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| Jurassic Park (1993) |
The obvious thing to talk about here are the visuals. Honestly, I've seen this movie before and I was still blown away. This film came out 25 years ago, and the effects are still gorgeous. Especially for a movie about dinosaurs hunting people, you want the dinosaurs to look good, but they're not. They're downright phenomenal. I've always been fascinated with dinosaurs and prehistoric life, and seeing these extinct animals brought to life so convincingly is a treat. A combination of animatronics and computer-generation and this film holds up extraordinarily well. For a movie like this, if the dinosaurs are obviously not real, it takes you out of the experience, but these creatures look so lifelike, I could swear they'd actually cloned real dinosaurs just for the film. They're that good. And, speaking of cloning, while it's true that the science used is far from realistic, the explanation given is fine enough for the purposes of the movie. It doesn't hold up in the real world, but it's good enough for us to suspend disbelief.
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| Tyrannosaurus rex |
The soundtrack is another piece of perfection in this film. The main theme is iconic, but all the other tracks are excellent for their purpose in the movie. The tense, foreboding moments, the enigmatic and majestic moments, they all have the perfect music to set the scene and enhance the experience. This is another one for the collection; it might be one of my favourite cinema soundtracks of all time. Not only that, but this film has some of my favourite sequences in cinema history. The T. rex escape, the jeep chase, the first look at dinosaurs, the Velociraptor hatching, the Velociraptor hunt in the kitchen... they're all just executed beautifully. But what's great is that the downtime between dinosaur sequences isn't boring, which could easily have happened. The characters themselves bounce off each other well enough that it keeps you invested in the, let's face it, standard monster-movie plot we're being given. What's great about it, though, is that it doesn't feel standard while you're watching it. And, again, that's a testament to the characters here.
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| Laura Dern as Ellie Satler and Sam Neill as Alan Grant |
The cast here is especially good, and they all fit their characters remarkably well. Sam Neill is probably my personal favourite, and his arc is really well handled. He's really the only one with an arc, apart from Richard Attenborough, who is also pitch-perfect. Laura Dern can sometimes be a little mumbly, but otherwise, she's great as well. Everyone loves to talk about Jeff Goldblum in his role, and of course he's amazing, and as comic relief he's brilliant. What's really impressive, though, is the supporting cast, and how they really stack up to the mains, particularly the child actors. Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards do an excellent job here, and they have a lot to do, since they have to portray a wide range of emotions from childlike wonder right through to sheer terror. Samuel L. Jackson and Wayne Knight are also great in their respective roles, though I always felt I wanted to see more of them.
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| Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm |
There really isn't a lot wrong with this movie, and anything negative I have to say would just be nitpicking. I could talk about how the first 20 minutes feel rushed as anything, but it's all to get the characters onto the island quickly so we can get right to the action, so it's fine. There are also one or two moments where characters don't necessarily make the most intelligent choices for their situation, but any instance of this is a character flaw, not a movie flaw. I feel like people tend to mark a movie down for this sometimes: saying a character didn't make the smartest choice even if it services their character. The biggest example of this is John Hammond not choosing to activate the lysine contingency, even though the fact that he doesn't want the dinosaurs dead is an important aspect of his character, and had he chosen to activate it, that would have gone against who he is. Honestly, like I said, I could nitpick if I wanted to, but the things that are good about this movie are just too good, and any small gripes I could have here and there wouldn't stifle my enjoyment of this movie in any way.
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| Richard Attenborough as John Hammond |
Jurassic Park (1993) is an absolute masterpiece, and I really have nothing negative to say. Watching this movie takes me right back to my childhood, when I would insist on gobbling up each and every piece of dinosaur media I could get my hands on. It might be that sense of nostalgia, but there's really nothing anyone can say that'll get me to change my mind about this film. It's one of the best. 10/10.
Next: The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
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