So Nice, We Went There Thrice! "The Jurassic Park Trilogy"

Jurassic Park (1993)

Rated PG-13

Starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Joseph Mazello, Ariana Richards, Samuel L. Jackson, BD Wong, Wayne Knight

Directed by Steven Spielberg

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Rated PG-13

Starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postelthwaite, Arliss Howard, Vanessa Lee Chester, Vince Vaughn, Richard Schiff, Richard Attenborough, Joseph Mazello, Ariana Richards

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Rated PG-13

Starring Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan, Michael Jeter, Laura Dern

Directed by Joe Johnston

The Story:

Part 1:

Billionaire John Hammond (Attenborough) has created a theme park, Jurassic Park, where he's recreated dinosaurs using questionable scientific methods. He needs some validation by scientific experts that the park is safe and sound and ready for tourists. So he enlists paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Neill), paleobotanist, Dr. Ellie Sattler (Dern) and mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) come to the park. However, when corporate sabotage and a hurricane collide at the same time, things don't go so well, and it's a fight to avoid extinction!

Part 2:

Dr. Malcolm (Goldblum) returns to travel to Isla Sorna, the 2nd island that Hammond (Attenborough) had created his dinosaurs at. He had no intentions of going, except that Hammond enlisted his girlfriend (Moore) and she was already at the island. The team goes to the island and winds up capturing a Tyrannosaurus Rex and taking it back to San Diego to headline the abandoned Jurassic Park that had begun development there. Bad idea.

Part 3:

The return to Isla Sorna, and this time Dr. Grant (Neill) returns by being tricked into coming so that his dig would continue to receive funding. This time it's the Kirby's (Macy & Leoni) whose son (Morgan) had vanished weeks earlier. In the chance he's managed to survive the wilds of Jurassic Park for this long, they want to bring him home alive. However, there are some new dinosaurs waiting to join the party, in addition to the threats we've already seen in the previous two installments.

So, I don't think that anyone hasn't seen at least the first part of this trilogy, and if you stop there, that's fine.

It is head and shoulders above the others in terms of story, characterization and just sheer awesomeness of seeing those dinosaurs for the first time.

I actually saw this in theaters when it came out, and the scene where Alan and Ellie see the dinosaurs for the first time... well, it gave me goosebumps then.

20 years later, I still get goosebumps with that scene.

The elements of the actors, the great special effects on the dinosaurs themselves, and John Williams score create the perfect moment where you soak in the fact that you're seeing dinosaurs, and it's very cool.

There are similar scenes in each of the sequels, but it never quite matches the very first time you see Jurassic Park.

The cast is great, especially the cynical Dr. Malcolm, effortlessly deadpanning his way as the snarky voice of reason.

He's fun in the second installment as well, but when he has to be snarky and the hero at the same time, it just doesn't have the same oomph as the character was able to enjoy in the first film.

Which leaves the third film, which isn't nearly as bad as everyone probably remembers it to be. While not as good as the first, most film trilogies or series all suffer through that. The blame also shouldn't be foisted upon poor Joe Johnston, who gets saddled following Spielberg yet still directs a perfectly fine thriller.

All three have been added to Netflix as of last month, so feel free to revisit, or if you've never seen one (or all) of them, get ready for a pretty wild ride.

Final Grades:

Jurassic Park: A
The Lost World: B
Jurassic Park III: B-

You Must Be At Least This Tall To Be Eaten By This Ride... "Jurassic World"

Jurassic World (2015)

Rated PG-13

Starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Jake Johnson, BD Wong,

Directed by Colin Trevorrow

The Story:

Built on the ashes of Jurassic Park, Jurassic World offers new thrills and chills for the dinosaur loving public. The only problem, people get bored with the same old same old dinosaurs. So the park has to get crafty and recreate new attractions. And if it can't breed them, they'll build them from scratch! Of course, when man creates dinosaurs, bad things are bound to happen.

Welcome to Jurassic World!

If you had said that the most successful movie of 2015 would be a near note for note remake/love letter to the movie that inspired it decades earlier...

Well no, you'd still be right.

Because before Star Wars: The Force Awakens shattered the box office records for weekend openings with a movie that seems awfully familiar...

Jurassic World did the same thing months earlier with a movie that feels a whole lot like deja vu.

But you know what?

They both did it to kind of wipe the taste of less than stellar sequels (or prequels) out of a movie-going public's collective mouth as a token of forgiveness and acceptance, all in one.

Audiences responded appropriately and made these popcorn flicks the must see films of the year.

These aren't movies: they are events.

That goosebumpy hair-raising that we got over 20 years ago when Spielberg first let his dinosaurs roam the planet, well that feeling was back in Colin Trevorrow's update.

The majority of the original cast is gone, save for the nefarious BD Wong, but it's filled with great new characters to give the next trilogy (I assume) some legs. Whether the franchise will continue to put 2 siblings in peril for the duration of the film remains to be seen, but so far the formula isn't broken, so why start fixing it now?

Naturally, you need a star who won't get overshadowed playing second fiddle to a bunch of dinosaurs, and Jurassic World Plus cemented Chris Pratt's name as box office leading man.

 However those of us who saw Guardians of the Galaxy, we already knew that.

If you liked Jurassic Park back in the day, you're going to love this one.

If you didn't like either...well, there's something messed up with your DNA.

:)

Final Grade: B+

The World Gets A Bit Dangerous "Walking With Dinosaurs"

Walking With Dinosaurs (2013)

Rated PG for scary dinosaurs

Starring Charlie Rowe, Karl Urban, Angourie Rice, John Leguizamo, Justin Long, Skyler Stone, Tiya Sircar

Directed by Barry Cook & Neil Nightingale

The Story:

In Alaska, an archaeologist (Urban) is driving his niece (Rice) and nephew (Rowe) to a site where he had found a dinosaur tooth.  Unimpressed, the nephew decides to sit at the truck and pout, when a bird named Alex (Leguizamo) comes along to tell the kid about the story about how that tooth came to be found where it was.  Cue the flashbacks and the story of a little dinosaur (Long) who grows up to be the leader of his herd though unlikely odds.

So apparently the brains behind this thought, let's take the BBC series Walking With Dinosaurs , and cross it with The Land Before Time...

Yes, these dinosaurs talk, though they don't do mouth movements, so it's not nearly as cutesy or annoying as you might think.

I don't know what to think...

The movie itself is nice to look at.  Using actual scenery with CGI, the landscapes and backgrounds are lush and beautiful.

However, I'm not sure how impressed I was overall with the dinosaurs.

Maybe it was the inclusion of humans in Jurassic Park, but I almost think those dinosaurs looked more realistic.

Anyway, the story itself isn't that terrible, and it's a film that the whole family can sit and enjoy/tolerate for 90 minutes, then it's done.

Final Grade: C

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: No, I think I'm okay.