Jurassic Park Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Sam Neill, Jeff Glodblum, Laura Dern and Richard Attenborough. Reviewed by Michael A. Turton (turton@cc.fy.edu.tw)
I swore I would never review this movie, but here I am....
_Jurassic Park_ is a film so towering that it has managed to maintain its emotional power over the years, despite being forced to overcome one of the most intense commercialization campaigns in film history, as well as the worst sequel since _Return of the Jedi_. The tremendous worldwide success of _Jurassic Park_ represents the pinnacle of Steven Spielberg's achievements as a director, the film showcasing every one of his strengths and weaknesses.
Based on the best-seller by Michael Crichton, _Jurassic Park_ at first appears to be part-thriller, part-morality play about the strength of life and the failed promise of technological magic, or as a sort of updated _Sorcerer's Apprentice_ of naive humans playing with forces beyond their ken. It is easy to fall into the trap of seeing the dinosaurs as representing the primal vigor of Life, as Spielberg invites us to do. The first time we see the dinosaurs (a moment which made tears of joy roll down this reviewer's cheeks the first time he saw it) they are gloriously virginal in a lush natural setting: not an artifact in sight. The first dinosaur we are in intimate contact with is sick, for Pete's sake! What could be more natural?
Yet, in the end, this movie is not about life or dinosaurs. Instead, it asks the question: how can human beings live in the technological nightmare worlds they have constructed for themselves? There are many moments of exploration of attitudes toward technology in the film, as when one character chortles upon opening the amazing can of shaving foam which is really a secret storage container for smuggling embryos (a debased version of Jurassic Park's owner's pride in his creation), or when the leading characters argue about the import of Jurassic Park. Many of Ian Malcolm's criticisms of the cloning project represent critiques of technology and science which can be found in the writings of sociologists and philosophers of technology. The movie opens with Grant's grousing about how he can't get along with technology. We're all struggling to catch up with the modern world, he observes later, with real anguish
Or consider. Far more time is spent on the hazards of technology than on pursuit by dinosaurs. The threats to the children -- the car falling out of the tree, the perimeter fence being turned on -- are technological threats. Spielberg alludes to this at the beginning. As the movie opens, we hear a roaring and a crushing. Expecting a dinosaur, what do we see? A machine. A little joke, to be sure, but a revealing one nonetheless. The wrenching twist from the roar of the T. Rex to Samuel L. Jackson's "Keystroke. Check." is a marvelous clue to the nature of the world Spielberg has built. Educated, intelligent people are helpless before baffling or failed tech (What! No phones? Help!), as helpless as when faced with a T. Rex. The plot may be unified and fulfilled when the T. Rex nails the velociraptor as it is about to disembowel our blue-eyed heroes, but the film's premise is shown in the brilliant shot during the pursuit when a velociraptor, bathed in the light of a computer monitor, suddenly appears as a collection of computer data constructions. The real meaning is this: the dinosaurs are a technology too. The film's attempt to portray them as "Life finding a way" is a shallow distortion: they are not even real animals but biotechnological amalgamations of frogs and dinosaurs, grotesqueries born in incubators under hot lights.
Of course, with Spielberg at the helm, the film follows the Hollywood formula which Spielberg, applying in varying degree to all his movies, has brought to its ultimate refinement: the healing of a family, the trivialization of minorities, a lush score, technical and directorial brilliance, first-rate acting, a redemptive ending, the focus on the obvious meaning and leadership by the blue-eyed. In his real-world films such as _Schindler's List_ and _Saving Private Ryan_, this cookie-cutter perfectionism has led to great films which are greater failures, but The Formula is well-suited to a fantasy like _Jurassic Park_.
That said, _Jurassic Park_ remains a brilliant movie with moments of delicious humor, a fast pace and excellent acting. The reflection of the T. Rex in the rearview mirror is a wickedly funny satire. Laura Dern and the young actor who plays the granddaughter both deliver especially noteworthy performances. The effects are magnificent. The irresistable splendor of the dinosaurs overcomes even the predictable chase scenes and the predictable ending. It is a film filled with wonderful shots: the birds viewed from the window of the chopper at the end, a reminder of how dinosaurs are still with us; Laura Dern attempting to stare down a velociraptor, every muscle in her body straining; the moment when we first see the Brachiaosaur feeding, the chase of the jeep (think they'll have that on the tour?) and of course, the T. Rex emerging from the enclosure in the midst of a terrible storm, the ultimate realization of the Frankenstein complex.
If there are any flaws in the film, they lie in two areas. First, the dinosaurs themselves do not reflect the current state of paleontonological thinking. The public may have accepted Bob Bakker's suspect arguments for dinosaurs as warm-blooded, but hardly any scientists think the matter is so cut-and-dried. Second, the "white middle-classness" of the film in which only blacks, lawyers, fat people and other undesirables die while the blue-eyed triumph is also highly objectionable (I live in Taiwan, where Hollywood has successfully inculcated the belief that only blue-eyed people are real Americans. As a brown-eyed scion of Italian and Polish immigrants, this infuriates me.). There are a few minor flaws (a T. Rex can't knock over a jeep one-twentieth of its weight?) but none really interfere with the suspension of disbelief.
Not just a rental from time to time, _Jurassic Park_ is a first-rate keeper, a classic for the ages. This reviewer gives it 5 out of 5 and would love to see it on the big screen again.
Copyright 1998. Michael A. Turton.
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