Jurassic Park
In the 80s Steven Spielberg showed millions of ticket buyers how much fun could be had at the movies, it seemed almost unfair to give that guy access to computer technology that could render the impossible possible, but with Jurassic Park in 1993 that was what happened. And I must say almost 20 years later they are some impressive fake dinosaurs.
When an eccentric wealthy Brit named John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) and his team of scientific gurus devise a way to genetically recreate any and all species of dinosaurs his first thought is to turn the whole thing into a theme park for the kiddies. Call me cynical but I would’ve thought that a very American thing to do.
But first for insurance purposes Hammond must get some real dinosaur experts in to assess whether the park poses a real threat to paying punters or not…
Ummm, let me cut you off there; dinosaurs + people = threat.
Movie over right? Thankfully no.
Enter Dr Allen Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), a couple of palaeontologists (dino-docs) that think painstakingly brushing away at the dirt to find tiny scraps of million year old bone is loads of fun – they’re in for a shock. Also in tow is a lawyer overseeing proceedings and a ‘professor of chaos’ Dr Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) who is not a WWE wrestler even though the job title practically demands this should be the case but a mathematician who has the proverbial ‘very bad feeling about this’. To spice things up Hammond has invited his two young grandchildren along for the ride, sort of like bringing the teenage model daughter to an R. Kelly / Michael Jackson double-bill.
They explain how it all happens in preposterously possible jargon but who cares? I mean BRING ON THE OLD GIANT LIZARDS!
So off the three docs, lawyer and two kids head off in automatically piloted jeeps on a preset course through the park for a private viewing of the as yet unopened park.
Of course things don’t go smoothly for the maiden tour, our reluctant heroes spend much of the time screaming and running around covered in mud and followed closely by sharp toothed ferocious computer generated beasties.
Even though the movie is quite PG and reasonably safe for most kids in the double digits there are of course casualties, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the first two munched on are a lawyer and an annoying bit character from Seinfeld.
Spielberg sensibly holds off with his coup de grace the T Rex but when he does unleash the big guy he makes sure that it is the centrepiece of the film and by far the best sequence. It has been often parodied since but the menacing ripples in the cups of water are quite foreboding, and the money shot of the big eye still works.
The second half of the finale made such a star of the velociraptor that it not only is now probably the #2 best know dinosaur behind Rex but even managed to become the mascot of a NBA team – not that they are very good…
As alluded to previously the visual effects were absolutely astonishing near 20 years ago and they still hold up to close scrutiny today. It’s only a pity they didn’t think to take some pixels to Laura Dern, who it needs to be said has a face like a shoe (with apologies to Ben Harper).
As the character of John Hammond likes to say – frequently – he ‘spared no expense’ in making Jurassic Park. The same can be said of Steven Spielberg who really went to town with his new toy CGI, but while Jurassic Park might have been undeniably groundbreaking cinema, as a film it is only very good; not great.
Final Rating – 8 / 10. Spawned a couple of increasingly ‘samey’ sequels – as we’re about to see – but as is usually the case the original is still the best.
Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World
With the first film proving that caging – even with huge cages – enormous and powerful animals is a futile exercise, Jurassic Park 2 gives us the free range dinosaurs of Site B, a second, ‘totes secret’ island with no fences, no pens, and no supervision…
Mr Hammond pops up in the safety of his large mansion to convince Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) that the magnificent creatures require cataloging and research to justify and support the argument for their preservation. But Malcolm – having just been through the first events – ain’t having that, instantly making him the scaredy-cat voice of common sense.
Then Hammond drops the hammer; ‘your photographer girlfriend is there already’. Oh boy this will be a spirited couple’s conversation.
Within hours Malcolm has swallowed his convictions and joins another photographer, and a couple of miscellaneous muscle/tech dino-bait types in wandering around the heavy jungles of Site B. They are quickly joined by Malcolm’s teenage daughter, the stowaway Kelly, to satisfy the requirement that any Jurassic film have kids to look on wide eyed in initially awe, then fear.
Of course they find Malcolm’s gf Sarah (Julianne Moore) the spunky and fearless woman who has already spent many safe days on the island, and initially things are… Not perilous.
This comparative unease ends with the arrival of the far less subtle Team B, a large group of well armed, well equipped and certainly not well intentioned guys. Team B’s arrival might as well be accompanied by a dinner bell.
The still wow-worthy dinosaurs render the need for well drawn characters moot, but Vincent Vaughan tries his fast talking shtick, while Goldblum and Moore do their best to remain dignified while simultaneously terrified.
Jurassic Park 2 – and indeed all four films in the franchise – are best summed up with Ian Malcolm’s sage words “it all begins with the oohs and the aahs, then comes the running, and the screaming”.
Steven Spielberg directed this film as if he was trying to clone the first film. The set pieces and action sequences here might as well be the B sides from the first film, nearly interchangeable but not quite. The fact remains though, if watching some people chased by dinosaurs, then more of the same is… more of the same.
Final Rating – 7 / 10. And it was around this time that they realised that no-one was coming here for the big name cast…
Jurassic Park 3
J Park 3 opens with a reunion between Alan Grant and Dr Ellie. Reunited, and it feels so desperate. It’s a short visit, and Alan uses the time to mock the concept of cloned dinosaurs once more.
‘Digging in the dirt 4 lyfe boi!’
Nope, there is a zero percent chance of Alan enduring another visit to a dino filled amusement park, island or sanctuary. None whatsoever.
