From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:42:14 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:389 rec.arts.sf.reviews:122 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rutgers!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl From: blake7@cc.bellcore.com (berardinelli,james) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK Summary: r.a.m.r. #01945 Keywords: author=Berardinelli Message-ID: Date: 15 Jun 93 14:27:19 GMT Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Reply-To: blake7@cc.bellcore.com (berardinelli,james) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Organization: Bellcore, Livingston, NJ Lines: 157 Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] JURASSIC PARK A film review by James Berardinelli Copyright 1993 James Berardinelli Rating: 8.7 out of 10 (A-, *** out of ****) Date Released: 6/11/93 Running Length: 2:06 Rated: PG-13 (Violence) Starring: Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Laura Dern, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards Director: Stephen Spielberg Producers: Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen Screenplay: Michael Crichton and David Koepp based on the book by Michael Crichton Music: John Williams Released by Universal Pictures On a small island off the coast of Costa Rica exists a most unusual animal preserve by the name of Jurassic Park. Operated by dinosaur lover John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), Jurassic Park is the first of its kind. Its population of creatures includes brachiosaurs, dilophosaurs, tricerotops, velociraptors, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, each of which has been cloned using the latest technology that takes DNA from dinosaur-biting prehistoric insects preserved in amber, and uses that DNA for the re- creation. When the consortium funding Jurassic Park become concerned that all is not as it should be, Hammond is forced to call in three experts: paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), his partner, paleo-botanist Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and the brilliant-but-cynical mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). When the trio arrives at Jurassic Park, they are astonished by what it represents. It doesn't take long, however, for astonishment to turn to horror. First of all, for anyone who's wondering, given the current state of technology, the situation postulated in JURASSIC PARK cannot happen. Not only do the necessary cloning techniques not exist, but the likelihood of retrieving dinosaur DNA from an amber-encased prehistoric mosquito is extremely small. While insect specimens have been unearthed, for there to be dinosaur DNA, circumstances demand that the mosquito had bitten a dinosaur shortly before its fatal imprisonment, and the chance of that is slim, at best. Nevertheless, the enjoyment of any movie is hardly predicated by a factual premise. The apparent realism of some of Crichton's pseudo-science imbues JURASSIC PARK with a grounding that is acceptable in our high-tech world. After all, to weave a dinosaur fable in this day and age, science--not fantasy--must be the driving force. The science may not be real, but it must sound good enough to allow a suspension of disbelief. In that, this film (and the book that spawned it) succeeds. Of course, the special effects help immensely. They are so good, in fact, and the dinosaurs look so real, that I half expected to see "dinosaur trainer" during the closing credits. Instead, however, honor should be heaped upon the creators of JURASSIC PARK's primary screen presences (all apologies to the actors). Stan Winston, definitely not a stranger to this sort of film (his recent credits include ALIENS and TERMINATOR 2), is credited with the live-action creatures. Dennis Muren gets his due for the full motion monsters. Phil Tippett is the "dinosaur supervisor", and Michael Lantieri presides over the creature effects. All-in-all, the wizards at ILM have done an outstanding job, giving us by far the most impressive and believable monster movie of all time. Nothing compares. Would that the story is the equal of its execution. To begin with, Crichton's book, while filled with fascinating ideas and entertaining moments, hardly holds together as a top-of-the-line adventure story. The ending is especially problematic, resulting in a forty-page denouement that drags slowly to an anticlimactic conclusion. As a result, a script based closely on the book is bound to suffer from some of the same problems. Despite numerous small changes and omissions, the movie JURASSIC PARK is very much faithful to its printed inspiration. Perhaps Michael Crichton's involvement in the screenplay has something to do with this. The biggest weakness of the novel is characterization, and the same flaw is fully evident in the screen adaptation. There are a few exceptions. The scenes between Alan and Ellie at the beginning are well-done, with the affection between them evident from the start (a change from the book, where the two were never a couple). This is as much a tribute to the acting of Sam Neill and Laura Dern as to the writing. Also noteworthy is a scene where Ellie confronts Hammond, who's eating a dish of ice cream in the midst of the crisis. Here, we get a sense of what's going on inside the old man's head. In the book, he's a mixed-up fanatic, but in the film, he's made into a sympathetic, albeit eccentric, figure. Interestingly, some transposition has gone on between Hammond's two grandchildren. Tim (Joseph Mazzello) is still the dinosaur-lover, but the screen's version of the boy is younger than his sister Alexis (Ariana Richards). The flip-flop in age creates a difference in their relationship and they come across as closer and less-adversarial on screen. Also, here it's Alexis, not Tim, who's the computer whiz. The plot is little more than a cleverly jumbled-together batch of formulas. As I mentioned before, JURASSIC PARK is, reduced to its most basic level, a monster movie. Thrown in for good measure is the human interest story--the growing relationship between self-confessed child-hater Grant and his two youthful charges--but this part of the film worked least successfully for me. Also, there isn't an effective ending. Too much is left dangling, demanding that the lion's share of the resolution be confined to the imagination, but at least the movie avoids the book's plodding conclusion. Nevertheless, I doubt that there are many who will go to JURASSIC PARK for its characters or story. Rightly so, crowds will flock to the theaters screening this movie so they can ooh and aah, jump in their seats, and root for the overmatched humans against the big, bad dinosaurs. When it comes to adventure, JURASSIC PARK is a roller-coaster ride. With thrills and action in the tradition of, but not up to the level of, ALIENS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (another Spielberg picture), this is an exciting and energetic film with a number of shocks but few letdowns. Even those familiar with the written work can't help being drawn in to the pulse- pounding exhilaration of the chase as the Tyrannosaurus menaces two powerless electric cars and the trapped humans inside. In the end, JURASSIC PARK succeeds because it's good entertainment--a fun night at the movies. Unlike something of the ilk of CLIFFHANGER, which also boasts a lot of action, there's some intelligence behind this picture. JURASSIC PARK isn't great art, nor is it classic cinema, but at least we don't feel like the producers and director are more interested in getting as much firepower and death on-screen as they can without giving a thought as to whether anyone in the audience has a brain. Not having seen all of the summer's offerings (THE LAST ACTION HERO is still a week away), I can't say how JURASSIC PARK will rate overall, but I will admit that, in my opinion, this is the first big-budget film in a long time to live up to its pre-release reputation. Sure, the movie isn't perfect, but it delivers--perhaps more than delivers--what the average viewer will expect from it. Summer has long been known as the season for action/adventure films, and JURASSIC PARK falls firmly into that category. Because of the nature and scope of this movie, I would encourage anyone with more than a passing interest to catch JURASSIC PARK in a movie theater. It will lose a lot on the smaller TV screen. Without the grandeur of a stereophonic sound system and sizeable picture, much of this film's impact will dwindle away. The dinosaurs will still look real, but there will undoubtedly be some who, upon viewing JURASSIC PARK on video, will wonder what all the fuss is about. To this praise, let me add a final word of caution. While the violence in this film is not particularly graphic, it is apparent. People aren't shown getting gored or ripped apart, but the movie makes it perfectly clear what is happening. Parents considering taking young children (under around 10 years of age) to JURASSIC PARK might be advised to see the film first. There are certainly a number of scary and potentially-disturbing moments which, while they add to the spice for older viewers, may be inappropriate for younger ones. - James Berardinelli (blake7@cc.bellcore.com) From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:43:25 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:390 rec.arts.sf.reviews:123 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!haven.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!rutgers!