I Love / Hate this mega-dino movie

Rating: Null/10 (23 June 2003)

Oh my god are the dinosaurs in this movie wonderful! And talk about high-concept. Awesome. And Jeff Goldblum just about upstages the lizards with his wonderful, quirky, jerky epitomization of Malcolm (Jeez, world class comedic movie acting or what? This may be on a par with Peter Sellers.)
But, (and there's a couple of big butts here) something went all 'Disney' in the making of this movie from the dark concept of Crichton's novel to the screen.
First, there's the warm&cuddly sub-plot of Sam Neill and the cute little kids. Yecch! Blecch! I understand this was the 'softening agent' to get the movie made and to appeal to "kids of all ages", but what a mistake.
Second, Hammond gets killed by the little blood-sucking dinosaurs in the book. How I longed to see this happen in the movie! Big disappointment.

I wanted a much darker movie where everybody dies or goes to jail and the dinosaurs escape to the mainland with no resolution in sight. Boy, would that have made a great movie!