Movie Review: "Jurassic Park" (1993)

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Movie: "Jurassic Park"
Director: Steven Spielberg
Year: 1993
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hours, 7 minutes

On the island of Ilsa Nublar, Dr. Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has built a unique and amazing new theme park called Jurassic Park. This park houses many breeds of previously extinct dinosaurs that have been brought back to life through genetic engineering and cloning with DNA extracted from mosquitoes preserved in hardened tree sap called amber. After an accident on the island while loading a velociraptor into it's pen, Hammond's lawyer, Donald (Martin Ferrero), and his investors are very nervous about the safety of the island. The investors want an investigatin so Hammond brings well respected paleontologists Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), and pleobotanist Dr. Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) to the island to convince them to endorse his new zoo. Meanwhile Donald brings chaotition Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to check the safety of the park. Hammond sends his Lawyer,  the scientists, and his grand children Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello) on a tour of the park to prove to everyone it's perfectly safe and fully functioning, but as Murphy's law states anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and oh boy does it ever go wrong. 

We always talk about the notion of lists, if there were a list of films for this and that. Well, if there were a list of films that were visually groundbreaking for their time, films that have since changed the perception of audiences and filmmakers of what is possible to put on screen, "Jurassic Park" would certainly be on that list, arguably towards the top. When first watching this movie over 20 years ago, --What!?! "Jurassic Park" came out over 20 years ago?! Holy hell, that makes us feel so old.--anyways, when first watching this movie, it allowed us to really suspend our disbelief and almost believe that those dinosaurs running around the park were real. Despite being two decades old, its visuals, using a combination of animatronic puppets and CGI, holds up extremely well by today's standards, and when compared to the video game style CGI-fests we are fed every month of every year at least once, boy, "Jurassic Park" is the epitome of excellence.

Visuals aside, this is a really fun and entertaining movie. Sure, it could be (and has been) nitpicked apart about its contrived plot points and a few continuity errors, but this movie is really a joy to watch and has all of those moments that we crave as film watchers. It has an intense excitement to it all, the kind of suspense we hope for every single time we watch a sci-fi action movie. All of the scenes involving the raptor and T-Rex are moments we find to be quite chilling and definitely put you on the edge of your seat, even some 20 years later. There is also a really great amount of humor to it. All of this humor flows naturally throughout the dialogue, whether it be the disjointed thoughts and sarcastic comments of Ian Malcolm, played excellently by Jeff Goldblum, or the snide remarks of Dr. Grant, iconically portrayed by Sam Neill. who simply teases the kids since he dislikes children. Even a brachiosaurus sneezing on Lex seems to find a way to fit hilariously in this movie! Laura Dern ain't too bad herself as Dr. Ellie Satler, and sidebar, but dammit, she deserves an Oscar! Besides the dialogue, the humor and the effects, this movie also has one of the most iconic and unforgettable soundtracks in movie history, one that gets stuck in our heads from time to time.

Steven Spielberg created a true magical masterpiece with this movie. Though we cannot say the same for its sequels up until now, we have hope that the new Jurassic Park film coming out in the summer of 2015 will bring us back to the days when movies were all about producing high quality, realistic graphics versus making overly CGI'ed movies without any thought or care to being creative.

My Rating: 9/10
BigJ's Rating: 10/10
IMDB's Rating: 8.0/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 93%
Do we recommend this movie: ABSOLUTELY YES!!!
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One year ago, we were watching: "That Awkward Moment"