Director: Joe Johnston
Cast: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola
Have I Seen it Before: I saw it in the theater… I think I’m still waiting for the final reel of the film to be delivered.
Did I Like It: Which brings us to the big question. Jurassic Park (1993) is the most Spielbergy of all the Spielbergian films. The Lost World (1997) was a pleasing enough diversion in which all of the key players felt like they were asleep at the wheel. The later movies (Jurassic World (2015) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)) are engaging enough legacy sequels made by a creative team who clearly has an abiding affection for the source material.
This film, however, sticks out like a sore thumb, or a thumb chewed off by a compy, or whatever dinosaur metaphor strikes your fancy. I like director Joe Johnston; The Rocketeer (1991) is one of my favorite movies. He’s been handed table scraps, here, though. The movie looks cheaper, with the CGI not aging as well as it does in the original movie (The Lost World had the same problem, but both films are saved from the absolute dregs of a Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)) and story being thin enough to drive an SUV through.
By all indications, that story underwent a lot of last-minute changes. The script as written was thrown out right before production in favor a much simpler search and rescue storyline. Problem is, so many of the set pieces had already been storyboarded within an inch of their life. Thus the movie ends up trying to be two different movies, neither of which have anything resembling the spontaneity of anything resembling the human experience. One might think I’m being unfair thinking that a movie about dinosaurs meant to goose the numbers on action figure sales needs to feel authentically human, but when I can’t get over the fact that it is spectacularly divorced from the people making it, it bears mentioning.
This doesn’t even cover the fact that the movie doesn’t so much end as simply stops, with our heroes reaching the shoreline and the Marines and Navy are ready with Operation Deus Ex Machina. I liked spending some time with Dr. Grant again, but this isn’t the movie anyone would have hoped for.