It's 2025 And I Just Watched Jurassic Park For The First Time – These Are My Honest Thoughts
Yeah. I know.
It's obviously appalling that, in 2025, at the ripe old age of 34, I'm only just now watching the original "Jurassic Park" for the first time. I've weirdly skated by without having seen it for this long, and I can earnestly say that nobody has ever directly looked me in the eye and asked, point blank, "Have you seen Steven Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece 'Jurassic Park?'" I'm ready to reveal this genuinely embarrassing fact about myself after my colleague here at /Film, Danielle Ryan, bravely confessed that she'd never seen "Jaws" before and wrote about what it was like to watch it for the very first time. So here I am, admitting that I, a person who writes about movies and TV for a living, somehow missed "Jurassic Park."
I don't even know how to fully explain this massive, T-rex sized blind spot in my pop culture Rolodex except to say that I was 3 when the movie came out and, when I would have been the right age to watch it, I was an absolute scaredy-cat. A total wuss, if you will. There's absolutely no way I would have made it through the velociraptor-in-the-kitchen sequence without crapping myself, to be absolutely blunt. After that, I guess I just ... missed the window or something? Whatever! I'm here, now, to deliver a piping hot take: "Jurassic Park" rips, and Spielberg is a legend for a reason.
Even though literally everybody but me already knew this, I'm still here to tell you what it was like to watch this movie for the first time in 2025 ... and I'll lead with the fact that it holds up astonishingly well. Basically everything about this movie is, in terms of filmmaking, perfect, from the score to the script to the performances. In fact, I was most struck by how well the effects in this movie hold up, which just goes to show that smartly mixing practical effects, animatronics, and CGI is the best way to make an action movie.
Did you all know Jurassic Park was a great movie and nobody told me?
The word "iconic" is typically both overused and wrongly deployed, but I'm still going to say that "Jurassic Park" is iconic for a reason. The scale of this movie, which I only learned today that Steven Spielberg shot largely on location in the beautiful wilds of Hawai'i, is massive, and that moment where Sam Neill's Dr. Alan Grant and Laura Dern's Dr. Ellie Sattler first see the dinosaurs in the park is just as magical as I hoped it would be. Spielberg famously has one of the best eyes of any director, alive or dead, and the way he and his cinematographer Dean Cundey compose the shots in "Jurassic Park" is magnificent, whether it's the huge action sequence where a rogue Tyrannosaurus rex attacks the vehicle with Lex and Tim (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello) inside or Sattler simply noting that if dinosaur eats man, woman inherits the earth; the way both Grant and Jeff Goldblum's wonderfully chaotic chaotician Ian Malcolm look over at her is just so visually pleasing.
The script for this movie, penned by original author Michael Crichton and David Koepp, is also, obviously, great; I've been repeating "hold onto your butts" like an idiot for years without knowing precisely where it came from. If you feel the need to pelt tomatoes or other rotten fruits at me, I do understand. I actually love "Jurassic Park" most, though, in the moments that don't need dialogue, like the tense action sequences or the moments of silence that allow unbelievable performers like Neill, Malcolm, and Dern to shine. (I'm a fan of all three of these performers, but Dern, whose 'fit in this movie literally defines "safari chic," is perfect as Sattler, and for all my talk about loving the "silent" moments, her screaming obscenities throughout the movie is so awesome.)
Another talent of Spielberg's is a thrillingly tense action sequence, and there's a reason that the scene where Lex and Tim hide from a velociraptor in the resort's kitchen is one of the most famously frightening sequences in cinematic history. (To be fair, I've seen this scene, like, a million times out of context.) Preceded shortly by the also great scene where Grant, Tim, and Lex narrowly avoid being trampled by a herd of Gallimimus and watch the T-rex feed on them, this scene is genuinely terrifying, and it's a masterclass in on-screen suspense. The fact that it's a scene involving two kids also appropriately amps up the terror factor here, which, because they survive, is awesome to watch. Did you guys all know that "Jurassic Park" was the perfect combination of funny and action-packed?! Is that why you're all so wild about this movie?! I've really been missing out, huh?
The best — and worst — thing about Jurassic Park is that it's an example of truly excellent filmmaking
Bear with me here. "Jurassic Park" is a movie that uses CGI sparingly (and smartly, when it does) in favor of animatronics and practical effects, which gives the uniformly excellent cast something to react to instead of, you know, sticking them in a blue or green room and asking them to look frightened because there's a creature or critter nearby. "Jurassic Park" is a movie that lets us know, within seconds of meeting them, that Grant and Sattler are dating because he affectionately touches her butt on the site of their archaelogical dig. "Jurassic Park" is a movie that points out how dangerous man's hubris — and, frankly, man's capitalistic impulses — can be. (My first instinct, as I watched the movie, was to wonder why anyone would make this park in the first place. Then I realized that was, you know, the point of the film.) The best thing about "Jurassic Park" is that it's a great movie. The worst thing about "Jurassic Park" is they truly don't make 'em like this anymore.
I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that I've also missed the "Jurassic Park" sequels, but pretty much every human being I've ever spoken to about the continuation of the franchise thinks the new movies largely suck. Throwing Chris Pratt into the mix with a dinosaur who is, I feel certain, represented on set by a tennis ball on a stick during filming is a frankly embarrassing way to continue a story originated by a movie this good. At the risk of sounding like the old lady I am in my heart, movies today seem afraid of sex, afraid of silence, and are, indisputably, reliant on CGI slop that makes everything look like absolute garbage.
That's why felt so refreshing to watch a movie like "Jurassic Park" made by a guy who loves movies for people who love movies instead of a legacy sequel nobody asked for that feels heartless and devoid of actual excitement or joy. Incredibly, Steven Spielberg once said of this movie, "I have no embarrassment in saying that with 'Jurassic' I was really just trying to make a good sequel to 'Jaws' – on land. It's shameless. I can tell you that now." The thing is, it doesn't feel shameless, and that's what matters in the end. "Jurassic Park" feels like a love letter — not just to every single kid who ever played with dinosaur figurines, but to cinema as a whole. As Ian Malcolm says, "life finds a way," and if more directors took a page out of Spielberg's book and brought together great actors to play pretend in largely practical sets, maybe movies would find their way again too.
"Jurassic Park" is available to stream on Peacock.