Nostalgic Review: Jurassic Park Franchise

The franchise as a whole may not be the most impressive, but it certainly contains one of the most important films of all-time.

After originating as a novel in 1990, director Steven Spielberg made another blockbuster that at the time became the highest grossing film of all-time. It also was the film that saved an almost bankrupt Universal Studios at the time.
Four years later saw the hotly-anticipated sequel, The Lost World. With mixed reviews, we were not sure we would be going back to the islands of Isla Sorna or Isla Nublar.
Then in 2001, director Joe Johnston took the helm in what was most definitely a failure.

Now 12 years in the making, we finally have a fourth installment about to be released worldwide. After many people including Spierlberg devising ideas for the studio to use, they decided to go for under-developed director Colin Trevorrow. Initial trailers do not look promising. But, I and many others will still be going in with an open mind and matching even the tiniest of magic from the 1993 classic will be enough to entertain the moviegoers.

Jurassic Park - The amount of highly positive reviews and box-office it got was unprecedented.

With high quality action, tension, so many iconic and memorable scenes and interesting characters with great performances lead by the late great Richard Attenborough. This is certainly one great film watching experience. Many people like me will have this film as essential part of their childhood.

It will forever be a landmark in film-making.

Rating: 9/10

The Lost World: Jurassic Park - On it's release, I thought it was o.k.
But over time, I have come to appreciate a lot more, especially after the release of the third feature.

Now I see it as a decent adventure film with moments of greatness.

With Spielberg director, there is thankfully some great moments. The tension scenes are surprisingly quite gripping, it has a decent story and has some good performances, especially by the late Pete Postlethwaite. It also sees Vince Vaughn in one of his serious roles before he became a big star.

Rating: 7/10

Jurassic Park III - The first signs that this series is running out of ideas.
It does have some decent moments of action. But overall, it is pretty bad.

Massively weak story, corny tone and sub-standard characters.
Despite this being the most recent of the three, the CGI managed to be the worst. At least, they still used a decent amount of practical effects which looked nice.
You can virtually see everything that is not Spielberg, who was only an executive producer in this.

Rating: 6/10

Jurassic World - Despite its flaws, the latest adventure is pretty solid and is fun to watch.

We see John Hammond's vision become a reality. But with declining visitor numbers, a new hybrid attraction is created that could even scare the adults as well as the kids.

There is clever use of nostalgia and some great action set-pieces. But its poor script and character development puts this in the middle of the franchise in terms of its rating.

Rating: 7/10