Review: Jurassic Park
I’ve been wanting to do a review of one of my favourite films of all time since I did Monsters. I started off with Inception but now I feel I have to write reviews for most of them because most people have never heard of these films. But now it's time for one film that everybody has heard of... Jurassic Park.
I have been obsessed with dinosaurs since an early age. I remember anticipating the end of school and 8:00pm to come quickly when Walking With Beasts first blessed our screens and getting up early in the morning to catch Walking With Monsters before I went to school. The obsession continues to this day, with me being transfixed by Games Workshop's exquisite Kroq-Gar model in detailed finecast and Planet Dinosaur brings me up to date on the last decade of pre-historic discovery. But one dinosaur has a firm place in my heart from its excellent scene from Jurassic Park, and that’s the Tyrannosaurus rex. Boom. Boom. Boom (Cue everyone looks at a glass of water and a flying goat's leg).
For a film that came out in 1993, Jurassic Park is still one of the best films around. The second is good in its own way but Jurassic Park III was a bitter disappointment. No, if you want to see man struggle for survival against savage giant lizards, pick up the original Jurassic Park. In its new re-mastered edition, there is no excuse to not see the definitive dino film. The animation is sharper and the sound design is still very near the top of the list for sound effects. Going to see Jurrasic Park in the cinema scared me witless when the Tyrannosaurus rex escaped and its roar shook the whole cinema. When the raptors smash around the kitchen, there is nothing more spine-chilling than the raptors' call for reinforcements.
The acting is top standard, even better than almost every film out nowadays. You’ll probably have noticed that I haven’t said that Jurassic Park has been the absolute best of anything, this is because, even though it’s a great film, it has a hard time standing up to my favourite films with the likes of Dark Knight and 9. It’s very nearly the best book adaptation, but its way is impaired by the almighty Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows - Part 2 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It can stand high as the best dino film though, the only film anywhere near it is my childhood favourite, Dinosaur, but when you watch a film for nearly every day of your toddler days, it sort of becomes one of the best films you have ever seen, even if it was admittedly terrible.
As I mentioned before, the Tyrannosaurus rex is brilliant. The animators did a brilliant job of bringing one of history’s most iconic hunters and implanting it into every child's nightmares. No film has left me this uneasy to sleep with the sound of the roaring trains behind my house since Batman Begins and The Scarecrow (shudder). The Tyrannosaurus rex really struck me as a real animal because it seemed as if the design crew had found a real one and discovered its lifestyle and instincts so they didn’t put there actors in harm’s way because, honestly now, who’s going to put a world famous actor in front of a viscous Tyrannosaurus rex.
The death of Dennis midway through the film is one of the most gruesome deaths I’ve seen since I watched King Kong a few weeks back and I was reminded of the cook’s horrible death by leaches. Seeing the hapless victim being blinded and then slowly eaten really creeped me out and for a good day or two raised my fears of silence as if something was standing right behind me. Oh great, now I’m terrified again...
9.5/10
A definitive film that should be seen over and over and over again until you realise you should probably get off the sofa and make yourself some lunch.
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