Movie of the Week- Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park- 1993- PG-13- An adventure 65 million years in the making.

This film, starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, is one of the only creature movies I actually enjoy. I was never a fan of King Kong or Godzilla or even more sci-fi-ish movies such as Alien or Planet of the Apes. But give me giant man eating dinosaurs and I love it.

Synopsis: Billionaire John Hammond, played by Richard Attenborough, has used his fortunes to invest in scientific research involving the cloning of dinosaur DNA. (Unrealistic probably. In the movie the scientists are seen extracting DNA from a fossilized mosquito that presumably sucked the blood of a dinosaur before it died. I’m not a scientist but somehow I doubt the probability of that working.) After they manage to clone a bunch of dinosaurs (cause that seems like a good idea) they decide to build a theme park so people from all around the world can come and see real live dinosaurs instead of merely fossils. Before the park is officially set to open, John brings in a group of experts to check the safety measures in place. (A worker was killed by a Velociraptor, possibly the most viciously intelligent of the dinosaurs. Why did they clone a raptor? Perhaps they didn’t do their research first) Among the group is Dr. Ian Malcolm (Goldblum), a mathematician, Dr. Alan Grant (Neill) and Dr. Ellie Sattler (Dern), both paleontologists. Hammond has also flown in his grandchildren, Tim and Lex, so they can tour the park and give feedback. (He’s not gonna be winning the grandpa-of-the-year award, that’s for sure.)

Everything seems to be going fine until a storm hits. Meanwhile, Dennis, the park’s head computer programmer, steals dinosaur embryos to sell them to a competitor for jillions of dollars and decides the middle of the storm is the perfect time to leave. But in order to do that, he must deactivate the park’s security system, which turns off all electric fences. You can guess where this is going. Whereas he only intended to turn them off long enough to escape, he gets eaten and therefore cannot turn them back on.

The rest of the movie consists of the characters running around the park, being chased by an assortment of dinosaurs, including the T-Rex. And let us not forget about the raptors, who happen to be superb hunters.

When I first saw this movie, I was intrigued by the idea of dinosaurs living today. Even watching them eat people did not sway me from wanting to visit such a place. Of course, I was probably like 10 at the time. Nowadays I like to think I’d be like Dr. Grant, take a step back and say… wtf are these people thinking? Maybe a triceratops or brontosaurus would be cool, but I can do without meeting a Velociraptor, thanks.

The acting in the movie is good, the special effects rock (especially for 1993) and it leaves you on the edge of your seat. Awesome movie! I would recommend this movie to anyone. Except those like Courtney who get nightmares from watching The Village. That weirdo creeper monster suit in The Village is exceptionally creepy and I may be alone in that, but I'm telling you that thing is creepy. Also, it didn't give me nightmares... I couldn't even sleep after I saw that thing. For the record though, I watched most of Jurassic Park and had no nightmares.

“John: All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!

Dr. Malcolm: Yeah but, John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.”