Post by wdm0744 on Feb 18, 2008 16:14:13 GMT -5
I’ve contemplated and debated, I’ve weighed and adjudicated, and I have come to the conclusion that “Jurassic Park” is indeed my favorite film of all time. Why would a grown man name a movie about rampaging dinosaurs as his personal favorite? Well, since you asked …
The short answer is that “Jurassic Park” reaches a level of technical perfection that other films, while held high in my personal esteem, fail to match. I’ve always been partial to “event movies” – films so highly anticipated that their release approaches an excitement in the American psyche akin to the kind surrounding Super Bowl Sunday. “JP” is the quintessential example of the “event movie”.
“Jurassic Park” has had a big impact on me. When I first saw the movie, it reawakened a love of dinosaurs from earlier childhood that had lain dormant within me like a prehistoric volcano. Immediately after seeing it in the theater with my dad, I decided that all I wanted out of life was to grow up to be a paleontologist and spend my days digging in the dirt and my nights dreaming of a world long forgotten. This desire stuck with me until I was in high school, and looking back, I’m not really sure why it eventually dissolved.
“JP” also introduced me to Sam Neil, the first of the three man-crushes of my life. For curiosity’s sake, the other two are Jack Bauer and Pepe the King Prawn (yes, I know he is not a man, but I do not care, okay?). Yes, I am happily married, and yes, my wife is very proud.
I don’t know what it was exactly. Maybe it was his accent or his calm demeanor under extreme pressure, but something about Sam Neil’s Dr. Grant just screamed cool to me. The summer after Jurassic Park’s release, I wore his signature denim shirt, khakis, and Ray- Ban’s almost every day. No kidding, I’ve got pictures. It is almost as weird as the fall and winter of 1997 when, inexplicably, I wore nothing but turtle-necks for three months. Okay, moving on…
“Jurassic Park” is one of those movies I watched dozens of times as a kid, but unlike some of my childhood favorites, this film still stands up under my adult criticism. The cast is great, the kids are appropriately annoying, the script is fun and pretty smart, and the music is beyond classic. Sam Neil and Jeff Goldblum are standouts, in particular. The editing is good too, with the exception of the “Petticoat Lane” scene, which should have been lanced from the film like a noxious boil.
The film’s narrative is a perfect blend of pop pseudo-science, exciting action, and any male child’s fevered imaginings. The high-concept hook of cloned dinosaurs complete with gene sequence gaps is just complicated enough to make the audience feel smart and, while clearly far-fetched, seems plausible enough to the layman’s mind that the film is given a cultural relevance it would otherwise lack.
The action scenes, fueled by CGI effects that, too my eye, look better than 90% of the effects in more modern movies (I’m looking at you “Van Helsing” and “Star Wars” prequels), have a clean, efficient feel and meet the audience’s expectations in an almost mathematical way. It’s as if all of our cultural fears and dreams concerning dinosaurs, our ideas concerning summer blockbusters, Spielberg movies, and action/disaster films are all addressed and tied up in a nice bow for immediate consumption. Some would surely see this as a weakness, and while I can see their point, I feel that for the film “JP” aspires to be, perfectly meeting expectations is as good as it gets.
This isn’t a challenging movie, but it is supremely entertaining. Ask yourself: would you really want a “challenging” dinosaur movie anyway?
The short answer is that “Jurassic Park” reaches a level of technical perfection that other films, while held high in my personal esteem, fail to match. I’ve always been partial to “event movies” – films so highly anticipated that their release approaches an excitement in the American psyche akin to the kind surrounding Super Bowl Sunday. “JP” is the quintessential example of the “event movie”.
“Jurassic Park” has had a big impact on me. When I first saw the movie, it reawakened a love of dinosaurs from earlier childhood that had lain dormant within me like a prehistoric volcano. Immediately after seeing it in the theater with my dad, I decided that all I wanted out of life was to grow up to be a paleontologist and spend my days digging in the dirt and my nights dreaming of a world long forgotten. This desire stuck with me until I was in high school, and looking back, I’m not really sure why it eventually dissolved.
“JP” also introduced me to Sam Neil, the first of the three man-crushes of my life. For curiosity’s sake, the other two are Jack Bauer and Pepe the King Prawn (yes, I know he is not a man, but I do not care, okay?). Yes, I am happily married, and yes, my wife is very proud.
I don’t know what it was exactly. Maybe it was his accent or his calm demeanor under extreme pressure, but something about Sam Neil’s Dr. Grant just screamed cool to me. The summer after Jurassic Park’s release, I wore his signature denim shirt, khakis, and Ray- Ban’s almost every day. No kidding, I’ve got pictures. It is almost as weird as the fall and winter of 1997 when, inexplicably, I wore nothing but turtle-necks for three months. Okay, moving on…
“Jurassic Park” is one of those movies I watched dozens of times as a kid, but unlike some of my childhood favorites, this film still stands up under my adult criticism. The cast is great, the kids are appropriately annoying, the script is fun and pretty smart, and the music is beyond classic. Sam Neil and Jeff Goldblum are standouts, in particular. The editing is good too, with the exception of the “Petticoat Lane” scene, which should have been lanced from the film like a noxious boil.
The film’s narrative is a perfect blend of pop pseudo-science, exciting action, and any male child’s fevered imaginings. The high-concept hook of cloned dinosaurs complete with gene sequence gaps is just complicated enough to make the audience feel smart and, while clearly far-fetched, seems plausible enough to the layman’s mind that the film is given a cultural relevance it would otherwise lack.
The action scenes, fueled by CGI effects that, too my eye, look better than 90% of the effects in more modern movies (I’m looking at you “Van Helsing” and “Star Wars” prequels), have a clean, efficient feel and meet the audience’s expectations in an almost mathematical way. It’s as if all of our cultural fears and dreams concerning dinosaurs, our ideas concerning summer blockbusters, Spielberg movies, and action/disaster films are all addressed and tied up in a nice bow for immediate consumption. Some would surely see this as a weakness, and while I can see their point, I feel that for the film “JP” aspires to be, perfectly meeting expectations is as good as it gets.
This isn’t a challenging movie, but it is supremely entertaining. Ask yourself: would you really want a “challenging” dinosaur movie anyway?
