# Jurassic Park (1993)

### reviewed by
Stian M. Landgaard

JURASSIC PARK (Universal Pictures / Amblin Entertainment)

    Certification: PG-13
    Genre: Action/Science fiction
    Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough,
    Bob Peck.
    Directed by Steven Spielberg

    My personal rating: 5 out of 6

JURASSIC PARK captured the world when it came. For the first time, truly realistic dinosaurs had been created and shown on the screen. Although the dinosaurs in THE LOST WORLD were even more realistic, the sequel suffers from too much stupidity, but we will come back to that in another review.

JURASSIC PARK does work. It does the same for dinosaurs that STAR WARS did for space-fantasy. We begin with a "teaser" that does nothing more than establish the fact we already have guessed: there are live dinosaurs on the earth now. The question is just how and where. An eccentric millionaire, John Hammond (Attenborough), has created an amusement park on an island not far from Costa Rica, and the attractions there are to die for, as we shall see. He needs a couple of experts to endorse the park in order to please the authorities so that he can complete and open the park for the public. Doctors Grant, Sattler and Malcolm (Neill, Dern, Goldblum) are taken to the island to spend some days there and investigate the possibility for an amusement park where the attractions are ... live dinosaurs, recreated from DNA found in mosquito fossils. Unfortunately, one of the employees attempts to steal dinosaur DNA from the lab and sell them. By doing this, he causes the park system to break down and the dinosaurs are able to break out, especially the nasty carnivores, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Velociraptor. Now there is Man against Nature in an astonishing action adventure that causes adrenalin rushes all the way to the end.

One interesting aspect about the movie, is the low age recommended to watch it. Actually, JURASSIC PARK is a horror movie, but Spielberg probably did what he could to make it a grown children's movie. I haven't read Michael Crichton's novel upon which the movie was based, but I would expect it to contain more actual science than the movie. There are certain scientific goofs in JURASSIC PARK, and I wonder if Crichton was aware of this.

JURASSIC PARK should NOT have been followed by a sequel (no matter if the novel was there). Spielberg ruined the "awesome dinosaur image" by attempting to make them twice as heavy and so on. But JURASSIC PARK is in its own right a great movie with marvelous special effects (at least in 1993), and the screenplay by Crichton and Koepp is quite good. There does seem to be some holes in it, however, and you probably shouldn't attempt to think too much about continuity and understanding of the entire story. Just relax (which is impossible in the long run) and enjoy JURASSIC PARK as an action/science fiction movie. Perceived that way, JURASSIC PARK works best. If you are into the science, read the novel.

Reviewed by Stian M. Landgaard, April 12th, 1998

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