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl From: Sarah_M._Elkins.Wbst139@xerox.com Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK Summary: r.a.m.r. #01946 Keywords: author=Elkins Message-ID: Date: 15 Jun 93 14:28:01 GMT Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Reply-To: Sarah_M._Elkins.Wbst139@xerox.com Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Organization: Xerox Corp. Lines: 70 Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] JURASSIC PARK A film review by Sarah M. Elkins Copyright 1993 Sarah M. Elkins *JURASSIC PARK*: Action-adventure with dinosaurs running amok and people running away from them, with some food for thought as well. PLOT/KICK-OFF: Various experts are called in to assess safety and other issues of a mysterious theme park located on an island off of Costa Rica. They find out the park's theme is *live* dinosaurs ... then things start to go wrong. CHARACTERS/ACTING: All the characters were pretty natural in their roles, both their interactions with each other and their reactions to the dinosaur FX. I had no trouble believing Sam Neill as the paleontologist, Laura Dern as the paleobotanist, Richard Attenborough as the island entrepreneur, or Jeff Goldblum as the chaos theoretician/mathematician. I thought Neill, Dern and Goldblum did particularly well when debating the ethical and potentially disastrous impacts of the project; from other actors, their lines might have sounded stagey, glib or pedantic. There were a couple of kids too, used pretty well for the most part. CINEMATOGRAPHY/FX: One of the early shots of a dinosaur was a little too obviously people against some sort of matte motion effect, but other than that, the look and FX were seamless, superb, and quite believable. Considering the variety of dinos and their different behaviors the movie depicted, this is quite a feat -- we see a lot more than those few effects in the previews. At one point, although this is not a 3-D movie, I really did have the sensation that a dinosaur was leaping directly at *me*--quite a visceral impact. Clearly a movie to see first on the big screen. SCORE/SOUND: Okay. SKIN/SITUATIONS: None. VIOLENCE/GORE/LANGUAGE: A severed limb here and there, but other than that, not much gore (nowhere near the level of the Alien movies, for example). Actually not much blood at all, but there is quite a bit of violence nonetheless: you do have dinos chomping on each other and people. Stephen Spielberg (the director) has said he won't let his 8-year-old see it for a couple more years. ANALYSIS: Scary fun. I and others in the audience shrieked and screamed at several points in the movie. None of the movie directly contradicted the dinosaur-related info I've picked up from SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN articles, although it did refer to some points which are still controversial. There was one annoyingly silly product placement, and a shot which was a bit too obviously staged for irony (analogous to the shot of the Terminator mowing down the crowd in the Tech-Noir bar, only not as well done), but otherwise it's a great, gripping ride. I also appreciated the discussions on cloning, biogenetics, and chaos theory between the scientists, though I think some of the explanations were cut short in the interests of pacing. Good ending, especially because the room for the sequel is embedded deeply in the movie and not referred to again. COMPARISON TO BOOK: ******* Minor SPOILERS ******* The movie is tighter than Michael Crichton's book. I think they did well in combining a few of the characters and paring out extraneous introductory subplots. Hammond is less of a mad fanatic in the movie and more of an enthusiastic idiot. The kids' ages are reversed; the girl is less of a whiner (thank goodness) and has more to do. The boy is more annoying at the beginning. They did change some of the final confrontations between the people and the dinosaurs, and Alan and the kids are never on a raft, and the ending itself is changed a little, somewhat for the better, I think. - Sarah (elkins.wbst139@xerox.com) From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:43:29 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:391 rec.arts.sf.reviews:124 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!darwin.sura.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!rutgers!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl From: phin@west.darkside.com (Phineas) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK Summary: r.a.m.r. #01947 Keywords: author=Narco Message-ID: Date: 15 Jun 93 14:29:39 GMT Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Reply-To: phin@west.darkside.com (Phineas) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Organization: The Dark Side of the Moon +1 408 245 SPAM Lines: 289 Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] JURASSIC PARK A film review by Phineas Narco Copyright 1993 Phineas Narco ***1/2 JURASSIC PARK has finally opened and heretofore has been one of the most eagerly anticipated and much talked and speculated about film in quite a while. Today was opening day and I saw the first showing having purchased my tickets two weeks ago. Surely, this opening weekend will put a lot of money in Universal Picture's coffers. I arrived at the theater 2-1/2 hours before the 10:45 AM show, and there were about 25-30 people already in line. Amazingly, however, I don't think the first show sold out as there were a lot of empty seats in the theater when the movie started. However, when I came out the line stretched past the theater parking lot and spilled well into the mobile home park (private property signs notwithstanding) next door to the theater. PREMIERE magazine said it best when predicting JURASSIC PARK as the number one hit of the summer (it will be) when it said that the movie provides what people love to go to movies for in the first place: it gives them something they've never seen before, and that Spielberg and company have a good track record (more or less) for giving them just that. Let's face it, people are flocking to see JURASSIC PARK for basically one thing ... the dinosaurs. What child hasn't been at least mildly fascinated with these ancient creatures and dreamed of what they were like? This is perfect thematic territory for Spielberg who revels and excels in making movies that speak to the wide-eyed little kid in all of us. A lot of discussion has centered around whether this movie is acceptable for children. Well, I pity parents with very young children because they will most certainly be very very interested in seeing the movie, but will probably suffer from nightmares afterwards. The movie is violent but--and I didn't realize this until later--it is virtually bloodless. Any dinosaur savaging of any kind is either done off-screen, is obscured by something in the foreground, or gore-less. The only really gory part is a brief shot of a severed arm; this movie has *far* less blood in it than Spielberg's 1975 effort JAWS, which was rated PG, one step down from the newer rating which this movie received. It's still frightening, though--because what one *doesn't* see is often worse, in the imagination, than what one *does*, and also because of the extreme realism of the special effects. A kid can have fun with a Saturday afternoon G-Rated movie like THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD or any other Ray Harryhausen movie because the violence is rather cheezy and doesn't look all that real (at least by today's special effects standards). JURASSIC PARK is special in that it is a ground-breaking special effects film like STAR WARS or TERMINATOR 2 was, the kind that comes along every few years (with increasing regularity, I might add). There are a lot of scenes in this movie where you really cannot tell if there is an actual "beast" right there, live, or if it was something added in post-production. Half the people in the theater were awed into silence by these special effects while the other half was reverently applauding them. Those that stayed for the credits applauded the names of the SFX technicians. The dinosaurs, the special effects, in fact, every technical aspect of this movie are the real stars of it. And yet, it doesn't seem contrived; the movie flows seamlessly in its adventure through this prehistoric fantasy world; you don't have the sense of some special effects technician stepping rudely into the storyline and saying in effect, "Look what I can do!", and yet have little else to offer. This, I think, was an unfortunate aspect that ruined other otherwise good movies like TOTAL RECALL and most recently, CLIFFHANGER. The dinosaurs are, in a word, fantastic, and had me practically levitating out of my seat at one moment and staring wide-eyed with my mouth open the next. But more on them in a moment. The much talked about sound system is indeed, as I heard one person aptly describe it, a feast for the ears. As I understand it is contained in compressed form on a CD-ROM and each of the frames of the film is encoded with an unseen number which keeps the soundtrack (music, sound effects, dialogue, etc.) in sync with the picture. The ambient sounds of the jungle, the rainfall, the thunderstorm and the sounds of the dinosaurs themselves, surround you in a way never quite attained with other systems (apparently George Lucas' THX system was used to mix the soundtrack or else was used in some other way, as the logo appears in the closing credits--thanks is also given to George Lucas). It is also very well suited to John Williams' soundtrack which deftly captures both the majesty and suspense of the various scenes. Especially in the "high-action" sequences, the soundtrack recalls his work in Spielberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. JURASSIC PARK won't get any Oscars for acting, directing, or best picture, but it will no doubt sweep the technical awards next year at the Academy Awards, and will *definitely* get "Best Sound." (But then again, I was sure BATMAN RETURNS was going to win "Best Costumes," and it didn't even get nominated in that category). The acting is largely unremarkable and yet as good as any other Spielberg movie. I thought the most interesting aspect of this was Neill's