Jurassic Park 3D: Great Viewing With a Few Glitches

Jurassic Park was one of the very last movies I saw in a theater before I became a mom in 1993.  Since then, going to adult movies in the evening has been rare.

The preview showing of Jurassic Park 3D that I attended Tuesday night was one of the rare times I’ve gone to an evening showing in the last decade and the first I’ve seen this movie since that night in 1993. I brought my youngest son, age 13, with me, since he’d never seen it before and I wanted a fresh opinion.

Some thoughts on the re-release, which opens on Friday, April 5th :

• The 3D adds impressive depth in places. However, the edges of the screen were blurry, especially in crowd scenes, so it’s not perfect by any means.
• The 3D didn’t make the dinosaurs look any more impressive. But they remained as impressive as they ever were.
• The 3D did, however, make the full screen close-up of a young Jeff Goldblum with his shirt open a lot more impressive. (Yes, I am shallow. No, I didn’t mention this to my son.)
• I loved the “film” on the Jurassic Park “explanation” ride with the little DNA cartoon character. It’s a dead-on parody of various science-oriented explanation cartoons. I didn’t notice this years ago.
• Sam Neill is a tall drink of water. (Did I mention the shallow part?)
• The dinosaur CGI plus the animatronics holds up.
• The computer system used to run the park is just a wee bit outdated now.
• It is quite dumb to locate the circuit breakers halfway across the compound away from the main building. (Of course the idea of breeding a T-Rex was dumb too but it does make a great movie.)
• I’d forgotten how awesome Laura Dern was in this movie.
• The scene where the T-Rex attacks the jeeps is as scary as I remembered.
• My son pronounced the movie “excellent” and now wants to watch the two sequels.

So is it worth paying full price again to see Jurassic Park in 3D?

Yes, but with this caveat: this is a movie made to be seen in a theater.

Everything that was good about it in 1993 is still good now. It’s a spectacle and it should be seen with IMAX surround sound on a big screen. And that would be true even without the 3D.