For the next few weeks, we will be counting down our 25 favorite blockbusters! Read all of the entries here.

2. Jurassic Park (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1993)

by Fiona Underhill, Staff Writer

If you were roughly 4 years old or older when Jurassic Park was released in theatres, you will surely remember the feeling of seeing the brachiosaurus for the first time and taking off your metaphorical Aviators in wonder and awe. Additionally, if like me, you’ve become a parent of several dinosaur-obsessed children, you will have rewatched the film a truly countless number of times. And do you know what makes it so eminently rewatchable, even as a jaded adult? Even more than the sense of spectacle and the warmth of the nostalgic glow - it’s the sharply funny and endlessly quotable dialogue.

Of course, I understand the people who choose Jaws or Raiders as their favorite Spielberg, or their favorite summer blockbuster, but for me, Jurassic Park is the one. It’s definitely the one I’ve seen the most and the one I never get sick of, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. This is largely down to how pitch-perfectly it is paced and structured – no matter where you are in the film, you know you’ve got a massively entertaining sequence ahead. The screenplay – by Michael Crichton (adapting his own book) and David Koepp (who, perhaps unsurprisingly, also wrote the tension-filled first Mission: Impossible film) is Jurassic Park’s secret weapon.

In the film’s opening fifteen minutes, we get four prologues, which introduce almost all of the major characters and their motivations – we are invested from this moment and our engagement doesn’t let up until we are flying away from the island, surrounded by pterodactyls. In order; we meet Bob Peck’s hunter Muldoon (whose line deliveries will pretty much all become iconic), the “blood-sucking lawyer” Gennaro at the amber mine, the infamous sequence where Alan Grant (Sam Neill) scares an obnoxious kid to death with his speech about raptors, John Hammond’s (Richard Attenborough) helicopter swooping in “OK who’s the jerk?” and offering to fund the dig for a further three years and then the prologue that has perhaps achieved the greatest cult status – Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) and Dodgson at a Costa Rican cantina with a can of shaving cream. We don’t meet Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) until we’re on the helicopter on the way to the island, cementing him as the cool, mysterious stranger (as his black leather jacket and dark sunglasses attest) and where he immediately starts flirting with Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern).

The next touch of genius screenwriting is having Mr. DNA deliver all the exposition we need in a kid (and adult) friendly animated sequence, a technique recently paid homage by the Loki TV show, with the character of Miss Minutes. Once the tour starts to move into the research labs, Gennaro mumbles something that you probably didn’t pick up until you were a grown up (if at all); “are these characters auto…erotica?” – probably the most hilarious line in a film full of wonderfully witty dialogue. We are introduced to Dr. Henry Wu, over the hatching raptor egg – a minor character who has achieved surprising longevity – reaching full-blown villain status in the Jurassic World films. Then we get the ethical debate over the Chilean sea bass, where Goldblum gets to deliver an extremely memorable monologue on the morality of Hammond’s hubris “they were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

The build up to the T. Rex attack is a masterclass in balancing different narrative strands, with the action bouncing between the two jeeps - one containing Grant and Malcolm (with Malcolm pushing all of Grant’s buttons – “you married?” “occasionally”), one containing the lawyer and Hammond’s grandchildren (Tim and Lex) and back to the control center – where Hammond, Muldoon and Arnold (a magnificently chain-smoking Samuel L. Jackson) are panicking about the incoming storm. Wayne Knight’s performance (in his few brief scenes) as the weaselly Nedry leaves an indelible impression – his childlike excitement about the can of Barbasol in the prologue, his shifty and sweaty nervousness as he builds up to his treacherous act, his rapid-fire, dry-mouthed line delivery; “I’ve only had sweets, so I think I’m gonna get something salty” and of course “ah-ah-ah you didn’t say the magic word!” The dilophosaurus attack on Nedry, during which he constantly talks to himself and tries to play fetch with the cute dino, “no wonder you’re extinct” is possibly even more entertaining than the T-Rex attack (and when my son was little, he found it scarier).

Post T. Rex, the different strands of the narrative continue to be as carefully calibrated as the strands of Mr DNA. By this stage, Grant is taking care of Tim and Lexi, after the lawyer (“he left us, he left us”) meets his crunchy end on the can. Meanwhile, Hammond, Muldoon, Arnold, Sattler and an injured Malcolm (who gets to lie around looking pretty, with his shirt open) prepare to shut down the system; “hold onto your butts.” These two strands dovetail deliciously when Grant and the kids meet an electric fence (Grant pretending to be electrocuted is a great call-back to his kid-torturing ways from the start) and Sattler starts switching the breakers back on, after fleeing the raptor pincer movement on Muldoon; “CLEVER GIRL.” Sattler’s memorable dialogue of course revolves around the fact that she’s a woman surrounded by men; “Dinosaur eats man. Woman inherits the Earth” and later, “we’ll discuss sexism in survival situations when I get back.”

As the action ramps up towards the end, the dialogue plays less of a central role, although there are a few amazingly timed moments eg. “…unless they figure out how to open doors.” The velociraptors in the kitchen set-piece is such a stand-out, that when my son was a toddler, he only ever referred to Jurassic Park as “dinosaurs in the kitchen.” And, of course, there’s; “after careful consideration, I’ve decided not to endorse your park.” After a movie packed full with zingy banter, it is perhaps fitting that the final moments on the helicopter are silent, with just the soft and slow version of Williams’ score playing. 

We all know that you come to Jurassic Park for the brachiosaurus rearing up on its hind legs to reach the highest leaves, the sick triceratops being tended to by a weeping Sattler, the T. Rex slamming the goat leg on the sun-roof of the jeep, the raptors coordinating their attacks and opening doors and Rexy saving the day at the end; but what makes you return to Hammond’s doomed endeavor again and again is the whip-smart dialogue delivered by a perfectly-tuned ensemble. If you are a parent or might become one in the future, may you be so lucky as having your kids become obsessed with films that are this entertaining for grown-ups. Spielberg, Crichton and Koepp delivered a summer blockbuster that succeeds on every level – from the hugest spectacle, to the tiniest physical character moments (Goldblum briefly grasping a strand of Dern’s hair while mansplaining to her in the jeep or Nedry’s steamed-up glasses are among my favorites) and the endlessly quotable dialogue; “are they heavy? Then they’re expensive” “they’re flocking this way” “if Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.” The fact that everyone from the cast, to John Williams, to ILM, to the brilliant costume department brought their A-game is what makes Jurassic Park such an enduring classic, but it’s the writing, more than anything that makes it a perfect film.