Movie Review: Jurassic Park 3-D
As someone who was born and raised in the 90’s it’s pretty hard for me to believe that Jurassic Park is 20 years old already. This is the film that made me – and many others I’m sure – love dinosaurs to death, I had that T-Rex glove that roars like the movie’s version and I also played the Playstation one games (which were AWFUL) I also watched all the not-so-good sequels so to say I was a fan of the movie would be an understatement. It’s been 20 years though, and now it’s time to see if these nostalgia glasses hold up or if “Jurassic Park” should have stayed closed.
My 5 year old self loses some points at first with a duller then dull 30 minutes. Now I’m not saying this because I wanted a T-Rex to start the movie with a brawl against a Triceratops (which would have been AWESOME), but the characters are dull. Like REALLY dull. There are boogers under school desks that are more interesting then these people. The main dude is Dr. Alan Grant who likes dinosaurs and hates kids (welcome to the club!) and is the only character who has an arc in the movie. Everyone else is just kinda there to fill space, antagonize the park owner or occasionally be a dick who gets eaten by a T-Rex or a Sunflower-thing-a-masaur. Not exactly Wolverine and the X-Men.
Still it’s pretty clear that the people aren’t the stars of the film. Well that becomes really clear when Samuel L. Jackson is in it and doesn’t do anything remotely Samuel L. Jackson-y (he does talk about hating motha fu%#in hackers, but that’s about it). The real stars are the dinosaurs or to be more precise the special effects. I’m not sure how much tinkering was involved for the re-release, but the dinosaurs look amazing! The scene with the Brontosaurus is wonderful with the actors showing great emotion while it ate from a tree. You truly get the feeling of watching a majestic creature doing otherwise unmajestic things feel majestic. The scene with the dinosaur egg is also a standout as it starts out as something beautiful and ends being incredibly unnerving; if you haven’t seen it yet basically imagine watching a baby being born and how beautiful it is only to find out that the baby becomes Hitler when he grows up.
Steven Speilberg’s directing is also a part of the success. It’s not perfect since there’s an awful scene where we have to sit through a cartoon hitting us with a lot of dull exposition that could have easily been replaced with the old dude going “our dinosaurs are actually made of mosquitoes and frogs ain’t that swell?” But that all gets swept under the carpet (along with the individuality of the characters) because when the dinosaurs are involved Speilberg is a God. The T-Rex flinging the broken electrical wire is essentially the dino version of Jack Nicholson’s “heeeeeeere’s johnny” line in that it is frightening and exciting at the same time. Anything the Velociraptors do is great, whether they’re tricking a bounty hunter or scaring the crap outta kids you know they’re a threat though you do wish they kill the fat guy instead of the Sunflower-thing-a-masaur.
So I’m glad to say that Jurrasic Park still holds up after two decades. The characters may be duller then a sack of dvds starring Nicholas Cage, but till this day there is no other film that captures the epic feeling of a dinosaur minding it’s own business. It’s a spectacle movie and a very good one, so if you haven’t seen it yet now’s a good time to get out of that rock you’ve been living in and have a proper childhood.