character's dislike of children and Dern's character's awareness of this, something that is obvious yet remains completely unspoken throughout the film. Now... some words about those dinosaurs... [Note--the rest of this review gives details on what the dinosaurs looked like and other plot points. If you would rather be surprised, don't read any further] The Brachiosauri and the Hadrosauri: The first really good look at a dinosaur comes a full fifteen to twenty minutes into the picture (at least it seemed that long) and it is nothing short of breathtaking. A titanic Brachiosaurus lumbers a few feet away from the principal characters, astonishingly graceful for its huge size as it stands on its hind legs and nibbles on a tall tree-top. The characters are just a few feet away from this huge beast, as I say, something I would be very loath to do in such a situation as this behemoth could obviously crush a jeep like it was a styrofoam cup. The effect is almost perfect. There are no matte lines; the "effect" moves perfectly in sync with the changing angle of the camera which looks up at this towering behemoth. I was amazed that you can actually see the action of this creature's muscles and sinews, under its skin, as it moves across the screen. If you look closely, you can see just the slightest jerkiness of animation as it reaches up for the tree-branches. The skin looks a little bit too shimmery ... but all in all, this first glimpse of one of the dinosaurs blew my socks off. Perhaps I've been watching videos too long as I found myself reaching for a remote control to back it up and look at it again. A wonderful long shot is seen at the end of this scene of a couple of Brachiosauri in a lake while duck-billed dinosaurs (Hadrosauri) drink at the water's edge. The scene is seen through the "heat shimmer" one would naturally see while looking across water on a sunny day, adding yet another splendid dimension of authenticity to the scene. Later in the movie, we see the huge head of a Brachiosaurus as it discovers Neill's character, and the two kids, in a tall tree. They playfully pet it and feed it branches. Neill's character continually reassures the little tykes that the Brachiosaurus is a "veggie-saurus" and therefore harmless to humans. This was a little unrealistic for me ... I mean, sure it's a vegetarian, but so are rhinoceri and bull elephants, and they are hardly "harmless," and I wouldn't want to get too close to one. In the case of the Brachiosaurus (which isn't all that bright, about as smart as a cow--a very, very *big* cow), it probably wouldn't know your arm wasn't a branch until it spat it, severed and mangled, from its chomping jaws. But it seems this scene was necessary to show at least *some* dinosaurs were friendly. The Tricerotops: Actually only one is shown in the film, and although it seems very much alive (it breathes, its eyes roll, its "nose" snorts, its legs twitch) the poor thing is sick as a dog and doesn't really move to speak of. This leads to a pretty funny scene involving heaping, steaming mounds of "dino-dung." The Gigamimi: These are the "gazelles" of the prehistoric world. This is another wonderful sight that you only glimpse briefly in the television trailer. A stampede of these fast-moving kangaroo-type beasts sweep across the sun-drenched grassy plains at high speed. Fantastic effect. It occurred to me while watching this that the reason so many stop-motion effects of yesteryear don't look quite right and have that "animated" quality to them is that they are actually shot perfectly still in several different positions and while viewed in sequence they seem to be moving, but there's one realistic quality of motion in this type of animation that isn't captured in this method and that is ... the blur. "Real" things blur on film when they move quickly and that is just what has been done here (I assume by computer enhancement). The effect is a real jaw-dropper. The Dilophosaurus: This is a curious and frightening creature (at first it just seems curious and even harmless), just a little mechanical looking, somewhat smaller than how I visualized it in the book. When attacking, (which consists of spitting brown-green viscous, paralyzing, blinding, "gobs" onto its prey) a multi-colored fan of skin opens up around its head like that lizard that runs across the desert on its hind legs, which the Japanese find hilarious, that you see on "National Geographic" all the time. The Tyrannosaurus Rex: You'll be looking at some of the T-Rex footage wondering how the hell they filmed it, and that's the real acid test for a good effect. The Rex is devastating, horrifying, awe-inspiring, even somewhat beautiful. The ultimate monster--it kind of makes Godzilla look like Barney and "Jaws" look like a tadpole. In the scene where you first see the beast, in its attack on the jeeps, it just about had me climbing up onto the back of my theater seat. The sequences with the T-Rex are technically seamless. What more can I say? The Velociraptors: Well ... chilling. The creatures have a cold-as-steel, evil, yet intelligent look to them. True predators, and very faithful to how they are depicted in the book. I only wish their presence in the movie, their "character," if you will, was more fully explored. There is one moment during the climax with these creatures (which I won't give away) that almost made me jump into the aisle behind me. The fact that I would have liked to have seen the Raptors more fully explored, as they were in the book, brings me to an aspect of JURASSIC PARK that has been much discussed on Internet, and that is how it compares to the book. Basically what you got here is a movie just over two hours long, as a lot of Spielberg blockbusters are. The producers, and the studio, probably didn't want it too much longer than that to ensure maximum showings in the theater for any given day were possible. However, when comparing JURASSIC PARK: THE MOVIE to JURASSIC PARK: THE BOOK, what you basically got here is a telescoped, condensed, Reader's Digest version of the book's story. It occurred to me that to fully cover what took place in the book (and this is true of almost all book/movie adaptations) you were probably looking at *at least* a three-hour or three-and-a-half-hour movie ... maybe even a mini-series. Before the movie was made, Michael Chrichton, the author of the book on which it was based, said that the movie couldn't be faithfully done for less than $100 million, and he was probably right (I would be interested to hear what he thought of this movie). But, there is also the constraint of time to deal with however, and there is simply not enough running time in a movie to deal with everything that happened with the book. On some levels, the book is better, for example in the sense of sustained suspense. I was in a higher and more sustained state of tension while reading the book than the movie. The book's sense of suspense and tension is higher and more drawn out, sustained longer, while the movie hits you with these fast, hard-hitting, intense scenes with minimum build-up and are over relatively quickly. Here are some of the differences: (Note, I do not have the book to refer to at the time of this writing, even though I have read it, I am doing this from memory) --There are *no* Compys. --There are *no* dinosaurs on the mainland or references to dinosaurs on the mainland. --There are *no* scenes of a little girl getting bitten on the beach and *no* babies are eaten or are even in the film. --There are *no* Stegosauri. --There are *no* Pterodactyls. --There are *no* scenes where Neil and the kids are in a canoe or raft. The scene with the T-Rex swimming and attacking them on the raft is omitted. --There is *no* "waterfall" scene as in the book with the T- Rex's prehensile tongue groping past the waterfall for "Timmy." (I would have very much liked to have seen these scenes, however.) --The entire sub-plot of Neill's character trying to get word to the supply ship going to the mainland that they have dinosaurs on board is omitted. --There is *no* beach scene near the end where the principal characters find the raptor "hatchery." --The island is *not* blown up at the end. --There are *no* tranquilizer guns used in the movie; in fact, the whole aspect of fire-arms is barely touched on. --Ian Malcolm does *not* die in the end. --There is *no* threat of the Raptors chewing through bars in the skylight above Malcolm's bed as there is in the book. --The ending has totally changed as far as to how the "heroes" ultimately escape death at the hands (claws?) of the Raptors. I won't reveal how this is done, but it is something of a cop-out--something along the lines of, "This is getting onto two hours now, let's wrap this up real quick now". Look up the Latin phrase 'deus ex machina' in a Roget's Thesaurus. Those are really the major differences as I remember them. One thing ... if this movie goes the way of BATMAN and its sequel, it will be on video by Christmas time. Due to the subject matter of the film, you really *need* to see it on the biggest screen you can find and sit close to the screen for maximum effect. In summation, JURASSIC PARK is a treat. Technically it is a real milestone, a ground-breaking film, and in the age of movies like CLIFFHANGER, TOTAL RECALL, and BATMAN RETURNS--movies that are really nice to look at, but otherwise a mess, where substance takes a backseat to style--it's nice to find a movie which is not only a feast for the eyes and ears, but also offers engaging characters, a taut, suspenseful storyline, and good old-fashioned chills thrills and spills. If you think you've seen it all--see this movie for something you've never seen before and to feel like a kid again. JURASSIC PARK is a winner. Mr. Spielberg has done it once more. From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:43:33 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:392 rec.arts.sf.reviews:125 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!darwin.sura.net!newsserver.jvnc.net!rutgers!