Jurassic Park isn’t Spielberg’s worst movie, but it’s the worst Spielberg movie. Spielberg assembled it from approaches that worked in his previous movies but fail here.
Filmmakers and critics say Jaws works because you don’t see the shark until the end. That misses how Jaws is an entertaining, well-crafted thriller aside from the shark. Interesting people do interesting things. It’s not a bunch of Michael Crichton fake scientists sitting around arguing about dinosaurs like in Jurassic Park.
Jurassic Park thinks it’s fooling people. It doesn’t show dinosaurs for almost a half an hour. A raptor kills a guy and we just see a shaky cage. The main characters don’t know there are dinosaurs on the island when they get there. This information is withheld to allow for big reveal that dinosaurs are in the movie.
The slack pacing doesn’t slow down the bombast of Spielberg’s favorite music man, though. John Williams’ horns and strings play at blaring volume even during mundane conversations. Every note asks if the audience can believe the amazing shit that going on, with swelling strings accompanying standard movie features like flying helicopters.
When the dinosaurs at long last appear, they are heralded by Spielberg’s signature shot: having someone look offscreen in slack jawed bewilderment. It’s ok if you miss the first one, when Sam Neil and his neckerchief see a brontosaurus. The same shot repeats about a half dozen times. If you like watching people look at stuff without knowing what they’re looking at, this is the movie for you.
And the stuff they’re looking at isn’t all that impressive, frankly. Dinosaurs in films ranging from special effects showcases like Peter Jackson’s King Kong to goofball comedies like Will Ferrell’s Land of the Lost. So the scenes that expect awe induce boredom.
Spielberg made Jurassic Park right after he made Hook. With both plodding middlebrow movies, Spielberg leans heavily on his signature styles. He had to shake off some dust to prepare for his next movie, Schindler’s List, and the “mature” phase of his career that movie brought on. I’m glad that he refilled his mojo to eventually pull off the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. But the shopworn style in Jurassic Park is tedious hackery.
