October Horror Challenge 2023 #59: "Jurassic Park"

I saw this movie right after it came out on VHS (remember VHS?) but i haven'tseen it since then, so i thought it was time to revisit it and maybe look at it with new eyes. In this movie, the monsters that wind up killing people are dinosaurs, ancient killers that have been extinct for millions of years until some genius scientist comes along and finds a way to extract dinosaur blood from a mosquito fossilized in amber, and uses that blood to create new dinosaurs. When this book came out it was a sensational hit, and there was no doubt that a movie adaptation would soon follow. So how does this movie hold up now, so many years after its release in 1993?

Like most "science goes horribly wrong" movies, this movie starts with a scientist with an idea. Hey, let's get some dinosaur blood and use it to breed new dinosaurs! We'll put them in a theme park and call it "Jurassic Park," and nothing could possibly ever go wrong with this plan! Sam Neill plays a dinosaur expert, called upon to see the park before it opens and marvel at the spectacle. Laura Dern plays a scientist with two children who brings them along (what's the worst that could possibly happen?) because the mad scientist, played here by Richard Attenbourough, happens to be their grandfather. Jeff Goldblum plays a sleazy scientist named Ian Malcolm. A bunch of dinosaur effects play the dinosaurs. Soon the joy of the accomplishment is shadowed by the fact that the dinosaurs refuse to play nice, and the foolproof technology fails, and the dinosaurs break loose, and all hell breaks loose with them. How will our human friends survive the vengeance of the dinosaurs?

The special effects in this movie were state-of-the-art back in 1993. It's hilarious looking at the technology in this movie and seeing how far we've come since then. And check out how people are just smoking at their jobs like it's perfectly normal to smoke in a lab (I'm looking at you, Samuel L. Jackson). After the "Me Too" movement and all it brought to light about sexual harassment in the workplace, Jeff Goldblum's Ian Malcom seems sleazy and creepy, rather than sexy and harmless like i used to think about his character. This movie was definitely a product of its time for sure.. It's not bad, though, just a bit dated.