Classic Movie Review: 30 Years of 'Jurassic Park'

Jurassic Park (1993)

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Written by Michael Crichton, David Koepp

Starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough

Release Date June 11th, 1993

Published June 12th, 1993

To say that Jurassic Park was ahead of its time in film technique would be an understatement. Somehow, Steven Spielberg made a massive CGI world come to life that still looks good today, especially when compared to the much more expensive movies that came after it. Spielberg's dinosaurs of 1993 are, for me, more appealing than anything created since by his peers such as George Lucas or James Cameron. Spielberg's magical realism, the grounded story he tells about humans and dinosaurs, is filled with wonders that Lucas and Cameron forego in favor of spectacle.

Spielberg still believed in actors and performances while Lucas and Cameron appeared to feel that actors got in the way of their vision. Spielberg never lost sight of what truly compels an audience, characters they can relate to, fear for, and root for. In selecting his cast for Jurassic Park he didn't choose giant movie stars, he chose people who were well known for their skillful acting. Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum, the core of the Jurassic Park cast, were actors first and movie stars a distant second.

Spielberg needed their skillful performances to truly give life to the monsters he was using CGI to bring to life. It would be mildly impressive to see the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park on their own but the dinosaurs take on a greater sense of awe and wonder when actors are able to convince you that the dinosaur is in front of them. The wonder and excitement of these performers is truly what gives life to the CGI creations of Spielberg's brilliant behind the scenes team.

Jurassic Park kicks off on a horror movie cliché. A black actor is tasked with letting the monstrous T-Rex out of its cage and, in unfortunate horror movie fashion, the black guy dies first. I'm not calling the scene racist, it's not really my place to make that judgment. I'm merely pointing out one well worn trope that was strangely present throughout the history of horror and monster movies. And, make no mistake about it, while I am not sure I would call Jurassic Park a horror movie, it's most certainly a monster movie.

Dinosaurs in Spielberg's universe, especially the vicious raptors and the horrifying T-Rex, are introduced in classic monster movie fashion. Much the way that Godzilla and his cadre of fellow movie monsters are introduced in their films, Spielberg establishes his monsters as dangerous killers, slows down to show us how beautiful his monsters can be, and then unleashes the monsters upon his heroic human characters. The nature of the suspense of Jurassic Park is no different than the nature of the suspense of 1950s drive-in monster movies that you can easily imagine Spielberg himself having enjoyed.

Spielberg is undoubtedly making a drive in monster movie, he's just doing it with modern tools unavailable to the forgotten generation of monster movie makers who delighted drive-in audiences of the 50s with the unforgettable sight of giant spiders, aliens, and gorillas. Godzilla is owed a debt as is King Kong who was the T-Rex of 1933, impressing audiences then just as Spielberg's fearsome dinosaur impressed us in 1933. Jurassic Park is a great improvement over the monster movies of the past but Spielberg is also fearlessly paying homage to movies that he grew up with and that helped generations fall in love with the spectacle of going to the movies.

That's part of what I love so much about Jurassic Park. It's a marriage of new and old sensibilities. It's classic huckster filmmaking from the tradition of placing buzzers under theater seats to get that extra scare out of the audience and a skillfully crafted piece of modern filmmaking. Spielberg is undoubtedly a master of crafting scares and suspense while stopping down to grasp the awe and wonder that both serve his story while being genuinely deserving of our awe and wonder.

Jurassic Park was new and exciting in 1993 but what many miss or even dismiss about Jurassic Park is how old school it truly is. Aside from a greater level of skill, the actors of Jurassic Park are not far removed from the cast running from Godzilla or the actors who did their best to pretend that they were cowering in fear from giant bugs in 1954's classic monster movie, Them. It's the same principal as the actors in Jurassic Park having to convince you that raptors are hunting them or that they are staring up at a monstrous T-Rex.

There is nothing wrong with that. It doesn't lessen Jurassic Park that it carries on monster movie traditions. That doesn't take away from the skillful efforts of Spielberg and his cast. They're all brilliant at what they do. But let's not get pretentious about Jurassic Park. This is a classic monster movie that just happens to be crafted by a modern master filmmaker and a cast of Academy Award level actors applying their gifts to the monster movie genre. A movie can be both great and be an homage to the past. It can be both an Academy Award level accomplishment and a drive-in movie. It's only our limited imagination and innate pretensions that separate these things that need not be separated.

Jurassic Park is the latest subject for my new podcast, a spinoff of the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast, Everyone's a Critic 1993. Each week myself and my co-hosts, teenager M.J and Gen-X-er Amy, watch and discuss the movies of 1993 in chronological release order, one movie per week. It's fascinating to see how movies and culture have shifted in just the last 30 years and we're really having a lot of fun with this concept. You can hear the Everyone's a Critic 1993 podcast on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast feed, wherever you listen to podcasts.

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