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl From: eric.walker@channel1.com (Eric Walker) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK Summary: r.a.m.r. #01948 Keywords: author=Walker Message-ID: Date: 15 Jun 93 14:30:31 GMT Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Reply-To: eric.walker@channel1.com (Eric Walker) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Organization: Channel 1(R) * 617-864-0100 Info * 617-354-7077 Modem Lines: 221 Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] JURASSIC PARK A film review by Eric Walker Copyright 1993 Eric Walker My ears are still ringing and my head is still swimming from the experience I had last night: I saw Steven Spielberg's JURASSIC PARK. The movie of the year, the ads call it, with dinosaurs so life-like you won't believe they're real. There hasn't been this much hype for a movie since 1989's BATMAN, and expectations have been high that we would finally see a return to the old Spielberg magic that's been missing since the days of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and E.T. The question to ask, therefore, is "does the movie live up to the hype?" Yes, it does. The movie isn't perfect, but it delivers what the audience wants to see, and more. You want dinosaurs? There has never been anything on the screen quite like the dinosaurs we see in JURASSIC PARK. The movie is teeming with them, and they're every bit as scary as we want to be, and then some. The dinosaurs take us on a thrilling, terrifying roller-coaster ride from the first frame to the last. I haven't felt this wrung-out by a movie since I saw ALIENS in 1986; there's an intensity to this film that grabs us and holds us on the edge of our seats, carrying over any weaknesses in plot and characterization. In fact, the dinosaurs outshine the human cast, typifying a weakness inherent in all of Spielberg's movies. I could go on and on about those dinosaurs. This movie has the special effects Oscar in the bag, especially where the Tyrannosaurus Rex is concerned. The only time it seems as though we're looking at animatronics and not at live lizards is when the dinosaurs aren't moving (which isn't often). The brachiosaurs tower over the tops of hundred-foot-tall trees, and the fearsome velociraptors (which like to hunt in packs) look like the came from our darkest nightmares. You absolutely will not believe your eyes. In fact, the dinosaurs are so realistic that parents with young children may want to seriously consider the movie's PG-13 rating before taking their kids to the theatre. Spielberg knows how to frighten an audience without blood; in fact, there's less blood and gore in this movie than there was in JAWS. There are scares aplenty, though, and they all come from suspense and the sheer presence of the T-rex as it thunders across the screen, crushing everything in sight in pursuit of his meals - both dinosaurs and humans. His assault on a party of Jurassic Park sightseers may be the most intensely frightening scene Spielberg has ever filmed. It's a far cry from Barney. The film pulls out all stops to wring suspense out of the dinosaurs, and at this it succeeds grandly. The human actors and actresses struggle to compete with these awesome titans, but let's be honest: Spielberg could have cast anyone in these roles and gotten the same results. After the troubles with HOOK, in which casting problems and demands (as well as outrageous salaries) struck a heavy blow to its success, Spielberg has apparently gone back to using actors and actresses less in demand, thus guaranteeing that he would have the final say in every stage of production. (Laura Dern has commented that when it comes to control of his movies, Spielberg is more obsessive than David Lynch.) This means the dinosaurs take the center stage, and no attempt is made to outshine them. The story is essentially an update of the classic monster movies of the 1950s, those films that state that There Are Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. In the case of this movie, it's the power of creation, as Man (specifically, a billionaire named John Hammond, played by Richard Attenborough) has taken dinosaur DNA from the blood of mosquitoes encased in amber for millions of years and used it to grow brand-new, living reptiles. Hammond wants to put these dinosaurs in a theme park on an island off the coast of Costa Rica and display them for the world to see, but he finds that living beings can't be controlled as easily as the robotic creations of Disneyland. That tells us all we need to know about the story. In terms of thrills and excitement, it lives up to its expectations and more - but there are serious flaws in terms of characterization and plot development. The humans are there simply to be gobbled up and to run away from dinosaurs. Most of the people seeing this movie aren't even going to remember their names by the time the final credits roll; there's no Chief Brody or Lacombe or Elliot here. Sam Neill and Laura Dern put in passable performances as the pair of archaeologists who squabble about whether or not to raise a family. He doesn't want kids, and she does - but of course there's a heart of gold underneath his supposedly gruff exterior, and when the chips are down he plays the father figure, risking his life to protect the kids tagging along with them. Richard Attenborough is John Hammond, the billionaire who's brought back the dinosaurs, cloning them from dinosaur DNA taken from fossilized mosquitoes. Unlike his obsessed opportunist character in the novel, he's a kindly grandfather figure who wants nothing more than to impress the world with his creation, making his dinosaurs available for all to see. This is why he built Jurassic Park - he's a modern-day Walt Disney, more interested in the care and enjoyment of his guests than he is with making money. Then there's Malcolm, a modern-day update of the scientist warning against tampering with nature. He quotes the Chaos Theory (a new branch of mathematics that governs probability and predicting the unpredictable), and of course we know he's right when he says that "life can't be controlled" - because in this type of movie, it never is. Things go wrong, and before anyone knows what's happening Jurassic Park is out of control and dinosaurs are moving this way and that, munching on the unfortunate souls who get in their way. The cause of these problems can be traced back to human greed as much as the unpredictability of Nature. There's an interesting theme of greed and its consequences here that's especially appropriate when one sees how much of a theme park the movie itself is. We've all heard the JURASSIC PARK hype campaign; the merchandise is flooding the markets; the books, T-shirts, tie-ins, and other companies jumping in on the money-making bandwagon here in real life are ironically parodied in the film, as we have corporate executives discussing how much they should charge for park admission. In one scene, John Hammond realizes that his theme park is not going to get off the ground, and we see several of the JURASSIC PARK products that are actually being sold here in real life. The merchandising campaign for this film was planned before it ever reached the filming stage, and Spielberg is trying to satirize it by taking us behind the scenes and realizing how difficult it actually is to sell a theme park to the public. While it fails as satire, it still retains a level of irony. (Spielberg may be lamenting the cost of success: because this movie cost so much to make [as did his last film, HOOK], merchandising is an important tool for the studio to make its money back. This means that the theme park aspect is built right into the movie itself. Spielberg considered saving the pirate ship from HOOK for use in a possible theme park, but that idea was abandoned. In addition, he had wanted to build life-size robotic dinosaurs for this film so that they could be used in a theme park afterwards, but that idea didn't pan out either. Nevertheless, we all know that a JURASSIC PARK ride is going to show up at Universal Studios. The movie is plugging its merchandise as heavily as the dinosaurs themselves, but Spielberg found a way to make fun of merchandising at the same time.) But the problems in the story make the film less of an achievement than CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND or JAWS, both of which are paid homage in this film. When the characters see dinosaurs for the first time, Spielberg is trying to get the "sense of wonder" that he achieved so magnificently in his UFO film, but at he fails at this. In CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, our enjoyment came from both the UFOS and the reactions of the humans to beings from outer space, but that's not the case here. The dinosaurs *are* amazing and we gasp in awe when we see them, but our excitement comes entirely from the special effects and not from the characters, because they're so poorly developed. A subplot involving sick dinosaurs is also worth mentioning. I was hoping that this aspect would be further developed, but it seems little more than a red herring. This ties into the ending of the film, which is too abrupt to be truly satisfying. One extended sequence of the characters talking about the sick dinosaurs and their possible life expectancy would have helped; I think that it could have been a tribute to WAR OF THE WORLDS, and it would have been a more satisfying conclusion. But as serious as these flaws are, they don't subtract from the excitement we feel when the film kicks into high gear. It bogs down in a couple of places during the first hour, but once the machines begin to fail and the dinosaurs are on the loose, the film turns into one of the most exciting, terrifying