full summary

Rating: 9/10 (6 December 2015)

The opening scene of the film sets the erie tone where a large animal crate and its contents are being loaded into a paddock, over a dozen men stand intensely around taking orders from Robert Maldoon (Bob Peck) the creature inside knocks the crate away from the paddock and drags a worker inside with menacing roars from the creature and a panicked commotion from the men Spielberg does a wonderful job starting his film out with essentially saying for the park "we have no idea what we are doing." John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) multi-billionaire and owner of "Jurassic Park" recruits a group of Paleontologists Dr. Grant (Sam Neil) and his assistant Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) as well as Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to be brought to his amusement park to tour and make sure that it is safe for tourists and that all the dinosaurs are healthy. Unlike anything that has been on the earth, the park located on a remote island called Isla Nublar off the coast of Coasta Rica, it is a zoo of scientifically engineered dinosaurs. Scientists have cracked the prehistoric genetic code, and with help from the genes of living species to fill gaps in the genome, we now have living, breathing, walking and eating dinosaurs.
The Paleontologists are flown in via helicopter and we are presented of a beautiful view of the lush green island backed with beautiful music that when I hear takes me back to my earliest memories of watching this movie. Upon arriving on the island Dr. Grant and his associates first encounter a very large Herbivore dinosaur known as a brachiosaurus, they are all blown away, Dr. Grant begins to ramble off scientific facts of the dinosaur as Ian Malcolm can only piece together, "its a dinosauryou actually did it you crazy son of a bitch." Which is followed by Grant asking Hammond a question about how fast the dinosaur is and Hammond responds with, "we clocked the T-Rex at 32 miles per hour." Grant and Sattler are shocked "you have a t-Rex???" as their faces are over come with fear, essentially telling us that obviously they don't approve of the idea to bring history's greatest killer another breath. After given a sneak preview of the behind the scenes of the research and scientific engineering complexes, the group is taken in jeeps attached to a monorail system they are taken to all the exhibits before it is open to the public, One of the paleontologists, Malcolm describes a chain of events, "God creates dinosaurs, god destroys dinosaurs, god creates man, man destroys god, man creates dinosaur, dinosaur eats man." Further on the exploration of the park the group encounters a sick triceratops gives the Paleontologists an opportunity to view this genetically created behemoth up close and personal, fulfilling every young child's dream of seeing one of these ancient creatures. A tropical storm blows in as the group reaches the next paddockthe Tyrannosaurus paddock. The power to the park gets knocked out completely, even the electric fences that keep in the dinosaurs are out, 65 million years of Hell is unleashed, and humans are hunted down one by one by raptors and the infamous t-Rex.
Spielberg has done a phenomenal job with this film, from script to CGI, he pieced together a beautiful masterpiece. A film that can entertain all ages, as a young kid I idolized Dr. Grant, his knowledge and love for dinosaurs made me want nothing more than to follow in his footsteps and become a paleontologist. Now as an adult I am still fascinated by the visual excitement of the film, the tyrannosaurus Rex chasing down and attacking the gallimimus, the "final battle" between the raptors and the t-Rex, but now I have a greater knowledge and respect for the craft of Spielberg in creating this film.