Jurassic Park Review

Rating: 10/10 (4 February 2017)

CAUTION: *May have spoilers*
Jurassic Park is a movie about a man's quest to play God, Hammond played by Richard Attenborough, brings back extinct species, and parades them in front of an audience for his theme park. As one could conclude, it goes terribly wrong. When the fully computerized theme park suffers a malfunction, chaos ensues. An interesting cast of characters, Grant played by Sam Neill, Ellie played by Laura Dern, and Malcolm played by Jeff Goldblum, give a convincing portrayal of frightened humans trying to escape the island where the theme park is found.
The subject of this film has many moral implications as well as what happens when we rely exclusively on technology. When humans play God, we often set ourselves up for crushing disappointment. There is a reason extinct species are no longer around. Another theme is about human nature. The character Nedry played by Wayne Knight is an excellent example of greed in human nature. His entire purpose in the film was to remain deceitful, conniving, and full of greed, while he stole dinosaur embryos for profit. His greed was his ultimate downfall.
Jurassic Park is full of CGI and special effects, but I found the sound to be the most important part of this movie. The sound is used to create anxiety when animals draw near. There are moments in the film where no dialogue is present, and the audience is left to conclude based on sound alone what might happen next. When the children, Lex and Tim played by Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello along with the greedy lawyer Gennaro played by Martin Ferrero, are stuck in an electric jeep at night when the power goes out, we have a moment of zero dialogue of those actors. We hear the storm going on outside the vehicle, and the reverberations of something large headed their way. It creates such a frightening atmosphere that the audience can be made to feel like we are there with them. Without the sounds and music of this film, it would have been very disappointing. The editing of this movie is seamless. Each shot is done to include the actors in as much background as possible, so the audience is always left with a sense of where the actors are in the set.
This movie is a somewhat slow paced thrill ride that gives the audience a sense of what it would be like if dinosaurs still existed. This is also a great look at the dangers of relying on technology. Of course, technology has come a long way since the making of this film, but it is something we rely on too heavily even today. We rely on technology to keep us safe when this film clearly shows us that we should not.