"I wanted to give them something that wasn't an illusion."

Rating: 10/10 (11 October 2019)

Escapist cinema doesn't get any more magical than Jurassic Park. It's a film that enchanted me as a child and awakens my inner child as an adult like no other. Every second on Isla Nublar is a reminder of nature's majesty and mystery that got me labeled "the animal fact kid" as a grade schooler. Not even just the dinosaurs, the lush, tropical greenery set against that epic, rousing score gets my attention and awe the moment Hammond's helicopter arrives on Nublar. The beauty of what Hammond and InGen have created is so hypnotizing, it's incredibly easy to forget their failures. Even its scenes of gruesome violence and death have an odd primal allure to them, the spell remaining unbroken. Those failures aren't what cynics and detractors of the franchise as a whole will tell you; the sheer act of creating dinosaurs wasn't Hammond's mistake. It was treating nature as entertainment.
The sequels, contrary to what people will say, are not bad (Outside Jurassic Park III, at least), nor do they betray the original's themes. Both The Lost World and Fallen Kingdom do a perfect job showing the utter horrors of commercializing life itself as product. The original Jurassic Park, however, has a different goal. It's to suck the audience into the illusion that said commercialization is something positive and valid. Hammond didn't set up Jurassic Park as a nature preserve to study these animals for scientific purposes or to create a new ecosystem. There's a reason he describes Jurassic Park as a "theme park" first and foremost. There's a reason he puts a macho, toxically masculine Great White Hunter in charge of security instead of a biologist or paleontologist (who he only seeks out when faced with legal trouble) "Everyone in the world has the right to enjoy these animals!" he practically gloats. They're his personal toys, created for the purpose of amusement and blatant exploitation. They're denied even the basic right to breed outside a controlled environment, every baby's birth oversought by Hammond himself (who will certainly forget about each and every one) rather than a responsible and doting parent. While Hammond's characterization is certainly less malevolent than in Michael Crichton's rich source material, he's still very much unsympathetic and unsubstantial on multiple fronts. It's no accident that he began life as a professional charlatan working a flea circus.
It's curious how people always want to highlight Ian Malcolm as the voice of reason here. In this film, at least, he comes off more like a contrarian cynic than anything (He's wiser and more idealistic in The Lost World, but only after spending time in the company of death in the first film) If anyone provides sincere reason in this film, it's Dr. Ellie Sattler. From the very beginning, she's not just throwing cheap shots like Malcolm, she's making genuine observations of Hammond's failures. Picking poisonous plants for display in his visitor center for aesthetic reasons, bringing dinosaurs into an environment they don't fully recognize to interact regularly with a species it has never met, allowing poisonous berries in dinosaur enclosures purely because an accident hasn't happened yet, these are very specific problems that Ellie is quick to point out. One of my biggest (and only) problems with the sequels was that Ellie never really had a presence in any of them despite being the biggest role model and smartest characater in the original film by far. Malcolm has plenty of development in the first film, as does Grant, but Ellie feels like the most constructive and positive force against the carnage of Jurassic Park by far.
The flea circus scene between Ellie and Hammond is one of my favorites in film history. The battle between self righteous ego ("Creation is an act of pure will!") and well rounded logic ("It's still the flea circus!") is as brutal and staying as any dinosaur attack. It wonderfully highlights both Ellie's strength while bringing Hammond's pathos and narcissism to the forefront. It's not quippy or catchy and it's rarely quoted, but it's easily the best written and acted scene in the film as well as the most powerful.
Everyone's discussed it, but I would be remiss not to talk about the revolutionary special effects. The animatronics and CGI perfectly balance the weight of these prehistoric titans with their stunning speed. The biggest problem with modern CGI is its negligence to recognize the complexity and rawness of flesh, of muscle, of brawn. Jurassic Park's achievement in capturing that rawness is something seen maybe 2 - 5 times a decade. At least one of those times per decade, it's by a film in this very franchise. It's a standard practically unreachable by an age that uses it as a crutch more than a tool.
The musical score has more than earned its place as a classic, but even that has a depth to it that goes unrecognized. Its frequent use of Congo drums after its initial use of a rousing, trumpeting anthem definitely fits with a story about capitalist exploitation of the unknown for its own petty entertainment. It really speaks to the level of detail put into the entire production that even the musical score brings weight to the themes.
Martin Scorsese recently made the statement that superhero films were "theme park cinema", which has caused a fair amount of uproar, but films like this make me question whether that's a derogatory statement at all. Theme park films can be high brow. They can have character and themes and genuine weight, they can inspire and captivate and teach. Jurassic Park is a prime example of that and one of the most nuanced, critical and thematically rich blockbusters of all time that never loses its rewatchability.