The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

4/5

I have trouble reviewing movies I grew up watching, especially ones that have the cachet of Spielberg and the nostalgia of youth behind it. The Lost World is one such example. It is a remarkable but imperfect piece of filmmaking, yet all its flaws are ignored when remembering it 15 years later. Not quite the breathtaking, innovative escapism that Jurassic Park was, this sequel somehow manages to be both more mundane and more extravagant. Industrial Light & Magic's CGI here is astounding, even by today's standards. But all the special effects are front and center, with a spotlight shining down, instead of simply existing as a tool in the storyteller's arsenal. Though the plotting is as richly intricate and textured as the first one was, it puts too much emphasis on the spectacle of the dinosaurs. It makes the Tyrannosaurus Rex the protagonist, without humanizing it enough to make it feel like King Kong for a new generation. Like the 2005 King Kong remake, it centers on special effects instead of story, action instead of characters, and that is where it misses out on its full potential. The Lost World loses the awe that Jurassic Park had. The thrills excite, the jokes lighten the mood, and the movie reaches its inevitably satisfying conclusion, but not nearly as well as the first one did.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119567/

Jurassic Park (1993)

4/5

Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park is a classic 1990's creature film, and perhaps the most memorable one in history. Based on Crichton's book, it melds science with fiction to create a terrifying but believable alternate world. Entrepreneur John Hammond (Attenborough) extracts dinosaur DNA from ancient mosquitoes to create an amusement park filled with dinosaurs. Before announcing it to the public, he invites experts in the field of paleontology (Neill, Dern) and chaos theory (Goldblum) for a preview showing, along with his grandkids. Unfortunately, things go very wrong when the dinosaurs escape.

What makes this movie so unforgettable is not the special effects, awesome (in the traditional sense of the word) though they may be. The cererbral concept, the thought of creating dinosaurs, is exhilarating and thrilling. Its story is a classic tale of man's hubris leading to destruction, of greed leading to demise, of fear and courage. An epic battle plays out between the kings of old and the kings of new, brawn vs. brains.

Throw in Goldblum's spot-on neuroses and Spielberg's unerring eye for cinema and you get a movie that stands the test of time. It's invigorating and endearing because it puts its story and its characters front and center, allowing the CGI to be eye candy and window dressing. Special effects won't always seem so incredible, but good stories never grow old. And Jurassic Park tells a phenomenal story.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/

Gandhi (1982)

4/5

This three-hour epic is everything an epic should be: monumental, expansive, and stirring. The pacing is excellent for the most part (even though I thought the last third dragged on quite a bit). This is helped by the stellar script, which expounded on an incredible philosophy extremely well. I found it eye-opening and informative and recommend it to anyone interested in the man or the country. The acting by Ben Kingsley was consistently brilliant.

There were some things I didn't like in this otherwise great film. I always feel a little bit cheated when a biopic only shows one side of its subject: in this case, Gandhi's sacrifice for his country. It makes him less three-dimensional and takes away from the overall film. (I hated Cinderella Man for that same reason--Russell Crowe's character was pure good with no flaws.) I also hated the use of news reels to tell the story for them; I consider it sloppy filmmaking. Also, although infrequent, some scenes seemed unnecessarily or excessively violent.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0083987/