I never really intended to do a review of Jurassic Park on this blog. But with the recent passing of Richard Attenborough, I thought “what the heck, why not?” Plus, I have Jurassic Park on the mind, so that’s why.
And I am loving this poster by JC Richard!
There isn’t much I can say here that hasn’t been said before about this movie. I mean, it IS Jurassic Park. What can I say? You already know it’s a great movie. So… I guess I’m about to tell you again. Just to make sure you don’t forget it.
It’s pretty obvious that the science behind Jurassic Park would never work in real life, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not a neat concept. Just think about it- if all we had to do to make dinosaurs was extract their blood from fossilized mosquitos, then put in frog DNA to fill in the gaps (which made a whole mess of problems in the end). The only problem with that (other than it not being possible) is getting the DNA of all of the most popular and most easily marketable dinosaurs known to humanity. They just happened to get all the cool ones. Lucky.
Anyway, if you can accept that the science just… works…. you can really get into this film. Even though this could never happen, the performances are so spot on and believable that you’d swear it was actually happening in front of your eyes. All the characters, their emotions, their reactions, all of it feels genuine.
The special effects…. where do I start? How about I just say this: With about 90% of movies that have CGI these days, you most often hear that they have “really good CG” or “the CGI looks so realistic”. With Jurassic Park, you never say “that’s good CGI’. You say…
Exactly. Your mind doesn’t register it as CGI. You see an actual dinosaur on the screen. It’s there. It doesn’t look like it’s really there. It IS there. That’s what everyone thinks when they see this movie, whether it’s for the first time or the 20 millionth time. I can guarantee you that everyone who saw this for the first time in 1993 had the same expression on their face as the characters on the screen. “Holy $hit. It’s a dinosaur”.
What makes it even more appealing is that not everything was CG. Quite a few shots of the Velociraptors were animatronics in front of the camera, as was the Dilophosaurus, the head of the Brachiosaurus, and the Triceratops. The most impressive animatronic was the T-Rex. They built a full size robotic T-Rex and had it tear apart that car with those kids really inside it! And some of their reactions were of genuine fear! I’d be scared too if that thing busted through the roof of my car, whether it’s real or not.
The scenes with dinosaur props actually in front of the camera don’t clash with the CGI scenes at all. It blends together in a way very few films after it could ever pull off. The dinosaurs are brought to life better than any other dinosaur movie that’s been made.
In terms of special effects, Jurassic Park set the bar high. You’d think after 20 years, movies would have CGI astronomically better than this, right? Not entirely. Some films come close, but JP still holds up extremely well today. And tomorrow. I might have given other films full points for their CGI, which they rightfully deserve, but JP blows all of them out of the water. To be the first to use computer generated creatures as the star attraction of the film had never been done to this degree before. T-1,000? Maybe, but his CGI wasn’t on as grand a scale as several fully fleshed out dinosaurs.
Another thing about this film that neither I nor anyone else will forget is the soundtrack. I could listen to the main theme on repeat for about 6 hours each day. Same thing could be said for many other people. Even if you only ever hear it once, it will be stuck in your head until the day you die. After you die, too.
Jurassic Park was praised by critics and average moviegoers alike, and it’s one of those rare instances where the movie gets little to absolutely no backlash. You know what I’m talking about. Titanic and Avatar started out as being loved by everyone, but then after a bit, people started to say “this isn’t as golden as I thought”. Sure, there are tons of people who still love those movies, and they are good films. There’s also a lot of people that looked past all the visuals to see the things that don’t quite settle with them. Jurassic Park had NONE of that! If there was, nobody heard about it. There might have been a few nitpicks and things we didn’t notice the first time around, but there wasn’t a noticeable amount of people who disliked the film because of those reasons. That only helps support the fact that Jurassic Park is just that well put together.
This movie has everything that anyone who likes movies can enjoy. Do you like great acting and characters? It’s here. Great story? It has that. Perfected cinematography and special effects? Wrapped up in a nice little bow. An amazing soundtrack? Look no further. Want to feel like a kid again with all the dinosaurs? Here you go. Humor? Yup. Serious and intense moments? Like you’ve never seen before. Romance? Uhh…. well… kinda…
All of these elements are somehow rolled into one single movie. It doesn’t fit into one category. Simply calling it a thriller or action movie isn’t enough. There are thrills and action throughout, but it also has a lot of lighthearted, wondrous moments to the point that it could also be considered a family movie. With such contrasting tones in the same movie, it’s a miracle that the transitions between moods didn’t clash. I don’t know how Spielberg did it, but he did it. No other director could have pulled this off even near as perfectly. Jurassic Park completely changed the way films were made. It’s one of my favorite films of all time, one of the best films I’ve ever seen, and it is completely deserving of the rating I gave it here.
FINAL RATING: 50 / 50
STORY: 5 / 5
ACTING: 5 / 5
CHARACTERS: 5 / 5
SPECIAL EFFECTS: 5 / 5
WONDER/EXCITEMENT: 5 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 5 / 5
TONE: 5 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 5 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 5 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 5 / 5
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