I think that most of us can agree that there has been a diminishing return on the Jurassic Park film franchise over the years. However, the first film is so amazing that hope springs eternal that we will have the same thrills with one more outing.
Since we have seven movies in the franchise now, I thought it would be a good idea to rank them.
7. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
From my review:
There are several places that this movie goes wrong:
First, it makes the same mistake that Spielberg made when he directed The Lost World. It is important to understand that the dinosaurs represent nature itself in all of its horror and glory. The first Jurassic Park and Jurassic World had very real scares and thrills. But they also filled you with a sense of wonder at these creatures. You not only felt fear, but you felt grandeur and majesty. Both The Lost World and Fallen Kingdom remove the awe and leave only the action and the fear. These sequels devolve into monster movies. You can see this most clearly when the main evil dinosaur literally climbs through the bedroom window of a little girl (Isabella Sermon) and stalks over to her bed to eat her. There's nothing wrong with monster movies per se, but when dealing with the Jurassic franchise, you disengage one of your strongest emotional tethers.
Second, the story is really stupid.
Please forgive this digression, but it will help illustrate my point. The dumbest part of the first Jurassic World was Vincent D'Onofrio's character wanting to weaponize the dinosaurs. This is pure idiocy and I think most of the audience understood that. The makers of this movie built the entire storyline around this idea. At one point in the movie, an evil auctioneer (Toby Jones) introduces their assassin-sauraus and demonstrates how to us it: A man with a rifle and laser scope will point the red dot laser at the target. He will then hit a button that makes a siren noise. This will cause the assassin-sauraus to eat the the target.
[Hand raised in the back] I have a few questions:
1. Why use the dinosaur when the laser is attached to perfectly good rifle that can be shot at a distance?
2. If you can afford the gun, why are you spending millions on a dinosaur assassin?
3. Why would make it so that both the gunman and the dinosaur had be both within line of sight to the target and earshot?
4. How much would it cost to transport that large dinosaur from location to location to kill people?
5. How do you sneak the dinosaur close enough to the target without them noticing that a large, snarling predator is getting closer?
6. If the target has even a small security detail, wouldn't their bullets (like the ones in the gun with the laser pointer) kill the dinosaur?
7. Once the dinosaur has eaten the target, how do you escape unnoticed? Do we have dino-disguise with an oversized trench coat and fedora waiting?
8. If this works with dinosaurs, why hasn't anyone tried it with lions and tigers and bears? (Oh my!)
As you can see, the filmmakers decided to abandon reason and instead embrace mindless thrills.
Third, there is absolutely no character development. In the first movie, Claire goes through a journey where she comes to connect to the dinosaurs emotionally and grows closer to her nephews. In this movie she does have a connection to the little girl Maisie, but it is too fast and forced. The script doesn't give any of the characters room to grow. And all of the new characters are flat. The sadistic military man (Ted Levine, who played Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs), is given every nasty trait imaginable for no reason other than the plot depends on it. He has this horrible desire to pull teeth out of living dinosaurs simply because it makes him look more evil. Zia is just a tough girl and Franklin is a wimp. The only character that has any layers is Benjamin Lockwood, but the story doesn't explore the emotional depths and secrets he holds.
Fourth, the movie has an insane moral view.
Animals are not persons. One human life is worth more than an entire island of dinosaurs. The thing I hated the most about The Lost World was the Vince Vaughn character. Because that character tried to save the dinosaurs, he is responsible for every death on that island. The only way you could see him in any way other than a villain would be to say there is some sort of moral equivalence between humans and dinosaurs. Fallen Kingdom seems to fall into this trap. When dinosaurs die, we are supposed to feel sad. When most of the humans dies, we are supposed to cheer. I don't care if the humans who are killed had questionable morals. Even Denis Nedry's death wasn't played for laughs.
One of the only things preventing this movie from spiraling into a complete disaster is Pratt. He retains all of his well-earned charisma. He brings life and enjoyment to every scene that he is in. He isn't in the movie enough, which is saying something since he is in most of the movie. Like Jurassic World, the sequel tells the story primarily from Claire's perspective when Owen is so much more interesting. He is the voice of reason and logic.