Literally minutes later and Alan is aboard a small charter plane headed to yet another dinosaur filled island with a wealthy couple played by Bill Macy and Tea Leoni, with a big cheque in one hand and his self esteem no doubt in his other pants.
With all thoughts of integrity shelved, Grant’s famous attention to detail is the next character trait to be shot to pieces, as his travelling companions are almost instantly unveiled as either crooked or duplicitous.
They also aren’t very smart, as a poorly executed stop off quickly escalates to a full blown dinosaur assisted crash landing. Who would have thought a mother small group of humans could find themselves stranded among these ancient killing machines?
Silliness and a Goonies-like sense of slapstick replaces the things money can buy. But the film remains guiltily entertaining in the same way as all the films in the series thus far have proven. To be honest if you liked the first film and kind of liked the second, you’ll probably kind of like this one. The budget changes are subtle but evident, matte paintings replace cgi, and there is lots of smoke to hide the slightly cheaper sets.
Jurassic Park 3 doesn’t pose the question of ‘how amazing would it be if dinosaurs really existed?’, this one asks ‘how crazy would it be if dinosaurs existed?’
On balance, the difference in the two queries is subtle but important, and both choices essentially lead to the same place only via alternate routes.
I should have pointed out somewhere that during the film dinosaurs of various species place some of the lead characters in positions of great peril, while occasionally eating lesser characters with nothing important to say – but you might have guessed that…
Final Rating – 6.5 / 10. People write this off as a throwaway mistake, but aside from Spielberg’s position in the credits it pretty much looks like the same film to me.
Jurassic World
There is a theme park on a remote jungle covered island. The theme is dinosaurs, and each attraction is filled with scientifically created dinosaurs, raised in labs and displayed for the amusement and awe of paying punters.
You might ask why – after several failed attempts to do just this – people saw fit to try almost exactly the same thing once again? You could actually ask the same thing about the film itself, with the first three films all being varying degrees of average at best.
And the answer – to both questions – is easy; because we can, and because money.
Tens of thousands of ticket buying consumers line up to be transported to the vast expanses of Jurassic World daily. They buy souvenirs and overpriced food and are replaced the following day with tens of thousands more.
But repeat business requires new stuff, and the park management worry that visitors become jaded seeing the same old stuff… Yeah the same old, impossible, wondrous, hasn’t existed in millions of years, stuff. This isn’t a civil war reenactment kids, these things are natural miracles!
At one point someone says “kids now see dinosaurs as if they are elephants”. Have you ever been to a zoo? Kids fucking love elephants. I fucking love elephants.
The question itself might be asked ironically, seeing as we are lining up to see essentially the same film for the fourth time in twenty odd years.
Moving on…
Because your average 90 foot, thirty five tonne dinosaur is apparently so last Thursday, the park scientists experiment with some hybrid creations. The latest output is Indominus Rex. It is bigger, stronger, smarter and with more teeth.
Clare (Bryce Dallas Howard) knows it will sell more tickets. The park owner hopes it scares the bejeezus out of everyone, in a good way. Another corporate rep thinks dinosaurs can be weaponized, which seems both ridiculous and impractical. Only Owen (Chris Pratt) comes from the Dr Malcolm school of sensible, he knows no good will come of this, and he was just playing Marco Polo with a bunch of raptors!
With so many ancient beasts on display it seems that only due diligence is extinct in Jurassic World. A bizarre chain of unlikely events that take place over only a few minutes free the huge Indominus Rex, leaving him in the open and everyone powerless to do anything to stop him wreaking havoc across the park.
About time. They made us wait twenty minutes to even see a dinosaur. It’s only right that they unleash the main protagonist and let them do what they do best.
Unfortunately what they do best has been done before. In the first film there were maybe a dozen people at risk. In JP Dos another couple dozen. JP Tois saw maybe fifty to a hundred at risk. On this day at Jurassic World there are well in excess of twenty thousand at the park, and only briefly do the dinosaurs get to sample from the bountiful buffet.
In fact for most of the film Owen merely drags Claire about the place searching for her two nephews, because these films MUST have wide eyed children put in peril to illustrate the danger of dinosaurs, with Owen giving a million ‘told you so’ looks and Claire’s hair changing styles a dozen times.
There is a giant hamster ball transportation system which would be quite cool, but the entire film essentially plays out just like every Jurassic film that preceded it. (The film also steals liberally from Aliens – the search party motif is imitated not once but twice – and also from Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection.)
When there is nothing new or original to turn to, people turn to the old and proven. That seems to mean dinosaurs, and now, the plots of films about dinosaurs. They could (and with a billion earned at the box office, they absolutely will) churn out a Jurassic film every couple of years in perpetuity. I just hope the next one does more than just repackage the same stuff with a slight name change.
Final Rating – 6 / 10. There’s life in these extinct monsters yet, but this particular display the same old bunch of bones.
In Summation
We tell our son all the time ‘if you don’t learn from your mistakes, you won’t improve. The Jurassic Park trilogy continually tells us that even the guys who learn, never really learn.
The perplexing hypocrisy here though, is that we love them for it, and over 25 years culminating with Jurassic World, we have rewarded their ignorance financially with huge box office takings.
If digging in the dirt has told us anything, it is that dinosaurs are hella cool regardless of how old you are, and we will keep paying to watch the same film over and over.
Because even when dull- dinosaurs!
