"Clever Girl..."

JURASSIC PARK (1993)

When writing a review of Jurassic Park, it's tempting just to write the word DINOSAURS over and over again with a plethora of exclamation marks and call it a night. But Jurassic Park is so much more than just a dinosaur movie. As if it needed to be more! Really. We all would have been plenty happy with watching dinosaurs run around and eat people for a couple hours. You know you've watched those re-imagined dinosaur specials on The Discovery Channel. But here we have flesh-and-blood human characters, a strong script, solid acting, and a soundtrack that will go down in history. Between the swell of the human, the awe on the character's faces, and the vast landscape as they settle their helicopter down onto the island, there's a moment when everyone watching turns into an ecstatic child. Steven Speilberg, you've done it again. 

I could go on about the actors. About how Sam Neill delivers, and Laura Dern is a badass, and Jeff Goldblum is hilarious and classic. About how Richard Attenborough gives us an amazing John Hammond, and Samuel L. Jackson makes a wonderful computer nerd, and even the children are likable. Or I could talk about how epic the music is, how timeless, how John Williams owns it. Hell, I could even mention how awesome the dinosaurs are, how even the special effects stood the test of time. But the real magic of this movie is the beating, bleeding heart of it. All of the characters have very real, very emotion motivations and aspirations. But it's the awe and wonder they feel in the presence of such awesome creatures like the dinosaurs that really brings us back to what's important--nature is a beast. Life will find a way. And dinosaurs are awesome.