The second thing is that director JA Bayona actually managed to put in some real thrills in the movie. As I said, it devolves into a monster movie, but that doesn't mean that is a bad monster movie. There is a sequence with a tranquilized T-Rex that is incredibly fun to watch.
Bayona also has one scene with a dinosaur on a shipping dock that pulls at your heartstrings in a way that I wasn't prepared for. It is a moment of visual excellence that makes you wish the entire movie was made with the same care.
If you want a movie of the quality of Jurassic Park or Jurassic World, then skip Fallen Kingdom. But if you want to shut your brain off for two hours and enjoy the dumb roller-coaster, then this is worth your money.
6. Jurassic Park III
This is just a terrible movie. It is a soulless exploitation of a franchise that killed it for decades. It has none of the grandeur, wonder, or thrills of the previous films. The filming is flat and uninspired. The story structure is weak and it builds to an anti-climactic ending.
The only reason this movie is still remembered is one line of dialogue:
"Alan!"
5. Jurassic World: Dominion
From my review:
I've said this before, but I am very easy to please as a moviegoer. I am willing to forgive a lot as long as the movie can make me feel something, whether it is wonder, awe, fear, excitement, romance, or humor. But if you fail to make me feel anything, then your movie is a failure.
And that is the case with Jurassic World: Dominion.
...
So the good news is that you get two Jurassic movies for the price of one.
The bad news is that both movies are terrible.
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All movies have logic problems, but we forgive them because we invest in the story. But if we don't invest, we don't forgive. It's hard to explain how asinine the story elements are so
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
-lumberjacks immediately listen to a 12-year-old they don't know about how to handle dinosaurs.
-Blue is reproducing asexually in the wild. This means that she must immediately be captured or killed because the deadly raptors cannot remain unchecked. No one brings this up.
-Only our heroes find it suspicious that the Megalocausts don't eat the crops made by the bad guys.
-Maisie is the clone of Charlotte Lockwood. We find out that Charlotte made Maisie and gave birth to her, thus making her the mother of her own clone. I turned to my wife during the movie and said "Is it me or is this absolutely grotesque." But no, it is meant to be a heart-warming moment.
-why would guest lecturer like Ian be given access to a top-secret lab?
-Maisie is told that her and Beta's DNA can be used to save the world from the Megalocusts. Her response is to run away and set Beta loose. At the end of the movie, with no new revelations or motivation, she agrees to help.
-Claire gets hunted by an herbivore
-the sealed off lab with the Megalocusts has it attached to a large vent that they can swarm out of and into the park.
-some dinosaurs have vision based on movement until they don't.
-Awful Tech-, sorry, BioSyn hits a button that recalls all of the dinosaurs into the main campus out of the park. And yet, it doesn't effect the dinosaurs that have to remain to kill someone the plot wants dead.
-Why do the T. Rex and the FreddyKrugersaurus team up Tag Team Style? They use the same trope in the original Jurassic World, but this fight was so unearned that it defies logic.
4. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
I give credit to Spielberg that the wanted to do something different than his first film. He compared this movie to Hatari, which is about hunting and the struggle against nature. There is something to that.
From my review:
Jurassic Park is a incredibly tough act to follow. If the second one was not as good as the first, I would completely understand. But it wasn't just a matter of having a slightly worse sequel. The Lost World is dark in a way that the original was not. Sure, people got torn apart and eaten, with some incredibly scary moments in the first. But Lost World lacked a lot of the humanity that we had in Jurassic Park.
One of the things that the first movie did very well was that it reduced the cast at the crucial time. Instead of the island populated with a lot of nameless extras, the mayhem occurs around people you know and mostly care about. We even feel fear for the villainous Dennis Nedry.
But Lost World fills the story will people we never get a chance to care about. These people are dinosaur fodder waiting to be killed in interesting ways.
The movie lacks a sense of moral balance. The Vince Vaughn character is an eco-terrorist who gets nearly everyone on the island killed. And yet he is never given his comeuppance or even forced to understand the horror of his actions.
