Life has found a way

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2006)

I must confess to having always had a soft spot for dinosaurs. Ever since a very young age, dinosaurs have never failed to fascinate, interest, and more importantly, entertain me. I believe the same is also true for most of the general public - dinosaurs are just interesting creatures, no matter what way you look at them. It would therefore seem an excellent premise for a film, to have dinosaurs, which always serve to be entertaining, and show them in a modern context interacting with everyday humans we can relate to and sympathise for. And that, I believe, is the beauty of Jurassic Park - it's ability to blend the real with the fantastic, to make a film that is, in the end, fictional, and yet so grounded in reality. And director Steven Spielberg does so to the extent of his considerable ability here in Jurassic Park.
Spielberg has shown, throughout his extensive career, that he has an almost uncanny ability for entertaining his audiences. Whether it be clutching the sides of our seat white knuckled in fear and tension or evoking tears out of the most stubborn viewer, Spielberg has proved a master at manipulating the emotions of his audience, and more importantly, providing them with the entertainment they want to see.
And what better way to entertain an audience then an island full of dinosaurs, breaking loose and wreaking havoc? Indeed, Jurassic Park remains the best of the best of action thriller movies, still managing to evoke enormous tension and suspense even after multiple viewings. The infamous scene with the velociraptors in the kitchen still manages to scare the hell out of me, even after having seen it countless times. This is emotional storytelling at its very best.
It's admittably true that the special effects are very much the focus here, and they are indeed enough to hold up the movie by themselves alone. Almost 15 years on, the dinosaurs still look and act astonishingly real, and the animatronic effects prove so much more effective than today's CGI bloated blockbusters, since having real robotic dinosaurs make them seem so much more real - they actually interact with people and objects like real creatures. It still amazes me what we are capable of, technologically in film these days, and it's really only the Lord of the Rings movies, Peter Jackson's recent King Kong and the Jurassic Park movies than manage to impress me to such a degree.
But Spielberg isn't content to have a movie dominated by impressive technological effects - he still manages to bring excellent performances out of all his actors. All cast members are perfectly cast, and manage to come across as entirely real and in-depth people rather than shallow movie characters, especially Sam Niel's rough-around-the-edges palaeontologist Alan Grant, and Jeff Goldblum's eccentric chaoitician Ian Malcolm. But Laura Dern is also very engaging and affecting as spunky paleobotanist Ellie Sattler. Sir Richard Attenborough effortlessly steals the movie from all but the dinosaurs, as the visionary founder of the park, John Hammond. But performances are pitch perfect across the board, even from child actors Joseph Mazello and Ariana Richards. Watch also for supporting roles from a pre-stardom Samuel L. Jackson and comic Wayne Knight.
So all together, Jurassic Park is easily one of my very favourite movies of all time, and clearly deserves to be recognised as one of the most entertaining movies ever created. Just as John Hammond wished to create an entire new world for the pleasure of others, Steven Spielberg and his crew have done the same, working from the brilliant novel by Michael Crighton. If you are among the few who have yet to see Jurassic Park, I would strongly recommend do so. In terms of penultimate entertainment and stylish movie magic... life has found a way.
-10/10