monster movies ever filmed. Spielberg even tops his own JAWS for excitement here, as we find ourselves gripping the seats and forgetting to breathe. My eyes were locked to the screen for the entire second half of the film, and I was putty in Spielberg's hands as he delivered one amazing scene after another. I especially love the fact that there is almost no blood in this film. In an age when even big-budget science fiction movies like TOTAL RECALL rely on splatter and gore for audience entertainment, JURASSIC PARK scares its audience without making them sick to their stomach. The Tyrannosaurus Rex is a wonder to behold. The special effects belie themselves even in a mega-budget production like this, and if we look hard enough we can see where the computer animation and mattes are being used. That's minor nit-picking, however, and anyone who complains about the special effects is a spoiled brat who doesn't believe in "suspension of disbelief." But the T-rex will shut the mouths of the most fanatical critics. It's an awesome creation, definitely the most realistic movie monster *ever* created. It does not look like the product of computers and models - it looks *real*! You absolutely will not believe your eyes when you see it, and you'll have an uncontrollable urge to duck when it lunges right at you. Best of all, T-rex is a homage to the movie monsters of old: there's one scene where it eats a helpless victim that reminds me of the classic THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS (and the great Ray Harryhausen). This brings up an important question for parents. Since the film is such a terrifying monster movie, should young children be allowed to see it? The answer, I think, lies with the parents themselves. I'm not going to make a blanket statement here, because you know your children better than I do. There are eight-year-olds in the audience who will eat this movie up and ask for more, but there are also children who will consider the movie too frightening to finish. Personally, I belong to the "give it a try" school: since there's very little gore in the film and its terror comes from suspense rather than actual violence, the experience of seeing a scary movie may actually be a good one for kids. It's similar to taking a four-year-old to see PINOCCHIO; he'll be frightened by the experience, but he certainly won't be traumatized for life, and years from now he'll look back on the experience and remember it. In the end, it's up to you. If you think JURASSIC PARK is too frightening for kids, don't take them. If you do, then let them see it. The movie is rated PG-13 for good reason. JURASSIC PARK is an unforgettable summer experience, a movie that delivers exactly what we expect from it. It's got a flawed story and forgettable characters, but it also has some of the most amazing monsters of all time. The dinosaurs of JURASSIC PARK are a new high-water mark in the long history of Hollywood movie monsters, standing tall with King Kong, the Martians of WAR OF THE WORLDS, and other fondly-remembered creatures of the past. It's an movie well worth paying full admission price for, as long as you realize that you're not going to get Academy Award-winning performances or a complex plot. It's a far more satisfying film than the other summer blockbusters of recent years: TERMINATOR 2, BATMAN, TOTAL RECALL, and other flawed adventure movies. I can't see any movie coming out in the near future that will deliver a more satisfying good time at the movies. Arnold Swchwarzenegger? Who cares? 1993 is going to be remembered as the year we first heard the thundering footsteps of JURASSIC PARK. --- ~ OLX 2.1 TD ~ ** Edited For Television ** From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:44:10 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:393 rec.arts.sf.reviews:126 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pacbell.com!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl From: leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com (Mark R. Leeper) Subject: REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK Reply-To: leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 14:34:39 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #01949 Keywords: author=Leeper Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 116 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] JURASSIC PARK A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper Capsule review: As few films in the past have ever managed to do, Steven Spielberg has tapped into the mother lode of human dreams and sense of wonder. Michael Crichton's story may be "Westworld" with dinosaurs, but for once the biotechnology and the special effects are phenomenal. Rating: high +3. When Apollo 11 touched down on the moon, I got this funny feeling in my back and in the back of my neck. This was where a dream that I'd had became a reality. The feeling was one of "Oh boy! Here we go!" and one of real anticipation. In Michael Crichton's novel JURASSIC PARK, a little girl drew a very detailed picture of the animal that had bitten her. And the expert looked at the picture and identified it as a known type of lizard. But several of the details were wrong in her picture and that type of lizard was not known to bite people. But the case was closed. And then someone else looks at the picture and says, "Whose kid drew the dinosaur?" And even though it was just a story, I got that same "Oh boy! Here we go!" So I was hoping that sequence would make it to the film. It didn't. Instead, paleontologist Alan Grant (played by Sam Neill), not knowing what the Jurassic Park concept is all about, suddenly sees an incredibly majestic sight that is undoubtedly something he had dreamed of his entire life and he is so overcome with joy and excitement and wonder that he has to look away. And I was feeling just about the same thing the character was. "Oh boy! Here we go!" Who hasn't dreamed about getting the dinosaurs back? Now you can indulge that fantasy for two hours and people are going to flock to do it. Michael Crichton's story itself is really a variant on WESTWORLD. A theme park is created with genuine dinosaurs, resurrected thanks to the magic of DNA cloning from blood found in mosquitoes who sucked on dinosaurs and then were preserved in amber. Two paleontologists, a mathematician, and a lawyer come to certify that the park is real and safe. Of course it turns out that the park is very, very real but just a bit lacking in the safe category. Neill's Grant epitomizes the stereotype of the soft scientist who does not get along with machines, even seatbelts. Laura Dern plays Ellie Sattler, a second paleontologist who lives and works with Grant, every bit his equal. Like Grant she is at first enchanted by the island where live dinosaurs live, but soon discovers that live dinosaurs have their downside also. Jeff Goldblum has many of the best lines as an obnoxious but witty chaos mathematician. He uses her acerbic wit to point out just what can go wrong with the implementation of billionaire entrepreneur John Hammond's (Richard Attenborough's) plan for the park. Attenborough finds a human side to Hammond that is not apparent in the book. Instead of a vicious maniac for success, he is more enthusiastic but likable. Other familiar faces include Bob Peck (who has done some excellent work in the past, including the BBC's EDGE OF DARKNESS), Martin Ferrero, and Wayne Knight. As enjoyable as Crichton's story is, there is much that cannot be fully appreciated without actually seeing it. No description can come close to the visual impact of this film. It has been suggested that JURASSIC PARK ranks with STAR WARS and KING KONG (1933) as a giant leap in representing images on the screen. However, there is actually little here that is really a breakthrough in technology, though virtually every effect that has ever been used to show dinosaurs on the screen was resurrected and perhaps refined. There are hand puppets, dinosaur suits, stop-motion, and computer graphics, seamlessly and flawlessly integrated. It took about four decades, but somebody has finally surpassed Ray Harryhausen at showing dinosaurs on the screen. It no longer is easy to tell that this effect is stop-motion and that one was a computer image, and the dinosaurs look as if they were in the scene with the people, not rear projections. Clearly inspired both by the work of Ray Harryhausen and by a recent revolution in scientific dinosaur art and paleontology, these dinosaurs show a lot of anatomy, including the wrinkles, the breathing, the bone structure, and often tremendous scale. They do not drag their tails on the ground and even the heaviest sauropods will rear up on their hind legs to reach the tops of trees. The one major aspect of modern dinosaur art technical speculation that was left behind is choice of color. The fossil record, of course, is silent on the color of dinosaurs and some artists these days suggest that it is likely that dinosaurs were brightly colored, but JURASSIC PARK's dinosaurs are dully colored. Still, the film does give a real air of authenticity. When the credits say no animals were hurt in the filming, one wonders, "How did they film that scene without killing that velociraptor?" It is a tribute to the special effects that in some of the horror scenes I was genuinely tense. A really good film will make me tense, though I have not been actually frightened by a film since I was nine years old. (And just as an aside, I treasure those moments when I was young and actually frightened by film. I did even then, especially being terrified by WAR OF THE WORLDS before I was three years old. I am very thankful that nobody "protected" ME from them.) But along with the horror are also the moments of joy and wonder. I am pleased that the John Williams score concentrates on the wonder, not the horror of having the dinosaurs