True, there are some genuine thrills, but there is no heart.
3. Jurassic World: Rebirth
From my review:
When it comes to the Jurassic Park franchise, hope springs eternal. I think it is safe to say that most of the movies in this series are not very good. And yet people keep coming back again and again hoping for the thrills and the awe of the first.
And while Jurassic World: Rebirth is not the worst in the series, it isn't great either.
I will say this, I got my money's worth because of the thrills the movie provided. When Ruben's sailboat gets attacked and someone is plunged underwater with the giant Mosasaur, that hits me on a primal level of fear. Watching that same person swim for their life as the dinosaur gives chase also gripped me. This and the sequence where a T-Rex comes after people doing down river in a life raft was something right out of the original book. In 3D, there is a cliff rappelling scene that also put a pit in my stomach. 3D is great for giving a sense of height and I am terrified of heights.
For those reasons alone, I enjoyed myself while watching the movie.
But the movie has serious flaws, many of which may be too much for the average viewer.
2. Jurassic World
From my review:
You can find hundreds of fan films on YouTube. A "fan film" is when people who are devoted to the original story make their own movie set in that world. In these fan films we see a deep devotion to the source material even though it usually cannot capture the magic of the original.
And that is what I see in Jurassic World: the biggest budgeted fan film ever.
Director Colin Trevorrow's love for the original Jurassic Park is evident in nearly every frame of the film. As someone who saw the movie 5 times in the theater back in 1993, I was swept up in the love and nostalgia that I saw on the screen.
This movie was able to get the thrills along with the wonder and awe that had missing from this series for a long time. It isn't perfect, but it made me come back to the theater to see it again.
1. Jurassic Park
From my review:
This could have been a simple monster movie. And if you look at many of the sequels (including Spielberg's own The Lost World), you can see how quickly it can fall down that rabbit hole.
But Jurassic Park holds such a high place on this list because Spielberg didn't just terrify us. The scares were real, but they came from a place of pure awe.
The opening scene is a work of genius where so much is communicated without a word having to be said. The utter terror of the workers as they get ready to place the raptor in the cage is enough to scare you without any violence being shown. The dramatic lighting makes the experience of the dinosaurs less a scientific experiment gone wrong. Instead it feels more like a supernatural experience of contacted something from another world, as in Poltergeist.
I remember being in the theater on opening night, not knowing exactly what to expect. But it is around the 17-minute mark that the whole world opens up.
Spielberg gives you that incredible sequence of the helicopter arriving to the island. Just as those green mountains appear, John Williams' genius score swells. Much credit must be given to Williams here for creating such a majestic melody, but it is Spielberg who marries the visuals to the music. How many movies have scenes like this where the helicopter arrives and yet they are as forgettable as they are bland. Here, Spielberg in announcing himself and he is announcing Jurassic Park. This beginning sequence does not have any dinosaurs, and yet you are filled with a sense of ancient awe. He tries to capture the feeling you have of leaving the old world behind and entering Fairyland. It is the equivalent of Dorothy opening the door from her black and white world to the technicolor MunchkinLand.
But just four minutes later, Spielberg hits us with the first real look at the dinosaurs and they are awesome in the literal sense. The YouTube channel "Film&Stuff" points out Spielberg's genius in choosing the aspect ratio that he did for this film. Normally, aspect ratio would be a super-technical, superficial area to talk about for general audiences. But Spielberg knew he needed to choose an aspect ratio that was not ultra-wide, but instead one that had a greater height to width ratio. The reason for this was so that he could capture the dominating height of the dinosaurs and put the humans into diminutive scale next to them. It is a subtle choice, but one that is incredibly affective. The entire movie, Spielberg puts the humans in the position of ant beneath the boot-heel of the dinosaurs.
That isn't to say that it they are all fearsome. The moment with the sick triceratops is amazing. The best part about it is how Spielberg films the scene with such tactile intensity. You watch as the characters touch this once-extinct creature. The pure joy of watching Grant rise and fall on the breathing creature makes you feel as if you could almost reach out and touch it yourself.
