Jurassic Park Series Ranked

This summer marks the release of Jurassic World, a sequel in a franchise thought to be ahem, “extinct” for 14 years. Here’s how I rank them from favorite to least favorite (potential spoilers ahead!):

Jurassic Park (1993)

A whole generation of kids grew up with this flick and I was part of it. It was the film that made dinosaurs cool after all. I’ve watched it more times than I can count and it never ceases to entertain me. It’s the perfect summer blockbuster: It has phenomenal special effects (courtesy of the late, great Stan Winston), great characters, a great story, and is all around fun. The film and novel are essentially a reworking of Michael Crichton’s previous film, Westworld (1973), which focused on the risk and negative consequences of man using science and technology to become creators, or “god” in a sense. In that film, it was androids they created as the park’s attraction and in this film, dinosaurs. As Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) points out, life finds a way, and chaos erupts. Once things start to go wrong, it’s a tense and fun ride for the rest of the film. When that T-Rex first appears on screen, talk about a great cinematic moment. Overall, it’s a high point in Steven Spielberg’s career and it’s held up remarkably well over 20 years later.

Jurassic World (2015)

It took 22 years, and we finally got one hell of an awesome, worthwhile sequel. You can ignore 2 & 3 because this film doesn’t acknowledge them and feels like a straight follow up to the first. It manages to recapture the awe and excitement of the first while expanding upon the theme park concept. This time we see the park up and running and when the company in charge decides to create a new super dinosaur, disaster inevitably ensues. There’s a lot more comedy in this one than the previous installments, and it doesn’t feel forced thanks to some great writing. The cast is great too, Chris Pratt especially as Owen Grady, the protagonist who trains raptors. He’s quite the badass! Vincent D’Onofrio is also a standout as Vic Hoskins, the ominous head of security for InGen. He’s phenomenal at playing bad guys and is just a great, under-appreciated actor in general. Jake Johnson is also great comic relief as Lowery, the tech operator of the park. There are some great nods to the first film too and the climactic battle between the super dinosaur and the T-Rex certainly makes it worth the price of admission.

The Lost World Jurassic Park (1997)

I really enjoyed this as a kid, but not as much as I’ve gotten older. It’s a disappointing follow up that has its flaws, but it’s not terrible. For the most part it’s entertaining, but has pacing issues, especially in the second half of the film. The last chunk in San Diego in particular just seems to pad out the run time. It also doesn’t really make any sense how the crew of the ship transporting the T-Rex got devoured. Did the T-Rex do it? If so, how the hell was that possible? It’s a plot hole and if you spend too much time thinking of a logical explanation for it, you’ll give yourself a headache. Another flaw is that it has a bunch of dumb characters that are only in it just to be picked off by the raptors or T-Rex. And speaking of the raptors, that whole gymnastics move Malcolm’s daughter uses to kill one of them…pretty dumb. The film can also be a little over preachy with its message of “corporations are evil and unethical”. Jeff Goldblum returning as Ian Malcolm is the highlight of the film as is Pete Postlethwaite as Roland, a big game hunter out to hunt the T-Rex.

Jurassic Park III (2001)

A lot were excited this one back in the summer of 2001 — I sure was. Unfortunately, we got a poorly written sequel that was even more of a disappointment than The Lost World. It’s not boring or super long (only clocks in at about 90 minutes), but we deserved better. Sam Neil returns again as Dr. Alan Grant to help the Kirby’s, a divorced couple played by William H. Macy and Tea Leoni find their son who’s lost on Isla Sorna, the island of dinosaurs from the previous film. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize the island Dr. Grant was on was actually Isla Nublar. That’s just one of the many reasons why the film’s dumb. What’s really the main disappointment about the film is that it doesn’t have that same sense of awe or excitement; it’s pretty much everything we’ve seen already from the two previous films. Sam Neil returning is a nice touch, even if he only did it for the paycheck. His love interest from the first, Dr. Ellie Sattler, played by Laura Dern also returns, but is married to some other dude? The fuck was up with that? And that dream sequence Dr. Grant has on the plane with the raptor, it’s just…ugh!