Jurassic Park

I couldn't remember the last time I sat down and watched 1993's Jurassic Park. In my teenage years -- better known as the late 90s -- this movie was on TV seemingly every day on countless channels....and I watched it a ton. But that whole mildly successful sequel, 2015's Jurassic World, threw me right back into the franchise. Sure, the sequel was a lot of mindless, stupid fun, but the original is almost always better. A true classic. A gem. A must-see. Jurassic Park.

Working at a fossil/dig site in Montana, paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) are in the midst of unearthing a huge find...when they're interrupted by a helicopter carrying a bazillionaire philanthropist, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), who has an odd request for them. He's asking them to come examine, experience and see a new theme park he's spent years building, promising quite the paycheck if they come along. They do, flying out to Isla Nubar, an island in the Pacific off the coast of Costa Rica, not sure what they've gotten themselves in to. Along with them is a brilliant mathematician, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who's equally curious. What exactly is Hammond behind? The entire group is stunned to find that somehow, some way, Hammond and his bioengineering company, InGen, has managed to create real-life dinosaurs and not just one, but many different species. The plan to open the theme park to the public couldn't possibly work, could it? There are just too many things that could go wrong....right?

My goodness. What a freaking movie. It's hard to believe it has been 22 years since the original and by far still the best of the series hit theaters way back in 1993. It's hard to believe for so many reasons. One, it impacted countless movies after. The technology on display here helped rewrite Hollywood with big, broad strokes. What 'Park' did with its computer-generated effects is nothing short of extraordinary, and almost every movie released since featuring any CGI owes a tip of the cap in this direction. The premise itself? Both inventively genius and criminally simplistic in its entertainment value. You can't say that for too many movies now, can you? Twenty-plus years later, it hasn't lost any of its edge, shock value or entertainment, director Steven Spielberg turning in a true classic, and a profoundly important movie in film history.

This 1993 scientifically-charged thriller is based off a novel from author Michael Crichton. The book is a gem, one of those great examples of what a perfect thriller can be. It's by no means a criticism to say that Spielberg's film is one of the few books as good as its source novel. Instead, it is a compliment to both film and novel. It will come as no shock that Hammond's idealistic park has its faults, resulting in an ever-growing body count, but 'Jurassic' does bring together intelligence and creativity with a straightforward survival story. Doesn't get any simpler than that. Run and get away or get eaten by a prehistoric dinosaur brought back from extinction. Oh, the movie looks great, what's real and what's CGI, and a little musical score from composer John Williams is pretty decent too. Maybe you've heard it? Listen HERE, a score and theme that becomes another character in a generally flawless movie.

Who doesn't love dinosaurs? Anyone? Bueller? Exactly. From kids to senior citizens and everyone in between, DINOSAURS ARE AWESOME. AWESOME I TELLS YA! Spielberg, Crichton and a heck of a crew from Industrial Light & Magic bring the dinosaurs to life, most notably the tyrannosaurus rex and the velociraptor, two of nature and history's most terrifying killing machines. The characters are excellent (more on the cast later), but it is the dinosaurs who steal the show. The T-Rex chasing down a fleeing jeep, the raptors hunting in packs, an attack always a blink away, these scenes of dinosaurs on the bloody hunt are scenes to behold, like Jaws on steroids. Spielberg builds the tension up to unbearable levels, water in a plastic cup shaking as a T-Rex approaches from the jungle. The horrifying realization that a raptor can open a door. These quiet, terrifying moments balance out with the hold onto your seat moments in impeccable fashion. Even knowing where these scenes are going, it....is....damn...frightening.

The best movies bring their stories to life, and that's where Jurassic Park succeeds at the highest levels. Whether it's the hint of the power and vicious hunting of a raptor or a chase across a grassy plain with a herd of gallimimus being chased down a T-Rex, these moments are exhilarating to watch as a moviegoer. All those creatures you saw in books, there they are, big as life, on the screen in front of you. Yeah, it produces some freaking scary moments once the dinos are loose, but from the moment we first see the dinosaurs, there is that feeling of being transported back to your childhood reading those books. We're seeing something that has been extinct for at least 65 million years. It sounds so simple to say that, but that is the simple, elegant beauty of this classic movie and its lasting impression, impact and quality. Just a gem.

The stars are the dinosaurs, but the human actors aren't too shabby either. I've always been a Neill fan, mostly because of this part as the pragmatic, highly intelligent Dr. Grant, amazed by what he sees but wary of these scientific developments. His chemistry with Dern's Ellie is spot-on, and the questioning trio is complete with a scene-stealing, never better Jeff Goldblum as questioning mathematician, Ian Malcolm. Throw in Attenborough (in his first acting role) since 1979, and you've got some thump at the top of the order. Also look for Samuel L. Jackson and Wayne Knight as park employees, BD Wong the bioengineer who helped create them, Bob Peck as Muldoon, the game hunter and park's game warden, Martin Ferrero as the $-for-eyes lawyer, and Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards as Tim and Lex, Hammond's grandkids visiting the island.

