More science, less adventure needed

Rating: 7/10 (28 July 2008)

The very concept of dinosaurs coming back to life is so fascinating that "Jurassic Park" had the potential to be one of the best movies ever. At minimum, it should have earned a 10 rating.
Unfortunately, director Steven Spielberg and the writers did not spend enough time teaching us  perhaps, via the film's children  about dinosaurs. Instead, there are too many dumbing-down scenes with dinosaurs relentlessly hunting people and humans doing all sorts of incredible gymnastics to stay alive.
On the plus side, the movie has several "wow" moments involving gentle dinosaurs. The special effects are tremendous. When the characters first saw dinosaurs on the island near Costa Rica, I felt as awestruck as they did. Later, we see a dinosaur born in a lab, Laura Dern's character helping a sick dinosaur, a dinosaur eating plants a few feet away from Sam Neill's character and the two children, and dozens of gazelle-like dinosaurs sprinting away from a massive meat-eating predator. These scenes were spectacular.
There are also a couple of interesting scenes focusing on the mean carnivorous dinosaurs. But, the meat eaters just don't stop chasing the humans. The action goes on and on and on. The longer these scenes go on, the more "Jurassic" evolves from a fascinating science fiction story into a trite action-adventure.
I'm for action-adventure, and liked that the plot included a greedy computer expert played by Newman of "Seinfeld" conspiring to steal dinosaur DNA. Newman's comeuppance was enjoyable, and "Jurassic" was better because his behavior caused the dinosaurs to escape from their habitats and go after innocent people.
But, there were many times that I wanted the pace to slow down and listen to the dinosaur experts played by Dern and Neill discuss the various species of dinosaurs. I also wanted to see more scenes with different species interacting with each other, more everyday scenes of dinosaurs doing whatever dinosaurs do, and even more scenes of the people interacting with the gentle dinosaurs.
Spielberg, I think, missed a wonderful opportunity to educate the public in an entertaining way. An excellent movie would have balanced education and entertainment, but "Jurassic" took a mid-story turn toward entertainment, and I wasn't particularly entertained.
The dinosaurs the movie focused on were more like people obsessed with winning. As far as I know, animals chase their prey, succeed or fail, and then look for other prey. They don't fail, but then spend hours looking for the prey that escaped from them instead of looking for other prey. If dinosaurs are that smart, I would have liked to hear the dinosaur experts discuss what else they could do.
Spielberg deserves credit for inserting personal touches in the middle of his action-adventure and developing the Neill character from a child-hater into a child-lover although his quick transformation was a bit implausible. I also liked the comic relief of Jeff Goldblum's character, but the writers needed to explain better why a statistical theorist/philosopher was in the movie in the first place.
I also think that the Richard Attenborough character was too much like the Dr. Frankenstein character. Here, was a brilliant entrepreneur who spent years pursuing his dream of re-creating life. Then, as soon as his experiment goes awry, he  like Frankenstein  wants to abandon his dream. The ending would have been better if viewers were left thinking about whether dinosaurs coming back to life was a good or bad thing instead of watching a black-and-white anti-dinosaur position.
I cast an 8 for "Jurassic Park" when I initially voted on it, but the more I think and write about it, the more I conclude it deserves a 7 instead because it really missed an opportunity to be great.
ZWrite