Jurassic Park

I have no idea how many times I watched this when I was a kid, but I realized while watching it I pretty much had every line memorized. I knew exactly what everyone was going to say before they said it. Of course, that's also a function of the screenplay being little more than a collection of phrases. Nobody is even close to being a character, which wouldn't be a bad thing except that the screenplay obvious thinks that it's doing a lot of things to establish characters. Basically, it's just a downright awful screenplay. I'm not even going to get into it; it's just terrible on every level.

Which is kind of too bad, because Spielberg really was at one of his peaks when he directed this. The fluid way the whole first half of the movie flows from scene to scene is really well done, and as close to being subtle as probably would be possible in a blockbuster about dinosaurs. And once it gets down to business with the monsters, the action scenes are still seriously scary. I mean, I actually felt my heartbeat elevate. And despite the fact that none of the main characters ever actually gets killed or eaten, unlike in the new Indiana Jones movie, there is a serious feeling of danger--you actually feel like the main characters are genuinely having their lives threatened. Frankly, after reading the screenplay, Spielberg should've just cut all the dialogue and decided to revive the silent film. The dialogue is so bad it actually ruins the tension a number of times.

My only other complaint about the movie is that it's a little too efficient. I guess this was before it was okay to stretch a movie very much longer than two hours, but I really think the movie could've used some more time on the island before everything went to shit. I guess that's why the score goes nuts when they first see the Brachiosaurs: Spielberg was trying to milk every possible bit of emotion out of that scene because it was the only scene in which he got to really show the wonder of the island. I just don't think it quite worked, or I mean it doesn't quite manage to make up for the fact that it's the only scene like that.