As an old man of 29 watching this -- as opposed to a know it all 12 year old -- I was able to appreciate the kick-ass dinosaurs, but also the intelligence, creativity and general smarts of the movie. I loved Malcolm's non-stop criticism, the destructive nature of the park no matter what it was intended for, leading to his immortal line 'Nature finds a way' in a phenomenal monologue. His chaos theory says that in the end, well, chaos will reign. You can't truly control what doesn't want to be controlled, especially dinosaurs. Creatures from literally millions of years ago, recreated and controlled? No way. As well, the way the dinosaurs are created is beyond ingenious, a credit to Crichton's writing ability and Spielberg's ability to flesh it out (and with some twists along the way about dinosaurs that are supposedly unable to reproduce). Yes, this is a huge action/thriller blockbuster, but it is also an incredibly intelligent and creative film. It works pretty effortlessly on basically every level possible.

Spielberg is an all-time great, a director with classics Jaws, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and the Indiana Jones movies to his name (among others). This is a film that definitely belongs on that list. A true classic on all levels. This will be a movie that down the road people still look back and marvel at it. Can't say enough about this classic. A gem, and a movie you most definitely should have seen by now.

Jurassic Park (1993): ****/****

Omen III: The Final Conflict

Well, evil has grown up. After reviewing the Omen remake from 2006 and the first sequel from the original, it's time to wrap things up with one last review. The original Omen movies were a trilogy and one failed TV movie. I watched part of this one years ago, especially remembering the finale, so here we go with 1981's Omen III: The Final Conflict.

The world has fallen into a costly recession, one that has some calling the current international crisis the 'end of days.' People are looking for answers, for a solution. Waiting to give them that answer and leadership is the C.E.O. of an aid company, a huge corporation with footholds all over the world, one Damien Thorn (Sam Neill), now 32 years old and fully embracing his Satanic makeup. When a grisly suicide leaves the position open, Damien is appointed the U.S. ambassador to England, the same position his father held years before. He has plans for his power position but he has fears, signs pointing to the Second Coming of Christ, that could cripple his plans. The timing is essential for those battling on both sides, both good and bad, as a small order of monks from Italy know Damien's true identity and are doing everything in their power to stop him. Who or what will prevail in the end? Good or evil?

Of the trilogy, only the first one is an above average horror flick to the point I'd say it is a classic. Where do the second and third ones fall? They're pretty good...just not as good. From director Graham Baker, 'Final' wraps things up in pretty cool fashion. It switches up the formula some and doesn't depend on gruesome deaths like Omen II did (even though I enjoyed that flick a lot). Again, these aren't the most plot-driven flicks, but I didn't get caught up in that stuff. It's all building, all developing a character, and this time we get a showdown in the finale between good and evil. 'Final' isn't as good as either of its predecessors, but I still enjoyed it a lot. It wraps things up nicely and even left an opening for the series to continue that never developed. 

If you believe Wikipedia and its countless information -- and I tend to -- the casting for 32-year old Damien was pretty interesting. How about Jack Nicholson? Gene Hackman? Even Marlon Brando? All three were considered for the part before producers decided to go with a lesser known actor. Enter Sam Neill, 34 years old at the time. This is the natural progression for Damien. Having realized who he truly is in 'Damien II,' he's now actively working toward taking what is his. He's embraced his identity. He is the Antichrist, and he intends to rule the world. We get to see his political pull in a startlingly easy encounter with the President (Mason Adams), his pull on his political staff, and in most frightening fashion, his growing number of apostles and disciples. As I've mentioned before, evil...true, pure evil, can be scarier than any serial killer, murder mystery.

And that's an interesting angle of this sequel. Now, I'm not religious much, but this story fascinated me. Again, it's that BIG concept of good and evil. Add in the Antichrist, the believed Second Coming of Christ, and we've got some interesting stuff going on. Neill's Damien gets to chew the scenery several times as he addresses an immense crucifix (Jesus nailed to the cross backwards) about how he will ultimately defeat him. He calls him the Nazarene as if they were on a first-name basis, his cold, icy and calculating stare -- and what looks like some guy-liner -- adding that sinister edge to the story. This isn't a James Bond villain trying to conquer the world. This is the Prince of Darkness, the Devil, Satan himself. Not too many bigger stakes than that. Oh, and those dagger-wielding monks led by Father DeCarlo (Rossano Brazzi)? Nice touch, another enemy for Damien to deal with, even if they are sort of a bumbling bunch.

