Okay courageous readers, here’s something new for you. The first review of a movie based very stongly on a book. Due to the complexity of the original Michael Crichton book, I kind of have to look at this review in a different manner. This was both a good movie, and a crappy movie. By that I mean in comparison to the book. If you look at the book and compare directly to the ...]]>

A landmark in filmmaking, too bad it’s not as good as we remember.

Okay courageous readers, here’s something new for you. The first review of a movie based very stongly on a book. Due to the complexity of the original Michael Crichton book, I kind of have to look at this review in a different manner. This was both a good movie, and a crappy movie. By that I mean in comparison to the book. If you look at the book and compare directly to the movie, the movie sucked. However, if you look solely at the movie, it was a pretty damn good movie. Since most of my readers are likely more interested in the movie alone, I will focus purely on the latter. Just the movie. Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Sam Neil, Jeff Goldblum, and Samuel L. Jackson (how many movies is he in anyway?), this movie is truly a landmark in filmaking as it was one of the first movies to have animals created in CGI.

Plot

Entreprenuer John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) discovers a way to clone dinosours by using the DNA extracted from the petrified remains of mostiquitos trapped in amber. After cloning many species and stuffing them on an island as a type of amusement park, he enlists the help of palentologist Alan Grant (Sam Neil), Paleobotonist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and mathmatician Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) to help convince the investers that his park is safe. However, Hammond does not realize that park worker Dennis Nedry (Wayne Night) has other plans for the precious park, and attempts to steal embryos of the animals to sell to a competing company. After Nedry turns off security in the park, all hell breaks loose trapping Grant in the park with two children when the dinosaurs are loose and hungry for the hunt. Based on the Michael Crichton book of the same name, the plot follows fairly closely to the book, and only misses on a few small points.

Visual

The CGI is really very impressive considering that this movie was made in 1993, right at the beginning of CGI in movies. In fact, there are only a few points where you are able to distinguish the computer animated marvels from the animatronic; and those points are easy to overlook if you let the movie draw you in. Nothing really special in the way of cinematography, but it’s a Spielberg so each shot is well planned and captures exactly what it’s meant to. Just nothing creative and new from the camera angles.

Audio

Great theme song and decent music are key in this movie, as are the sound effects. However, in the way of sound effects, it is WAY too easy to pick out the individual animal sounds from the dino roars. I catch myself thinking “who let an elephant in here?” or “add some tiger to some dolphin and we’ve got a cool growling sound, that works.” That is my main complaint with this movie. If the dino roars were believable and not just a mash-up of current-day animal sounds, I think the movie would be a lot better off.

Acting

Meh. I’ve seen better. But I’ve seen a lot worse too. The acting either seems too flat or too forced. The actors don’t really seem to work to create the believability that a movie involving dinosaurs needs to be effective. But, they don’t really suck either. There are certain points where the acting is mostly believable, but those points almost always involve the minor details instead of the major. But, maybe I’m just being overly critical.

Summary

I really enjoy this movie each time I watch it. Back in the days before I had ADD I used to be a huge fan of Crichton, so naturaly I enjoy the movies based off of his books (except Timeline, god did that movie suck my swollen left nut). The only unfortunate thing about this flick is the mash-up of animal sounds for the roaring and growling sounds of the dinos, and the flat/forced acting. I do think Spielberg could have done better with both of those, but I will give props for the astoundingly smooth CGI, even for the old-school. All in all, this movie is more entertaining than high quality. It’s fun, but doesn’t really make you think. And sometimes we all need to be entertained and not made to think, right? So even though this 1993 movie disappoints in a few aspects, I give it a very stong 3 growling dolphins out of 5