Movie Review: Jurassic Park 3D
What We Liked
What We Didn't Like
Once in a while, a movie comes along that makes such a big impact, both in the industry and among the general public, that it forever alters the cinematic landscape. One such film is 1993’s Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the bestselling novel by the late Michael Crichton. The sci-fi adventure blockbuster captured the imaginations of audiences worldwide, helped to usher filmmaking into the twenty-first century, and is still widely regarded as a classic to this day. Like so many other people, I love Jurassic Park, but because I was only five years old when it originally came out, I never had to the chance to see it the way it was meant to be seen. But now, to celebrate the film’s twentieth anniversary, Jurassic Park is getting a limited re-release to theaters with a brand-new 3D conversion. Whether this is your first time or fiftieth time seeing the movie, Jurassic Park 3D is an opportunity that’s not to be missed.
On an island west of Costa Rica, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), billionaire CEO of the biotech company InGen, and a team of genetic scientists have created Jurassic Park, a biological preserve populated by dinosaurs brought back to life through cloning. After a worker is killed by one of the animals, Hammond’s investors, represented by attorney Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero), demand that outside experts visit the park and certify it as safe. Hammond and Gennaro bring paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), paleobotanist Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to the island, along with Hammond’s grandchildren Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim (Joseph Mazzello). The six visitors set out on a preview tour of the park, which Hammond and his staff monitor from their control center. Unbeknownst to them, Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight), the architect of the park’s computer systems, has been paid off by one of InGen’s corporate rivals to steal dinosaur embryos. When Nedry deactivates the security to carry out his theft, he also shuts down the systems running the park, leaving the visitors stranded and allowing the dinosaurs to escape. It is now a fight for survival as the humans try to avoid the dinosaurs and find a way to escape from Jurassic Park.
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A big part of why Jurassic Park works so well is the presence of Steven Spielberg in the director’s chair. With Jaws (1975), he helped create the concept of the summer blockbuster in Hollywood, and he went on to direct and/or produce some of the most beloved films of the 1970s and 1980s. So many of the iconic images from Jurassic Park – the vibrating glass of water as the T-Rex approaches, the close-up of the jeep mirror with “Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear,” and the T-Rex letting out a triumphant roar while standing in the visitors’ center lobby – originated in his mind, and are now indelible parts of popular culture. In my eyes, this film represents the end of an era for Spielberg’s career, being the last time he directed a crowd-pleasing blockbuster. Later that same year, the director came out with Schindler’s List, which marked a turning point for his career, after which Spielberg would mostly direct darker, more dramatic films. The times since then when he’s tried to return to this type of film – The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), War of the Worlds (2005), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) – just haven’t been able to measure up to his glory days.
Helping Spielberg are a talented cast of actors. Sam Neill, who had previously been largely known for playing evil or sinister characters, has never been cooler as the heroic paleontologist Alan Grant. Jeff Goldblum provides great comic relief as the fast-talking, cynical mathematician and chaos theorist Ian Malcolm. Richard Attenborough, in what was his first acting role in fifteen years, brings grandfatherly warmth to the tragic visionary John Hammond. The late Bob Peck has some great scenes as game warden Robert Muldoon. While I know that some people hate Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards as Hammond’s grandkids Tim and Lex, but I like the characters – especially Tim, because he reminds me so much of what I was like at that age. And considering that he’s now seen as the epitome of badassery, it’s interesting to see Samuel L. Jackson playing the fairly low-key role of Ray Arnold, the chain-smoking chief computer engineer. Unfortunately, some members of the cast don’t fare so well, Laura Dern does what she can as paleobotanist Ellie Sattler, but she not given much to work with. And both Martin Ferrero as Donald Gennaro and Wayne Knight as Dennis Nedry are pretty one-note characters.
Watching Jurassic Park again, it’s remarkable how well the film’s special effects have held up, even after twenty years. The combination of full-size animatronic dinosaurs created by the late Stan Winston and his team with the pioneering computer-generated effects of Dennis Muren and Industrial Light & Magic wowed audiences back in 1993, and it’s still very impressive today. The T-Rex attack on the tour vehicles and the Raptors stalking the kids in the visitors’ center kitchen are still two of the most suspenseful scenes that Spielberg has directed since Jaws. I am not joking when I say that, to my eyes, the visual effects work in Jurassic Park is better than that in many later blockbuster films, regardless of advances in computer technology and, in many cases, much larger budgets. I think that this is clear proof that you can have all the money and technology in the world to throw at a project, but if the craftspeople involved aren’t dedicated to making their work the absolute best it can be, it will negatively affect the final product.
Sam Neill in “Jurassic Park 3D.” © 1993 – Universal Pictures.
Of course, many people before me have written reviews of Jurassic Park that analyze its merits as a film. The question that needs to be answered for this re-release is the quality of the 3D conversion. While it isn’t perfect, it is very good, and it’s clear that a lot of care and attention went into making a 3D version of the film that would not detract from the experience. The 3D really helps enhance the sense of scale of some of the dinosaur scenes, especially the scenes with the T-Rex and the Brachiosaurus. It was almost overwhelming to see the movie on a giant IMAX screen with audio loud enough to shake the theater and the 3D on top of everything else. My only real complaint about the 3D conversion is the occasional appearance of “ghost images” around the edges of people or objects – usually in shots where there’s a strong contrast between dark and light. However, this only shows up occasionally, and it in no way overwhelms how well most of the added 3D works.
Re-releasing older movies in theaters used to be a big thing for Hollywood, but the rise of home video has largely ended that. Because of that, it’s important to seize on the rare chances we do get to see a classic on the big screen. The “Adventure 65 Million Years in the Making” is back, and I couldn’t be happier. But remember that this re-release is only for a week, so make sure you get out to see Jurassic Park 3D while you have the chance.
Timothy Monforton