The cast is pretty small here for this horror sequel. Along with Neill, look for Don Gordon as Harvey Dean, Damien's personal assistant, fully aware of what his boss is and what he aspires to do in the old evil department. Lisa Harrow plays Kate Reynolds, a respected TV journalist trying to get down to the truth of Damien's background, Barnaby Holm playing her son, Peter, possibly a disciple for Damien.

There's some pretty cool moments along the way. I loved the credits sequence as we discover how the daggers that were supposedly lost in Damien II are discovered and end up where they need to be. The monks' attempts on Damien are tense, and Damien's ultimate plan to stop the second coming is particularly gruesome and more than a little unsettling. And then there's the ending, a great final scene that brings everything full circle. Yeah, there's some giant plot holes, but I liked the execution from beginning to end.

Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981): ***/****

Escape Plan

The 1980s and much of the 1990s were the Age of the Overblown, Dumb, Mindless Action Movies, stars like Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal, Dolph Lundgren and others dominating the genre. The action genre has changed a ton in the years since, but the stars are still there, including two of the biggest stars who reunite in 2013's Escape Plan.

A former lawyer turned specialist, Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is the best in the business. That business? He's inserted into federal penitentiaries and maximum security prisons as a prisoner at large, no one aware of his identity, and devises a way to escape. Breslin has no equals, doing the job for years and helping to improve overall security, earning himself quite the reputation over the years. His reputation has gotten him quite the job offer, a $5 million payday if he can escape from a new, state-of-the-art prison facility that has been deemed 'impossible to escape' from. The background seems a little shaky, but Ray takes the job only to find out he's been duped once he's inside the prison. The warden, Hobbes (Jim Caviezel), has no intention of even giving him a chance to escape, leaving Ray in an impossible situation. His possible out? Help from a fellow prisoner, Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who desperately wants out.

Action movies can't just be action movies anymore, can they? They have to do something different, out of left field, desperately trying to rewrite the genre. Is there anything wrong with a throwback to the 1980s/1990s when it was acceptable for an action movie to have really cool good guys, really despicable bad guys and a lot of mindless fight scenes with some stupid one-liners along the way. That's the formula director Mikael Hafstrom follows in this action flick that earned over $137 million in theaters. Is it particularly good? No, not especially, but if absolutely nothing else, it is refreshing to see a movie like this. Too bad it wasn't better, some really fun, solid moments lost in mostly mediocre moments in a too-long 115-minute long flick.

Come on now. The reasoning I'm guessing 99% of movie fans sought this movie out was the pairing of two of the all-time great action icons, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger. We're talking Rambo and the Terminator, side by side and pissed at the world. It's the pairing that fans wanted to see for years in the 80s and 90s, finally getting a taste of it with the two Expendables movies. There is a certain cheeseball charm to this pairing of Stallone and Schwarzenegger, screenwriters Miles Chapman and Jason Keller's script giving them plenty of chances to bust each other, make fun of each other and basically argue about anything and everything. It isn't anything that's going to strain any brain activity, but it's fun. Any scene where the duo is together is automatically better just because they're there. They have an easygoing chemistry that reflects two old friends, Stallone the smart-ass straight man, Schwarzenegger the funner, livelier part. Whether it's 1984, 1994 or 2014, it's cool to see these two action icons working together in lead roles.

I wish I could say the same for the rest of the cast. The script's goal is to give Stallone and Schwarzenegger a premise to work with....and that's about it. There's no real development anywhere else. Good = good, bad = bad, and Vincent D'Onofrio = bad because well, it's Vincent D'Onofrio. I don't consider that a spoiler so deal with it. It's cool seeing Jesus himself, um, uh, Caviezel in a bad guy role, hamming it up with steely eyes and a pristine black suit, but we know nothing about him. How'd he end up as warden of a corrupt prison like this? Vinnie Jones plays his enforcer, Drake. Faran Tahir tries to avoid stereotypes as much as possible as Javed, a Muslim prisoner who hates Breslin but may have to work with him to escape. Along with D'Onofrio, Amy Ryan and 50 Cent are Breslin's partners and business associates, wondering if they've stumbled into something surprising. Oh, and Sam Neill is cool because he's Sam Neill.

There was potential here, but moments along the way help derail the story. The script is obsessed with giving Sly and Arnie as many stupid, forced one-liners as humanly possible. I figure they're going for laughs, but the jokes and lines fell short for me. The premise is cool, no doubt about it, an inescapable, perfectly built prison that no one can get out of, and let me tell you, there's a good twist about where exactly that prison is. There's an even bigger twist in the finale that does work in some ways, but again, it feels like such an effort was made to trick the audience and pull the rug out from under us that it loses most of its impact. It's not painfully bad, but it's not as good as I'm sure it was intended.

