When my sister was getting her hair dyed at my older siblings' house, we decided to watch a movie. After refusing one option my sisters agreed on Jurassic Park. I did not watch all of it because I was reading a D&D book but I saw enough to write a review.
Plot in a nutshell:
The film is Steven Spielberg's (1946-present) adaption of a book by Michael Crichton (1942-2008) and is about a scientist who finds a way to clone back dinosaurs and wants to make a theme park and a wildlife preserve for them. It opens up with a forklift carrying a raptor into the park and a slight security breech occurs and a worker dies. In the next scene a paleontologist and some of his associates found themselves invited to see this park. They accept the offer and went to it. Meanwhile, the park's head programmer is hired by a company to steal the dinosaur embryos and deliver them to a rendezvous point. Later, our heroes end up on the island, learn about how the dinosaurs are cloned, and find themselves in a security breach and everything goes wrong. I will stop here.
What I liked:
I only watched the film to see the software used to animate the dinosaurs but I saw plenty of strong points in the film's plot. For example I like the way the cloning was explained and how the scientists filled in the genetic gaps with toad DNA and made the dinosaurs all female. This method proves problematic since toads can change genders under some conditions and female T-rexes are known to be aggressive, like males (according to Walking With Dinosaurs, which is mostly speculation). The changes in the DNA over the course of the film, when some dinosaurs changed genders like amphibians might, is to be expected in cloning.
I also like many of the lines; it was well-written and funny on occasion. The character's changes throughout the story were very good. At the end the scientist finally accepting the fact that Jurassic Park was too big of a safety and financial hazard to be open to the public. They also do not want to know what will happen if a third party got a hold of the DNA, embryos, and methods, like some characters tried to do.
Even though most of the dinosaurs were from the Cretaceous period, it would not be a dinosaur film without them. Sadly, there are no Triassic dinosaurs in the film.
The soundtrack is amazing and does set the mood very well,after all, it is John Williams' score.
What could have been improved upon:
I noticed just how willing everyone was to cut corners when building the park. There were few safe houses, good weapons, and people using common sense. At the beginning a worker was pulled into a raptor's cage when there should have been more safety catches and restraining equipment, like and extra wall, fence, or screen between person and dinosaur. One other problem is that the dinosaurs were not fitted with tracking devices or shock collars to keep them from escaping; perhaps it would ruin the authenticity of the place. There were no safe rooms to keep emergency radios and guns in case of a breech and the ones that are were designed to hid a dinosaur in. The employees were not always accounted for or watched well. They could have kept armed helicopters to round up dinosaurs instead of mere Jeeps and poor-quality security systems. Characterization was a small flaw, but not enough to ruin the film, and is understandable.
Conclusion:
Jurassic Park is a lesson in security and in maintenance. I liked it, but I can name more strengths and weaknesses. I will give the film some credit and I am giving Jurassic park a 7.8 out of 10 rating. I recommend the film to those who like survival films, dinosaur films, Steven Spielberg films, and/or John Williams' soundtrack.
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