National Post (National Edition)
STILL HUNGRY FOR THRILLS?
AS JURASSIC PARK TURNS 25, FANS CAN LOOK TO OTHER MOVIES FOR HIGH-SPIRITED ADVENTURE
Twenty-five years ago, Steven Spielberg’s Oscarwinning adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel Jurassic Park opened in theatres. The film was many things at once: a cultural touchstone, a technological groundbreaker and crackling entertainment. And with each passing year, it becomes clearer that it was also lightning in a bottle — its magic has proved especially difficult to recapture, with sequels ranging from forgettable to terrible. (The early reviews for the latest, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, suggest it falls squarely into the “terrible” category.)
So where does a Jurassic fan look to find the original film’s unique blend of high-spirited adventure, jaw-dropping effects, honest-to-goodness emotion and thoughtful subtext? We have a few suggestions.
THE LOST WORLD
No, this isn’t the unfortunate Jurassic Park sequel from 1997, although that sequel’s title was a tribute to the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel this film was based on — one of the first pieces of fiction to bring prehistoric creatures into the modern world, as an expedition of scientists and journalists explore a South American basin where dinosaurs roam free. This 1960 film adaptation from disaster movie titan Irwin Allen (The Towering Inferno) is a hearty slab of cheesy fun; the effects are primitive but spirited, the set pieces are entertaining, and the peerless character actor Claude Rains (of The Invisible Man, Casablanca, Notorious, and many more) has a great time hamming it up as the anthropologist leading the journey.
KING KONG
“What have they got in there, King Kong?” muses Dr. Ian Malcolm, as the gates open in Jurassic Park. And that’s not all Spielberg’s film has in common with this 1933 classic, in which a team of outsiders ventures into the jungles of a forgotten island and discovers a massive ape (and various other terrifying creatures). It’s also easy to see how its conclusion, with Kong on the rampage in a major metropolis, influenced the closing stretch of The Lost World: Jurassic Park (not to mention countless other movies). And there’s a reason it was so influential: directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack smoothly balance the film’s sense of awe and terror, the stop-motion animation is still impressive, and actress Fay Wray creates a relationship with her simian co-star that somehow is both horrifying and heartbreaking.
THE TIME MACHINE
The similarly renowned sci-fi innovator George Pal was behind this 1960 film adaptation of the influential H.G. Wells novel about a Victorian-era inventor who travels into the distant future. The film broke technological ground for its time-lapse effects (which won an Academy Award), but this isn’t merely a showcase for snazzy technology: True to the source material, Pal’s film (which stars Rod Taylor) digs deep into the logistics of this scientific wizardry, and the philosophical implications of its implementation.
GODZILLA
One of the most potent themes of Jurassic Park is that the real enemy is not the dinosaurs but the hubris of mankind for bringing them back to life (a theme that has, notably, eluded the sequels). That idea was a midcentury staple of Cold War and B-movie horror, but none topped this 1954 classic from Ishir Honda, one of the most important and beloved of all monster movies. The original Godzilla (also known as “Gojira”) launched the Japanese kaiju (giant monster) movie craze, telling the story of a 164-foot-tall dino-like creature who makes landfall in Tokyo and tears the city to smithereens. But he’s not just in it for kicks — Godzilla is a byproduct of underwater nuclear testing, which gives this goofy creature-feature an unexpected kick of social commentary.
THE HOST
The South Korean master Bong Joon Ho (Okja, Snowpiercer) gleefully picks up where Godzilla left off with this delightfully subversive 2006 riff on urban monstermovie conventions (with generous doses of environmental activism and familial melodrama thrown in for good measure). His mutant sea creature is created by the carelessness of the local government and the American military, another sharp inquiry into who the real monsters are. Bong also takes a keen interest in the human dynamics at play, and how the dysfunctional family at the story’s centre comes together for a common cause.
THE FLY
Jeff Goldblum, one of the most frequently-seen faces in the Jurassic franchise (his cameo in Fallen Kingdom is his third appearance in the films), made the transition from quirky ensemble player to leading man with this 1986 hit from director David Cronenberg. In adapting the 1958 monster flick of the same name, Cronenberg cuts out the cheese and piles on the body horror, while also embracing the rich psychological subtext of the story; like Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond in Jurassic, Goldblum’s Seth Brundle is a man undone by his own ambition and ego, and his journey of selfdestruction is both riveting and tragic.
TREMORS
This 1990 cult fave from director Ron Underwood (City Slickers) is modern creature-feature with a throwback sense of humour. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward star as two Nevada handymen who find themselves battling a giant wormlike creature that burrows its tentacles under the desert and wreaks havoc wherever it goes. The genius of Tremors is its approach — it’s like the mutated offspring of a Spaghetti Western and a ’50s B-movie. The acting is appropriately playful, as Bacon and Ward convey an awareness of the picture’s silliness without winking at the audience or condescending to the material. Whatever its makers did, it worked; the film spawned several direct-to-video sequels and a television adaptation.
JAWS
When Jurassic Park hit theatres in 1993, no one missed the opportunity to note its connection to this, Spielberg’s first megahit, from 1975. In adapting the bestselling novel from Peter Benchley, Spielberg tossed the trashy subplots and focused on the elemental conflict: man vs. nature, mined for maximum tension and scares. (He also does his best, in both films, to see how much terror he can create while showing us nothing — see the way John Williams’ score announces the shark’s presence in Jaws, and also the image of the trembling water glass in Jurassic Park.) But Jaws is about more than craft; Spielberg is arguably more interested in the humanity of his characters, who battle one another between bouts with the great white shark. Both Jaws and Jurassic were gargantuan hits, the kind of blazingly well-crafted summer entertainment that simply takes over popular culture.