Cinema
Jurassic Park (PG', Empire)
Bronto buster
Mark Amory
You haven't read the book, you never wore the tee-shirt, you missed the comic, the ice-cream special and the not-so-cuddly toys, now you can skip the movie. Jurassic Park was designed to make money, it has taken more in one day than any film has ever done before and is heading for the world record, so it is perfect. Also it is on purpose: Spielberg has achieved the film he wanted. Criticism will be about as effective at stopping the advance of this monster as arrows bouncing off a triceratops.
Still, for the record, the structure is odd. Part of Spielberg's great talent is that in his adventure films he gets the tone right: what we are seeing proclaims itself as tosh, but the best, the most confident, the most exhilarating tosh. Films about dinosaurs are certainly tosh and nothing else. Forget scientific discoveries: if we wanted those we could find them in some learned journal. What is required is some probably British actor (Jonathan Pryce would be fine if Kenneth Branagh is away), possibly wear- ing a beard, to say, 'By George! I do believe we have cracked it at last.' Instead of which we get over 40 minutes of lecture about DNA and genetic engineering, which is in any case incomprehensible.
There is a story that Ken Russell at one of the lower spots of his tenacious career was offered the script for Alternative States by the prestigious Paddy Chayevsky but told that he must not change or cut a word of it. So he made the actors shout it at one another as fast as possible while laying on exotic visuals and it all worked well. Here the script could have simply been junked. The hype holds us expectant of wonders to come, while we take in the people.
When Sam Neill appeared in My Brilliant Career he seemed destined for one of his own, but it never quite happens. This time he is allowed no characteristics except the welcome one in a Spielberg film of dislik- ing children; naturally he ends up with his arms round two little mites and a smile on his face although he is up a tree feeding a brachiosaurus at the time. His romantic interest, Laura Dern, is quite pretty. Richard Attenborough, a possible last resort for mad scientist, twinkles lovably, whicb is inappropriate as the obsessive bil- lionaire who is ruthlessly using science for his own ends, a course disapproved of by the equally surprisingly cast Jeff Goldblum, who mutters about chaos theory and the awesome power of genetics. His forebod- ings are pointless, though, as we all know that the monsters are bound to rampage all over the island where they have been con- jured up to make a theme park.
And eventually they do and they are very convincing and, I am sure, better than any- body else's and there are lots of them and it is all fairly exciting but utterly pre- dictable. A couple of nasty medium-sized ones chase some children round a sort of high-tech kitchen but I rather think you can guess whether they catch them. Just as in lesser monster movies, the effects are so special that there seems to have been little energy or imagination left to think of something to do with them.
Spielberg's speciality used to be childlike awe and we get some here but it is watched not felt. The actors have to stand around registering amazement over a sick monster while we just think that this one is a bit plastic-looking. There is a suggestion that some creatures may turn into birds and fly off into the sunset and Jurassic Park 2, which presumably will be worse.
Still, Spielberg remains the master even when his imagination does not seem engaged and I should record that there was applause at the end. There is little blood (except for a routine severed arm) and my seven-year-old daughter said it was the best film she had ever seen and has not had nightmares. So 5 from me and 9 from her.
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