A lot of credit has to go to screen-writers Michael Crichton (based on his book) and David Koepp. Unlike a lot of big budget movies today, Spielberg knows how to use the script to build up the tension. Notice we don't see any of the scary dinosaurs (not counting the baby raptor) until over an hour into the film.
Before this, we have lots of character building with fantastic dialogue and snappy jokes. Don't overlook how hard it is to film dialogue to make it visually interesting. He has a four-minute philosophical conversation about cloning that is as richly framed and lit as any scene in the film. And even after that, he still won't show you everything yet.
He teases you the way he did with the shark in Jaws. But those teases are promises. The movie builds story debt that it pays off. It explains how raptors hunt, it teases the spitting dilophosaurus, it leaves the helpless goat in front of the T-Rex paddock. In fact, I remember so clearly that awesome cut when Hammond asks "Where did the vehicles stop?" and it cuts immediately to the goat. Everyone in the theater groaned in fear. And even then, Spielberg let the fear build deliciously. The visual cue of the water vibrating is beautiful and affective. In order to get the effect, they had to tighten a single guitar string under the cup. They would pluck it because it was the only way to get that exact surface ripple that makes the perfect visual.
And once the T-Rex appears, the entire movie is pandemonium. That scene alone should have gotten him a second Oscar nomination that year. If you want to see someone who knows when to use a practical effect and CGI and how to blend them seamlessly, watch that scene. The shot where Lex turns on the flashlight and the T-Rex sees it is genius as Spielberg has a real dinosaur head in the shot and then moves the camera to seamlessly replace it with a CGI copy. The effect of this is that makes the computer animated monster more concrete.
The entire scene is contracted with such tense genius that you can hardly look away. In fact, it is so well-done that Spielberg doesn't need to use any of John Williams' score to heighten the emotion. In fact, the lack of score makes it more intense. The only "music" we hear are the screams and roars of the people involved.
And even in all of this, the sense of awe is never lost. This is what the other Jurassic Park films were never quite able to have. In Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, we are supposed to empathize with the trapped dinosaurs at the end of the movie and so understand the inexplicable choice of the little girl. But that movie reduced dinosaurs to animal monsters so the feeling never materializes. But here, even in the worst moments, there is a sense of respect for nature. In the scene where the T-Rex is hunting the gallimimus, the humans are utterly captivated by seeing this apex predator live out its nature.
The scariest sequence is by far the scene in the kitchen. Again, notice how the situation deteriorates so quickly. The two kids should be safe, they've made it back to the main building and are gorging themselves on deserts. But now, they are alone for the first time since Gennaro left them in car. Grant cannot help them. The monster comes to the window of the kitchen. I cannot tell you how many people jumped when it fogged up the glass. Then it figures out how to open the door. And then not one, but two raptors enter. This scene is also the best one that holds up the main theme: man vs. nature.
The dinosaurs ruled the world and now humans are the dominant species. As Grant says, what will happen when the two are put together. We've spent the entire film watching the dinosaurs tear apart humans. But the only things the humans have to defend themselves are their wits. The entire scene is about out-thinking the dinosaurs and will that be enough to save them.
Everything builds to a head until that final moment when T-Rex comes in to "save the day." The moment is the punctuation on the theme which says that nature always wins. But nature is not malevolent, it is merely indifferent. The T-Rex is not there to save the humans. It is only hunting. And by acting according to its nature, the T-Rex claims its dominance. I know some find that moment hokey when the banner saying "When Dinosaurs Ruled the World" falls before the T-Rex, but I always loved it as a perfect, if not unsubtle, point.
Jurassic Park is a perfect popcorn film. And I don't mean that as a detriment. Spielberg does not dumb down the material but he makes it accessible to everyone. It is filled with visceral thrills, deep questions, thrilling visuals, and real heart. After almost three decades it has not lost a single ounce of its power. When the heroes fly off into the sunset, you feel as though you have been through an epic journey and through it all you have been changed.
Dare I say... evolved.
Thoughts?
