Jurassic Park (1993)

The water in a glass trembles faintly. It is a signal that something enormous is approaching. Jurassic Park is full of moments like this that make you imagine the threat off-screen. More than thirty years have passed since its release, yet the dinosaurs this film created still look as if they are alive and breathing. That alone makes the place this work holds in film history unmistakable.

What it’s about — Resurrected dinosaurs and collapsing control

The tycoon Hammond (Richard Attenborough) brings extinct dinosaurs back through genetic engineering and builds a theme park on a remote island. Ahead of its opening, he invites the paleontologist Grant (Sam Neill), the botanist Sattler (Laura Dern), and the mathematician Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to have its safety verified. A tour that begins full of wonder turns in an instant into a struggle for survival as the control system collapses. The film densely weaves into a single adventure tale what price the arrogance of believing humans can fully master nature exacts.

Direction — Building tension with a trembling glass of water

Spielberg’s direction shows the virtue of restraint. He does not show the dinosaurs lavishly from the start. He builds tension steadily through a trembling glass of water, a tremor underfoot, a cry heard from afar, and only then reveals the real thing. Thanks to this, the wonder of the moment the Brachiosaurus first appears on screen and the terror of the moment the Tyrannosaurus attacks the car in the rain are clearly distinguished. The choice to mix computer graphics and physical models appropriately is also excellent. Rather than forcing everything into digital, the close shots are handled with intricate animatronics to preserve a sense of weight. As a result, even watched thirty years later, the dinosaurs’ presence barely wavers. John Williams’s majestic score, too, moving between wonder and terror, props up the screen.

Performance — The texture of a scholar turning into a protector

Sam Neill naturally draws the process of a scholar who keeps children at a distance turning into a protector amid crisis. His change is not loud, but it becomes the central support of the film’s emotional line. Laura Dern, as a figure who never loses her composure even in the face of danger, persuasively presents an active female image uncommon in the adventure films of the time. Jeff Goldblum’s Malcolm is another of this work’s pleasures. He is a figure who tosses out cynical jokes throughout while precisely pinpointing the catastrophe that human desire for control invites. The lines he delivers go beyond simple wit to compress and convey the film’s theme. The Hammond played by Richard Attenborough, too, is no simple villain. He is an old man with a dream as pure as a child’s, and at the same time a figure who cannot in the end admit the danger of that dream. Rather than condemning him, the film shows through him how good intentions lead to catastrophe. The young actors playing the two children also show realistic reactions even amid terror, conveying the weight of the crisis to the audience.

What the film says — A warning that control is an illusion

The core of Jurassic Park lies beyond the dazzling spectacle. The film asks what happens the moment humans believe they can create and confine life at will. As Malcolm warns, the fact that you can do something is not the same as the judgment that you should. The ending in which the dinosaurs believed to be controllable ultimately find their own way and survive shows how flimsy human plans are before the power of nature. They were confident they had prevented breeding by making every specimen female, yet life in the end finds the gap. This insight, that control is an illusion and nature always escapes human prediction, is firmly embedded at the very heart of a dazzling adventure. The question lands all the more heavily now that genetic engineering has advanced further.

Ratings and reception

This work’s appraisal remains high to this day. Its IMDb rating reaches 8.2, and its Rotten Tomatoes freshness is an overwhelming 91 percent. Its Metacritic score, too, is a sound 68. At release critics highly valued both the technical achievement and the balance of the story, and it swept the Visual Effects and sound-related categories at the Academy Awards. The appraisal that it redefined how a blockbuster ought to be made still holds.

Verdict

Jurassic Park is a rare case that captured both entertainment and thematic awareness. Some scenes drift into simple chase, and there are passages where the characters’ backstories feel somewhat thin. But the wonder of first facing a dinosaur, and the thrill of the moment that wonder turns to terror, do not fade with time. There is no reason to hesitate in giving four stars to that solid craft.

Recommended for

• Those seeking a classic blockbuster that still works after all these years
• Those who enjoy the artistry of direction that builds tension
• Those who love sci-fi that pairs entertainment with a message