Park (1993) has just come out, testifying to the longevity of the world established by Steven Spielberg in the original thriller. An adaptation of the eponymous novel by Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park was released to become the highest-grossing film of all time, a record it would hold until Titanic (1997) made its debut in 1997.
That kind of response suggests Jurassic Park had - continues to have - a universal appeal. Spielberg intended his film to go beyond a simple monster movie, aiming to produce 'a really credible look at how dinosaurs might someday be brought back alongside modern mankind'. His goal was achieved through a combination of early computer-generated imagery and animatronics; the former was largely observed from a distance, while the latter, shown up close, were spectacularly detailed and continue to impress even now, nearly thirty years later.
The concept of the film - dinosaurs as an attraction - is mirrored within Jurassic Park. Dr John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has found a way to clone ancient reptiles and built a theme park to show the dinosaurs. Before the park can open, its safety must be ascertained, and so experts are invited: paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and chaotician Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum; do you, too, love the word 'chaotician' - especially, when applied to his character?). Through a combination of incompetence and sabotage, the worst that can happen does, indeed, happen. From a family adventure (Dr Hammond's grandchildren are over for a visit of the park, too) we transition to the survival film genre.
Both casting and acting in Jurassic Park are superb. The trio of scientists always have presence and some of the best lines in the film. You would not want anyone but an Attenborough introducing you to a previously unknown corner of the world, and the two youngest actors - Ariana Richards as Lex and Joseph Mazzello as Tim - more than hold their own. Richards would retire from acting as an adult, but she very much deserves a place in the pantheon of scream queens, based on Jurassic Park alone.
It is telling that, while praising the cast, I aim yet to get to Samuel L. Jackson (as very competent engineer Ray Arnold) and Wayne Knight (as the antagonist with poor decision-making skills, also known as computer scientist Dennis Nedry). Both have indelible, if not lasting, presence.
I never saw Jurassic Park as a child, but, upon seeing it a second time as an adult, I found myself nothing but delighted by the production. Ambitious in its scale and relatively simple in its storytelling, Jurassic Park is a testament to skill. It was crafted by masters. The visuals and the dialogue have retained their relevance, much like dinosaurs continue to retain their appeal. Despite the film's finale, there is something stubbornly optimistic about it. Perhaps, that is because life, uh, finds a way.