So what are we left with? Mostly a pairing of Stallone and Schwarzenegger. The action is kept on the backburner until the last 30 minutes, definitely the most enjoyable part of the movie. It's got all those cliches we've come to expect from an action movie, slow motion bullets, bad guys with insanely bad aim, heroes with amazingly good aim, and all those little touches that look ridiculous...in a fun way. A meh movie if there ever was unfortunately.

Escape Plan (2013): **/****

Attack Force Z

Can a movie having a cheap budget actually be a good thing? Maybe with less expectations heading in, moviegoers enjoy a movie more when a B-movie lives up to or exceeds the already low expectations. I know I look at big Hollywood blockbusters differently than I do a cheapie B-movie because it's unfair to compare the two. An Australian WWII movie, 1982's Attack Force Z, was clearly made on the cheap, and while not a classic, certainly provides some bang for your buck.

Relatively unknown in the U.S., 'Attack' has achieved a bit of a cult following since its release, not because of the quality of the movie, but because of the casting with Mel Gibson and Sam Neill having starring roles. Gibson had been in a handful of movies already but was not well known to audiences yet with and Mad Max not yet released in the U.S.. Neill similarly was an up and comer in the Australian movie industry. If you pick this movie up because you stumble upon these two names, like me, it's certainly interesting to see these two not-yet stars in an early role.

Based on an actual incident in WWII, 'Attack' tells one story of a Force Z, an Australian commando unit, stationed in the Pacific. It's late in the war in 1945 when a five-man commando team is dropped off by submarine at a Japanese held island. Their mission is simple; find a plane that crashed in the days before several miles inland. An important passenger that could quicken the end of the war was on board, and the commandos must either rescue him or make sure he's dead. With some help from the local resistance, the commandos start the search and rescue mission amidst Japanese patrols all around.

At a brisk 90 minutes or so, this is not a movie with a lot of back story about characters, plot, and the general context of the war. The objective of their mission isn't even revealed until almost an hour in. With little time to waste, a good share of war movie cliches are used to keep the story moving. From those cliches though, the movie doesn't pull any punches. Just minutes after the opening credits, one of the team is wounded and is killed by his own team so he won't fall into enemy hands. The message is clear...no one is safe and any one of the remaining four could be next.

Going to the cliches, we get a variety of characters in the team. Gibson is Capt. Kelly, an inexperienced officer leading his first mission and therefore trying to prove himself as a leader. John Phillip Law plays Lt. Jan Viech, a Dutch soldier joining the Australians who falls for a local girl, Chien Hua (Taiwanese actress Sylvia Chang in a solid part) with Neill starring as Sgt. Danny Costello, an experienced commando who is starting to question the actual effect these missions have on the course of the war. Rounding out the team are Chris Haywood as Sparrer Bird, the radioman, and John Waters (no, not that John Waters) as Lt. King. Chun Hsiung Ko plays Lin, the local resistance leader helping out the team who is also more than capable of handling himself in a fight.

Even in a situation ripe with tension -- five men moving through a jungle crawling with Japanese soldiers -- the movie lacks a certain energy early on. The commando team gets split up, but there's never a sense of urgency on the mission, and when the twist is revealed as to who they're trying to save there's never any explanation as to how the man's going to end the war, he just will apparently. Shot on location in Taiwan, the locations feel authentic with a sense of claustrophobia as the jungle seemingly closes in, but something is missing that I can't quite put my finger on.

With the mission though, the action starts from the beginning. With a smallish budget, these aren't huge battle spectacles, instead they're small skirmishes with the team shooting it out against roaming Japanese patrols. The finale is exciting and well-shot by director Tim Burstall as the commandos team with the resistance to fight the Japanese in the cramped, winding roads and alleys of a village near their getaway. The ending delivers another twist, and the shootout isn't a glamorous one. The commandos aren't superheroes who are invincible in battle, like in war these men can be shot and killed. Too often movies forget that, and make the characters Rambo-like heroes, but not here as the commando team dwindles down late.

Not a movie I loved but one I'd recommend to war movie afficionados. It's interesting to see up and coming actors like Mel Gibson and Sam Neill in early starring roles, and there's enough small-scale action to keep you interested until the shootout in the finale. I couldn't find a trailer at Youtube, but here's a couple scenes for your viewing pleasure, one and two, no major SPOILERS to worry about.

Attack Force Z (1982): ** 1/2 /****