What is summer without summer blockbusters? Movie-craving Americans are about to find out. Yes, some theaters are making cautious plans to reopen next month — we’ll see how that goes — but for the first time in forever. we’re facing a Fourth of July weekend without a big popcorn spectacle to provide thrills, laughs, groans, action and air-conditioning. In place of such delights, we decided for our next Weekend Watch to revisit a commercial juggernaut from the past with the hungry dinosaurs and terrified humans of “Jurassic Park.”
Adapted from Michael Crichton’s best seller, Steven Spielberg’s megahit incubated a franchise that is far from extinct. Since its 1993 release, it has spawned the usual mixed bag of sequels and reboots, including the wildly popular “Jurassic World” in 2015. A further installment, “Jurassic World: Dominion,” is expected next year. There have been theme park rides, video games and T. rex toys. Driving all this profit and merch is the basic insight that inspired Spielberg, Crichton and the writer David Koepp: People love dinosaurs.
That’s kind of funny, since on the evidence of “Jurassic Park,” they certainly don’t love us, except in the way that some moviegoers love Twizzlers. But the big lizards — or proto-birds, as Sam Neill’s paleontologist would insist — aren’t the bad guys. They’re female, for one thing, and are also simply acting according to the dictates of nature. They didn’t ask to be cloned back into existence as theme-park attractions.
The malign forces at work here (spoiler alert!) are human greed and ambition, represented by the scheming lowlife IT whiz (Wayne Knight) and the idealistic showman (David Attenborough). And to some extent by Spielberg, too. “Jurassic Park” shakes a finger at voracious commercialism while another hand works the cash register. Depending on your view, that blatant contradiction is cynical or just part of the fun. The human cast definitely is. Samuel L. Jackson plays the chain-smoking theme-park tech guy. Jeff Goldblum, more reptilian than most of the dinos, is a smooth-talking “chaotician.” And then there is Laura Dern as a paleobotanist who adroitly smashes the girl-scientist stereotype (well, almost).
How does it all look now? Are the dinosaurs as fearsome on the home screen? Do the vintage special effects or the pretend science hold up? Please take a look and tell us what you think. “Jurassic Park” is available to stream, rent or buy. Here’s a guide. Comments will be open until 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday — so come on by, the park is always open.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
