Following the release of the spectacular (and under-rated) Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom in 1984, master director Steven Spielberg entered the wilderness years of his career. With movies like The Color Purple, Empire Of The Sun and Always he attempted to deliver stories with more depth and more worth but could never reconcile his more sentimental impulses. Then, when he returned to blockbuster film making, he couldn't judge the appropriate tone of the piece; Last Crusade lacks balls and Hook lacks somebodies foot on the break pedal of excess.
Then in 1993 he returned to form with Jurassic Park, an adaptation of Michael Crichton's classic novel about dinosaurs resurrected by the science of cloning.
It's not just the brilliant high concept that makes this exceptional adventure movie work, nor is it the splendid return of Sir Richard Attenborough to acting after 14 years. It's not even the ground-breaking special effects which, for better or for worse, finally allowed Hollywood to convincingly create any thing they could conceive of on the silver screen. No, it's the fact that Spielberg finally got the tone right by pitching it as a thriller; not a Bondian romp like Last Crusade, not a children's fantasy like Hook but a full on, severed limbs, jump scares, don't trip up or the pointy teethed monster will chew your face off thriller. Jaws on land, if you will.
It's not as perfect as critics might have you think. The casting is a mixed bag with Sam Neill (an actor I Admire) being far too low key for the lead in an effects blockbuster, Laura Dern ditto and Bob Peck...thoroughly entertaining though he is...seems to be auditioning for a Roger Corman flick with his eye bulging grimacing.
Dean Cundy's photography is a little too bright, colourful and Hollywood to be entirely appropriate for the horror-thriller that this is and Spielberg can't quite shake off the need to include some twee family bonding moments.
Apart from that it's all gravy. John William's score is exemplary, Crichton's subtext is thought provoking, Koepp's script is admirably lean, Jeff Goldblum steals the show in the acting department and Spielberg's direction goes to show why he's one of the best the world has ever seen ever. Iconic shots litter the film and the set-pieces dominate modern cinema like a stampeding brontosaurus. In particular, the T-Rex attack shows just why Spielberg is a master of constructing action sequences (only Cameron consistently gives him a run for his money) and the arrival scene in which Neill and Dern lay eyes on a dinosaur for the first time is profoundly powerful, moving and awe inspiring.
A brilliant return to form by Spielberg which, even 18 years later, he's still maintaining.
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