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| Jurassic Park I and II |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 127/ |
| Public Rating: 8.65 (54 votes) |
Director: Steven Speilberg |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Action |
Year: 1993 |
| Writer(s): Michael Crichton |
| Reviewed by: Matthew Coats |
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Both Steven Speilberg's "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World" were released on DVD this weekend, it's only fitting to write a retrospective review about them, right? Or maybe it's just I'm too broke to head over to the theater and decided to do this instead.
I remember my freshman year in High School, Michael Crichton's novel "Jurassic Park" was required reading, along with Auldos Huxley's "Brave New World" (Great book by the way, I recommend it). Of course it probably wouldn't have been required reading if it hadn't of been for the record breaking movie based upon that novel. The movie that spawned a series of collector's cups at McDonald's that year (I still have a few), a billioon toys. With merchandising and box office profits, I'd say this movie grossed about a hundred zillion dollars.
Over all, I'd say that the book was better, not because the plot was more thrilling, or the characters better developed, but because occasionally it had these cool little line puzzles at the beginning of each chapter. Yet the movie had something the book didn't: Samuel L. Jackson! Granted it's a small role, but he gets a lot more job offers than the rest of the cast. Jeff Goldblum doesn't do much now, nor does Sam Neil, Laura Dern, Richard Attenborough, or that little kid who played Tim that my sister had a crush on for about a week Yet Samuel Jackson does not utter the word "motherfucker" once! What's the point of putting Samuel L. Jackson in a movie if he doesn't say "motherfucker" Samuel Jackson is the motherfucking "motherfucker" king!
The DVD release has behind the scenes "goodies,"; mostly the stuff they didn't show in all the magazine articles from Entertainment Weekly to Time, or all the TV specials, just the stuff nobody cared about. It drones on about how difficult and expensive it was to make the water vibrate like that. Yet if you put a cup of water on a table and slap the table, it does the exact same thing! Didn't cost me any money at all! Then of course they explain the 'breakthrough' of computer graphics that made the dinosaurs, but what Hollywood movie nowadays DOESN'T use computer effects?
Still this movie is just pure entertainment, it's not Oscar Winning or compelling. It's just something to kill boredom. I remember being thrilled as a wide eyed 13 year old boy watching it, saying to myself "Boy, I can't wait until this comes on HBO and I can watch it 24 hours a day!" Yet 20 minutes after the movie, I was no longer entertained. I carried home with me no vivid recollection of the movie besides the soda my sister had spilled on my lap.
If your movie made a hundred zillion dollars, you'd make a sequal, naturally. And as we all know, sequels are always inferior (with the exception of "The Godfather 2"). But since there was a sequel to the book, why not make a sequel to the movie. I must admit that I never read the book "The Lost World." I own it, but I've never read it. (I'm sure every one owns at LEAST 20 books they've never read, excluding school textbooks). Now the only people who returned from the original were the recognizable ones, Jeff Goldblum and a short cameo from Richard Attenborough. However, they added the beautiful Julianne Moore. If you recall, Julianne Moore and Jeff Golblum starred together in the comedy "Nine Months" just two years prior to this movie. The only coincidence being that Julianne Moore suburbly outacted Jeff Goldblum in both movies. Of course, with all sequels, there's the "We didn't tell you about this premises in the first movie so here's some back-story we just pulled out of our asses" premises. Some dinosaurs are living on another island, and one group goes to study them, while another group goes around firing guns and driving big trucks, scaring all the dinosaurs, causing them to eat everybody. For the first forty-five minutes or so, it has the EXACT same effects the previous movie had,
with the T-Rex's eye looking through the window, etc. And then the T-Rex leaves the plot and they deal with raptors. I have to admit the scene where they run through all the tall grass and get eaten was pretty cool. Yet it's the same movie throughout until... Instead of being your standard Speilberg fare it becomes like Inshiro Hondo's "GODZILLA!" Yes, they take the T-Rex to San Diego where it breaks lose and tramples down the streets of San Diego, adding a totally pointless 20 minutes of humor to this other wise entertaining movie. No T-Rex can ever be Godzilla! Godzilla was and always will be King of the Monsters. The Japanese Godzilla, the American Godzilla movie, with Matthew Broderick, was the last 20 minutes of "The Lost World" blowen up to two hours. Like it's predeccesor, this movie was made only for the entertainment value.
It wasn't made to make you thing "Wow, that was a good movie!" It was made to get your mind off of work and think about dinosaurs! And, like the last movie, it was like a rollercoaster ride; I enjoyed it, wanted to go again, yet two minutes afterwards I barely remembered any of it. They are making a Jurassic Park 3 from what I've heard, and it's NOT directed by Speilberg. I'm sure after "Saving Private Ryan" he feels "I don't need to make movies about dinosaurs, I can show people's arms and heads getting blowen off for almost 3 hours and get Awards that way!"
I give the DVD release of "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World" 7. With DVD it's like you're really in the theatre. So now, when I need a quick entertainment fix to hold me over for two hours, I have these two movies.
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