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.
.
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