return. It would be nice if that wonder might push some younger viewers into fields such as paleontology that pay off in sense of wonder and fulfillment of curiosity, even if they are not as financially rewarding. It helps that JURASSIC PARK is reasonably scientifically accurate. Most skepticism seems to center around a belief that dinosaur DNA would deteriorate in amber over the tens and hundreds of millions of years. You could not really clone DNA that old. But even that is open to conjecture. What does seem odd is that at one point early in the script one of the scientists surprisingly fins a supposedly extinct leaf from something other than a tree. I do not think that's its presence is explained by the premise of cloning. The script does include reasonable debates as to whether this particular scientific wonder is really what the world needs. Because it is a disaster story, of course the anti-science side has the upper hand, though not all the anti-science articles are convincing. The theme voiced by the mathematician that life WILL find a way to survive at first is a warning that the dinosaurs will not be contained, but eventually applies to the people as well. The script was co-authored by Crichton, and David Koepp with more than a little humor borrowed from such diverse sources as Buster Keaton and Gary Larson, as well as a few jokes of their own. In total, this is one of the most enjoyable adventure films in years. I rate it a high +3 on the -4 to +4 scale, but then I am biased toward science fiction. Mark R. Leeper att!mtgzfs3!leeper leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:44:17 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:394 rec.arts.sf.reviews:127 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pacbell.com!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl From: hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) Subject: REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK Reply-To: hagerman@ece.cmu.edu (John Hagerman) Organization: Carnegie Mellon University Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 14:36:46 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #01950 Keywords: author=Hagerman Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 49 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] JURASSIC PARK A film review by John Hagerman Copyright 1993 John Hagerman Everybody is going to see this movie anyway, and I'm not much of a movie reviewer, so I'm not sure why I'm bothering to review it. But anyway, here goes. The plot is: Dinosaurs are cloned to make a theme park, auditors come to check it out, and they decide it's not a very safe place. By the way, the movie is not a very safe place for kids; you can imagine what hungry, carnivorous dinosaurs do to people. As you would hope for $100 million, the special effects are superb. I came away feeling that I had some idea what it would be like to stand next to a live dinosaur. However, today's great special effects are tomorrow's run-of-the-mill effects. Since I wasn't impressed with the other aspects of the movie, I think that JURASSIC PARK will go down in movie history merely as another pioneering effort in special effects. I've read the book and, as usual, it's better. (The only case I can think of where this was not true was BLADE RUNNER, but that's not even really fair since the movie was only loosely based on the book.) The problem with JURASSIC PARK is, as usual, that there are lots of good ideas in the book and too many of them were put into the movie. For example, if I hadn't read the book, I would have come out of the movie wondering just what the heck Jeff Goldblum's character was supposed to be doing, blathering about chaos theory. But that's okay, because only lip service is paid to this thread, and then it's quickly dropped. If you have read the book, you will know that Michael Crichton is pretty good about science. Unfortunately, science takes time, and time can't be spared in the movie, so don't expect to learn anything. The movie has its gripping moments (how could it not with teeth like that?), but I think the guy next to me who fell asleep would agree: If you took away the special effects you would find a mediocre movie with a predictable script, flat characters, and uninspired acting. I suggest that you wait until this movie comes out again in the dollar theaters next year after it has won Best Special Effects. Or better yet, just read the book; your imagination will do the effects just as well, and you will find a much better story. - John hagerman@ece.cmu.edu From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:45:49 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:399 rec.arts.sf.reviews:130 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!pacbell.com!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl From: "David N. Butterworth" Subject: REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK Reply-To: "David N. Butterworth" Organization: University of Pennsylvania Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 13:48:49 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #01955 Keywords: author=Butterworth Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 98 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] JURASSIC PARK A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1993 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian Barney the Dinosaur has finally met his match. On the strength of the McDonald's tie-in alone, kids this summer will be turning off their TV sets and flocking to JURASSIC PARK, the latest blockbuster from Steven Spielberg, the man who popularized man-eating sharks, touch-toning extra-terrestrials and whip-toting archeologists. So, is JURASSIC PARK the mother of all monster movies? Not quite. The problem with the film, plain and simple, is that it focuses all of its energies on the dinosaurs themselves. Not one but four different effects specialists--live action dinosaurs, full motion dinosaurs, dinosaur supervisor, and special dinosaur effects--are credited. While there is no denying their work is truly eye-popping, everything else takes second billing, resulting in a film with a surprisingly flat exposition (the first third), a roller-coaster ride of special effects (its remaining two thirds), and no ending (it just stops). Take that laborious opening. Spielberg of all people knows how to set up a movie. Just look at the first few minutes of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK to experience tension, atmosphere, and pacing. By contrast, JURASSIC PARK's setup is long and uninvolving. We get to meet our two heroes, boyfriend and girlfriend paleontologists Grant and Ellie (played by Sam Neill and Laura Dern), who are visited by Is-He-A-Megalomaniac-Or-Is-He-Just-A-Doddering- Old-Grandfather John Hammond (Richard Attenborough, taking a break from directing). Hammond makes them an offer they can't refuse: Come endorse my biological preserve off the coast of Costa Rica and I'll fund your archeological project for the next three years. He's already popped open the champagne so you can assume he figures it's a done deal. It is. Fans of the Michael Crichton bestseller on which the film is based will be disappointed. Gone are all the fascinating details about the park's upkeep, as well as most of the scientific wranglings about the mysteries of DNA splicing and genetic reconstruction that made the book such a good read. Instead, Spielberg fobs the audience off with an abbreviated explanation as to how these creatures came to be: Take an amber-preserved mosquito that has fed off the blood of dinosaurs, extract and analyze the blood, mix it with a little frog DNA to complete the chain and bingo! Barney without the songs or the moralizing. Soon enough the park's chief technician (that fat guy Newman on TV's SEINFELD) goes AWOL--he's stolen some frozen embryos for financial gain--and a severe storm hits the island. Time for the dinos to run amok. And run amok they do. This is where the movie eventually takes off. The audience is then subjected to a veritable onslaught of loud, head-banging scenes of large carnivorous reptiles biting the heads off humans and other, smaller dinosaurs. Stan Winston's live action effects are quite fantastic. With few exceptions, these dinosaurs look and act like the real thing (the scene in which a herd of "veggie-saurs" thunder across the grasslands is a particular standout). Grown-ups and young children will probably be scared out of their wits, but older kiddies will laugh and scream with glee at all the mayhem. Although JURASSIC PARK is rated PG-13, its violence deserves an R. Jeff Goldblum (THE FLY) plays a mathematician called Dr. Malcolm. In his black leather garb and tragically hip glasses he looks more like a kook out of a Robert Altman movie than a scientist. He hangs around to provide the kind of wisecracks needed to offset all that on-screen carnage. Throughout all this, no-one does anything especially clever, or even heroic. Grant and Ellie (and two of Hammond's grandchildren) just run and run. And you thought it was the dinosaurs who were supposed to have brains the size of walnuts! These humans don't think or plot their escape; all they do is scream and watch in horror as their colleagues meet grisly, bone-crunching deaths. This is a *very* noisy movie. For Steven Spielberg, a director from whom we've come to expect consummate filmmaking, a lot of JURASSIC PARK is surprisingly shoddy. The film's only achievements are technical, leaving us with a mind-blowing assault on the senses in which the human beings are infinitely less interesting than the dinosaurs. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Directed by: Steven Spielberg David N. Butterworth - UNIVERSITY OF PA | | Rating (Maltin Scale): **1/2 Internet: butterworth@a1.mscf.upenn.edu | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:46:27 1993 Xref: lysator.