In short: Jurassic Park (1993)

It is somewhat ironic that a film containing quite a bit of Michael Crichton’s typical technophobe babble is really as lovely as it is in large part to its director, one Steven Spielberg (whoever that is), grabbing the newest digital special effects wizardry of his time and using it to create awe and wonder. To me, this is the last gasp of the man as director of brilliantly paced and structured thrill-rides full of joy and wonder (soon to be replaced by one who mostly makes worthy but deeply uninteresting films only ever asking the easy questions, and disappointing returns to old stomping grounds), and you already have quite the fun film.

There are more virtues to praise still, like Spielberg’s intuitive understanding of how much CGI he can actually show and in what way, being as maximalist as possible with the dinosaurs (that is, after all, what we came to see), but restraining himself when it comes to the things the technology of this time can’t achieve. Consequently, the dinosaurs still look fabulous and believable for most of the film, where other films from the same era of digital technology whose directors were not looking at the effects with the same critical eye (nor the knowledge that it is okay to not show those things you can’t show convincingly) can feel rather dated today.

The script, on the other hand, has its problems. It’s not just that Crichton has less understanding of chaos theory than I do and still feels competent to write a scientist in the field, or that “life will find a way” here seems to mean “life will find a way to break the basic laws of nature”. I’m also perpetually irritated by how nonsensically bad the security efforts at the dino park actually are, full of things that make no sense whatsoever, so that what the film argues is human hubris leading to catastrophe never feels like anything but absurd incompetence resulting in a script. On the plus side, Jeff Goldblum.


It’s really a bit of a wonder the film actually is as effective as it is, but Spielberg’s as good at the suspense as he is at the awe and wonder, so it’s not difficult to acknowledge much of the film’s set-up as dumb but still be thrilled by it.