One of Spielberg's best and one of the greatest ever

Rating: 10/10 (1 October 2013)

Jurassic Park was one of the most riveting theater experiences for movie goers back in 1993 at the time of its release. I myself was a toddler so I grew up watching it on VHS, DVD and so on. As a kid I pretty much watched it for the Dinosaurs. I mean come on who didn't like dinosaurs when they were kids? But now as I've gotten older, I've watched it a few more times and have a newfound appreciation for it, and largely thanks to YouTube movie reviewers Chris Stuckmann, Jeremy Jahns and ThatMovieNerd.
Based on the original novel of the same name by Michael Chricton, rich billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) hires a group of paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Ellie Satler (Laura Dern) and Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to take part in a test run for his new dinosaur theme park. Hammond's corporation, InGen used dinosaur DNA they extracted from mosquitoes buried underground and blended it with frog DNA in order to clone the Dinosaurs and bring them to life. Usually before the film's release in '93, dinosaurs were used in adventure B- movies but what makes Jurassic Park so unique is that both the novel and film give scientific explanations for how they were able to create the Dinosaurs. Now these reasons wouldn't happen in real life but here it's presented in a way where it makes you go, "That could happen!" Hammond is pretty confident and excited to show his visitors what the island has to offer, but Satler, Grant and especially Ian Malcolm (who thanks to Jeff Goldblum's performance steals every scene he's in) is against it. Malcolm flat out says to Hammond that this experiment is going to fail, and he later says to himself on the tour "God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs, God creates man, man destroys God, and man creates dinosaurs". Everything is going well on the tour until the power goes out during a storm, thus resulting in the Dinosaurs breaking loose and the tourists including Hammond's grandchildren Lex and Tim try to survive the outbreak. Having read some of the novel itself, the movie doesn't accurately follow the book but it certainly captures the essence of it.
From a visual standpoint, this movie is just mind-blowing. More props were used for most of the close ups of the dinosaurs, particularly the scene where the T-Rex is ripping the SUV apart with Tim and Lex inside of the car scared out of their minds. You would assume that was a CGI shot but it was an actual animatronic. Not so much CGI is used here since Spielberg and the people he usually works on films with like to use practical effects, but while some of the CGI does look a bit dated in some shots, 95% of the rest of it is still ASTOUNDING!
Character/Acting wise, David Koepp's screenplay gives us some pretty solid character development. All the actors in the film deliver 100% and each character (except for maybe Wayne Knight aka Newman) is likable, have interesting backgrounds and they all play an important part in the story. Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) goes through his own arc where he starts out in the beginning of the film not really liking kids too much, but after bonding with Lex and Tim he learns the value of raising children. Ariana Richards (Lex) and Tim (Joseph Mazello) are surprisingly not annoying, they play an important part in the story and Spielberg is a master on working with children in his movies. As for the story structure, where some impatient people might criticize the story for dragging on the film takes it's time to tell its story, sucks you into its world and then about halfway through the film, it all hits the fan. Most films with action these days tend to throw everything at you right from the start, but Jurassic Park isn't one of them.
Spielberg being probably my favorite film director ever, like I said is a master. He adds something to each shot and creates a sustained wonderment mostly with the first time we see the Brachiosaurus. Half of that is thanks to John Williams' brilliant score, which adds to the awe and wonder. Spielberg also knows how to create tension here in the movie. Two scenes in particular being: one scene where Ellie Satler finally gets the power back on and a Velociraptor's head pops out through the wall right behind her. As YouTube movie reviewer Chris Stuckmann described it in his review, "One of the best jump-scares ever put into a film". And the other scene where Lex and Tim are in the kitchen trying to evade the raptors, and we as the audience are able to see the fear in the kids' eyes.
Overall, Spielberg and his crew successfully inject quite a bit of heart into the story, and create a nice mix of comedy, adventure and thriller elements that build up to in my opinion one of the best movies ever made, and one of Spielberg's best.