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:400 rec.arts.sf.reviews:131 Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!gatech!concert!rutgers!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl From: blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu (Brian L. Johnson) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK Summary: r.a.m.r. #01956 Keywords: author=K.Johnson Message-ID: Date: 17 Jun 93 13:49:28 GMT Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Reply-To: blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu (Brian L. Johnson) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Organization: ? Lines: 51 Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] JURASSIC PARK A film review by Ken Johnson Copyright 1993 Ken Johnson 2:10, PG-13, Science Fiction/Action, 1993 Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Richard Attenborough, Jeff Goldblum, Samuel L. Jackson Richard Attenborough makes living dinosaurs from their DNA and makes a theme park, Jurassic Park, of them on an island of Costa Rica. He invites scientists Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum to comes see Jurassic Park. While the scientists are on the tour some carnivorous dinosaurs get loose and threaten the whole group. JURASSIC PARK is one of the projected summer blockbusters and has been incredibly hyped up. This film is not as good as it was supposed to be. However, the film is still worth going to see. Definitely see this film on the big screen because of the big budget special effects that will definitely loose their impact on a television screen. On a scale of zero to five, I give JURASSIC PARK a four. JURASSIC PARK is rated PG-13 for violence and explicit language. JURASSIC PARK is loosely based on the novel by Michael Crichton, who also co-wrote the film. The film doesn't follow the novel very faithfully and those that have read the novel may be disappointed with the film. The special effects for this film are great, especially the dinosaurs. They appear so life-like. The film is well written and moves along smoothly. Some parts are quite predictable, but what can you expect. The film does have some surprises too. The characters are well done and are written so that the viewer can't help from hoping that they survive (or bite it depending on your frame of mind). The acting in JURASSIC PARK is great. Sam Neill (MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN, DEAD CALM) does a great job as one of the paleontologists and Laura Dern (WILD AT HEART, RAMBLING ROSE) is excellent as the other paleontologist. Richard Attenborough (director of CHAPLIN and GANDHI) is one of my favorite actors in this film. His performance is perfect. Jeff Goldblum (THE FLY, INTO THE NIGHT) does a reasonably good job. His acting is not the best (but is much better than some of his old films -- TRANSYLVANIA 6-5000 comes to mind). Samuel L. Jackson (NATIONAL LAMPOON'S LOADED WEAPON 1, PATRIOT GAMES) is my other favorite actor in this film. -------- Ken Johnson blj@mithrandir.cs.unh.edu From /tmp/sf.1110 Fri Jul 23 13:48:12 1993 Xref: liuida rec.arts.movies.reviews:1416 rec.arts.sf.reviews:296 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: liuida!sunic!uunet!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!att-out!cbnewsj!ecl From: lazarus@quack.kfu.com (Albert Sze-Wei Wang) Subject: REVIEW: JURASSIC PARK Reply-To: lazarus@quack.kfu.com (Albert Sze-Wei Wang) Organization: The Duck Pond public unix: +1 408 249 9630, log in as 'guest'. Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 15:09:08 GMT Approved: ecl@cbnewsj.att.com Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #0XXXX Keywords: author=Wang Sender: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Lines: 202 [Followups directed to rec.arts.movies. -Moderator] JURASSIC PARK A film review by Albert S. Wang Copyright 1993 by Albert S. Wang Starring: Sam Neill as Alan Grant Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm Richard Attenborough as John Hammond Laura Dern as Ellie Sattler Directed by: Stephen Spielberg Produced by: Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen Screenplay by: Michael Crichton and David Koepp Based on the novel by: Michael Crichton Music written and directed by: John Williams Film Rating: PG-13 The film adaptation of Michael Crichton's best selling novel JURASSIC PARK opened on June 11, 1993, to theaters around the United States. The film runs for a total of two hours and six minutes, but as the story actually runs one can hardly notice the passing of that time. The computer affects, which were rendered on Silicon Graphics Indigo machines by the folks at ILM, the full motion dinosaur affects by Stan Winston, full motion dinosaur affects by Dennis Muren, and special dinosaur effects by Michael Lantieri are a tribute to the technology in movie making which have made possible the resurrection of a form of life which has been extinct on this planet for over 65 million years. Based on sheer entertainment value, JURASSIC PARK does a tremendous job by keeping the viewer expectant and on the edge of his or her seat. Even a person who has read the book will be kept tense waiting for what will happen next. Surprises abound in the film story, and perhaps the most powerful and frightening element is the dinosaurs themselves, a force of nature that was destroyed in a mass extinction of life, only to be resurrected by man. But despite the phenomenal job the film does visually, it falls seriously short in development of the characters and overall story. Perhaps the first serious problem noted was the under-development of all the main characters with possibly the exception of Ian Malcolm, the mathematician, and John Hammond. Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Tim, Alexis, and Gennaro were superficial in the film story, even possibly knowing too much. In Michael Crichton's novel, Alan Grant didn't realize that the Tyrannosaurus Rex's vision relied purely on movement until he actually stopped moving and realized the large carnivore seemed to not realize he was there. For Alan Grant, Jurassic Park was a wondrous place that showed him whether or not all the hypothesizing by paleontologists were right or not in determining the characteristics of individual species and their behavior. Things like the warm bloodedness of dinosaurs had long been a subject of debate in the paleontological communities. Also, in the novel, Dr. Grant loved kids, since he and kids had one thing in common: they both loved dinosaurs, and their popularity kept funding for paleontological projects going. Ellie Sattler was a very strong willed and determined paleo-botanist in Crichton's novel. She was above all pragmatic, and very sharp, overlooking nothing when presented with riddles. In the novel, the ill dinosaur they found was a Stegosaurus, one that had been afflicted with a continual ailment in a timed cycle. By examining the Stegosaurus's diet, Ellie tried to solve the mystery of the ailment and determined it wasn't in the food after a thorough examination of the animal's feces. However, she and the vet noticed small piles of rocks that seemed to be deposited by the Stegosaurus and that was when it dawned on her that the Stegosaurus might use the rocks for digestion, depositing the stones in the dinosaur's crop to help crush food, and then spitting them out when the stones are worn down. She investigated the place where the Stegosaurus got its rocks from and found that it was a plant growing on the rocks that was making the Stegosaurus sick when it went to get a new supply of rocks for digestion. Ellie and Dr. Grant are present early on in seeing the adult Velociraptors and realize the hunting, intelligent, and destructive potential of the animals when the raptors tried to attack the two of them through the electrified fence holding chamber. Gennaro was a solid clear thinking business man in Crichton's novel, not the wimpy thin superficial person portrayed on the screen. Gennaro was a solid pragmatist and certainly not the coward he was made out to be, since in the book, he risked his own life to help when the Velociraptors were running around from the power outage. In the film, Gennaro's character was merged together with the character of Ed Regis, the Jurassic Park PR man. Nedry's character was developed in the image of a professional programmer in the novel. In the film he was molded to fit a standard stereotype for fat lazy programmer slobs. Though he does betray Jurassic Park, the knowledge of his betrayal isn't clear in the novel until we see him with the can. The exchange of the can and the coolant was handled in the novel in an airport, quietly, and without anyone knowing who was who. Tim and Alexis were the two Hammond grandchildren in the novel, but their roles were switched in the film from Tim being the older one, to him being the younger. In the novel, Tim's knack for computers is established, however, in the tense scenes with the multiple raptors running around, he and his sister are kept moving, running around, trying to lose the raptors as they tried to get the computer working again through direction via walkie-talkie by Dr. Wu, a character which was completely removed from the thrust of the film story. Tim gradually figures it out, but it was a difficult panicked process, trying to figure out how the setup program worked. Robert Muldoon, the game warden was also under-utilized in the film story. His expertise with animals and their behavior seemed portrayed little in the film, reduced to what amounted to the leader of a security force. Ian Malcom was portrayed very well in the film story. In fact he was turned from a rather unlikable rambling character in the novel to a witty character in the film story which was quite refreshing. In between his discussions of chaos theory, he examines the role man has in resurrecting a powerful life form, a force of nature, and asks whether just because you have the technology to do it, whether it should be done, and he does it with a witty and dark sense of humor. John Hammond was portrayed sympathetically in the film and I like that a great deal better than the unfortunate and rather contrived end he seemed to meet in the novel, getting eaten by Compys. In the film Hammond was as human as everyone else and had redeeming values. He was a person who wanted to do something real, to show the world something wonderful in the film and not a money-grubbing businessman with no sense of reality. Points in the film that were problematic: 1) When Dr. Grant asks what kind of dinosaur it was he was holding that had just hatched, he doesn't follow up Dr. Wu's answer of Velociraptor with "Why are you breeding Velociraptors??" In the novel what dinosaurs they got were determined by what hatched and the Velociraptors were one of them. Dr. Grant knew how powerful the raptors were and how deadly they are in their pack hunting behavior. It was a natural question that went unasked in the film. Dino DNA was extracted from the stomachs of the mosquitos, but because the DNA there would be incomplete, DNA sequences from similar animals, like amphibians, were used to fill the void. So in many ways, the animals in Jurassic Park, aren't clones at all, but a new species of animals created by man, without understanding what plugging of DNA from another "similar" life form to fill missing strands can really do. 2) How do the Park administrators make sure no dinosaurs escape Jurassic Park? This question was answered immediately in the novel, but left out completely in the film. In the novel, an electronic computerized counting system was used that looked for an expected number of animals. Since the animals are all supposedly female, they can't breed so therefore if the counting system finds the number of animals simultaneously in various points across the park that it expects, then no animals have escaped. It was this flaw in the counting system (a programming shortcut to look for expected number and not for how many there actually are since it's easier looking for a fixed number of animals) that resulted in the problem of breeding going on undetected. 3) Ellie and the Triceratops ... so what happened? They introduced a loaded gun in the film, Ellie trying to find what was wrong with the Triceratops and just dropped it. We never found out if she found out what was making it sick. It was something that was started and just dropped. 4) Rushed development of characters. For two hours, I felt the film needed another thirty minutes to properly develop everyone. Most of all, I found it almost unbelievable that Alexis figured out how to use the computer's setup program that fast. That entire scene seemed artificially rushed. Summary: Film character development was weak with exception of Ian Malcolm and possibly the new and improved John Hammond. Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler had a great deal of potential for a lot more, but failed to come through. One can only wonder if important footage was cut out of the original rated R version of the film, or if the Hurricane had indeed cut filming short because of the extensive equipment loss. Story development was incomplete in a number of places, leaving questions unanswered. Sam Neill's character wasn't as flamboyant as I had expected, and Laura Dern was 90% of the way I had pictured Ellie the paleo-botanist, except that her character was so under-developed in the film it left me disappointed. The deadly nature of the Velociraptors wasn't really made clear early on at all. They were portrayed simply as vicious beasts and not as the cunning, intelligent, and organized creatures that they were in the novel. It wasn't just their viciousness that made them dangerous in the novel, it was their viciousness accompanied by their intelligence and their deadly speed. They were pack hunters that attacked large prey in groups, slashing their victims open viciously and rapidly. And worst of all, they had the capacity to learn. JURASSIC PARK succeeds however in one key aspect: providing entertainment. And though I would have to agree that JURASSIC PARK was a missed opportunity for a great film, it is by far one of the better films of all times. It portrays the affects of playing with a powerful force of nature, and how serious the consequences can actually be when playing with that force without fully understanding it. -- Albert Sze-Wei Wang From /home/matoh/tmp/sf-rev Fri Aug 22 16:18:50 1997 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Jul 15 23:06:51 1997 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed1.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!newssrv.ita.tip.net!ubnnews.unisource.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-ber1.dfn.de!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.nacamar.de!newsfeed.direct.ca!ais.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uchinews!cbgw2.lucent.com!nntphub.cb.lucent.com!not-for-mail From: ChadPolenz@aol.com (Chad Polenz) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: JURASSIC PARK (1993) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.past-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 23 Jun 1997 15:12:23 GMT Organization: America Online Lines: 77 Sender: evelynleeper@geocities.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: evelynleeper@geocities.com Message-ID: <5om3on$18s@nntpb.cb.lucent.com> ~Reply-To: ChadPolenz@aol.com (Chad Polenz) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtvoyager.mt.lucent.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #07904 Keywords: author=Polenz Originator: ecl@mtvoyager Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:7316 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1366 JURASSIC PARK A film review by Chad Polenz Copyright 1997 Chad Polenz **1/2 (out of 4 = OK) 1993, PG-13, 127 minutes [2 hours, 7 minutes] [science fiction/thriller] starring: Sam Neill (Dr. Alan Grant), Laura Dern (Dr. Ellie Sattler), Jeff Goldblum (Dr. Ian Malcolm), Richard Attenborough (Dr. John Hammond), produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Gerald R. Molen, written by David Koepp, Michael Crichton, Malia Scotch Marmo, directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the novel by Michael Crichton. Modern storytellers, especially those in Hollywood, are fascinated with dinosaurs. They have always wanted to tell a plausible story where modern man somehow co-exists and/or comes into contact with dinosaurs, and "Jurassic Park" is a film of grand designs that fulfils that wish. The film is extremely impressive visually, but the story and the way it is told is not. We meet Dr. Alan Grant (Neill) and Dr. Ellie Sattler (Dern), two paleontologists whose dig in the Badlands of Montana is interrupted when a Scottish scientist named Dr. John Hammond (Attenborough) tells them their expertise is needed for his new theme park in South America. Hammond describes his "Jurassic Park" in a vague but exciting manner and convinces them to come with him. At the same time, an overly complicated sub-plot of espionage begins to develop. Dennis Nedry (a funny Wayne Knight), a computer programmer at Hammond's park plans to sabotage it through a complex process of tricks that only could happen in such a Hollywood movie. When the doctors arrive we finally learn what Hammond's park is about as we get our first glimpse of a realistic, life-size dinosaur. The dinosaurs were cloned from blood from mosquitoes that had been petrified and preserved for millions of years in amber. The way this explanation is given is surprisingly believable because it is kept relatively simple. The first half makes for an interesting sci-fi story, as we learn the dinosaurs are genetically bred to be female, and we see a few up close in fine detail. Then a matter of scientific and philosophical theory comes into play as Grant and Sattler, along with mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm (Goldblum), start to question the ethics of the park, saying nature selected dinosaurs to become extinct and Hammond is tampering with uncontrollable forces. Since we are dealing with fantastic beasts in a major Hollywood picture, it is clear something big is going to happen from all the scientific jargon. The second half is even more impressive visually, but the story and overall genre seem to turn on a dime into a dressed up (but thrilling) horror flick. Nedry's scheme and a tropical storm cause for the park to go into a state of chaos. Grant and Malcolm, along with a lawyer and Hammond's two young grandchildren, find themselves on the run from a Tyrannosaurus Rex! This encounter is fantastic, but goes overboard quickly. We get scenes involving the dodging of a falling truck, climbing a 50-foot tree and climbing back down to dodge the same truck, only to have the characters become trapped in the truck again! The film's attempt at thrilling us wouldn't have been half as blatant if the two children stuck with Dr. Grant hadn't been such annoying characters. These kids overact at every given opportunity and seem more like living cartoons than any kind of plausible characters. The fact the boy's name is Timmy says it all. The final act involves lots of running from dinosaurs and trying to fix a huge computer system crash. But the film keeps snowballing and becomes tiresome. Some individual scenes are even more corny than some slasher flicks, and if it had been done in the spirit of satire it would have been forgivable. To say "Jurassic Park" is a bit over-the-top would be pointless - that's premise of the film. Over-the-top films work if they are done in a sense of innocent adventure, not as something to be taken as seriously as this film would like to be. Please visit Chad'z Movie Page @ http://members.aol.com/ChadPolenz