Review: Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Here is yet another example of a movie that is far and away better than the book. I would say that the last 200 pages of Jurassic Park deserve five stars, and the first 200 pages deserve one, hence my three star review. The main problem is that the first 200 pages are bogged down by science. That's not entirely the book's fault, and it's more the movie's, since the film handles that aspect of DNA and creating dinosaurs relatively well. If I had read the book when it originally came out, I would have fallen out of my seat with how brilliant an idea that was concocted for this story. I would also appreciate all the graphs and "realism" put into a story about bringing dinosaurs back to life. But in 2015, with me knowing full well how the dinosaurs are created, it really slowed down the story for me, which is quite good once the dinosaurs start attacking.

That said, Spielberg still did that better, too. I've read a lot of Michael Crichton's books, with Timeline being my favorite, and The Terminal Man being my second favorite, and I can definitely say that this book's action doesn't move as well as those two titles. The action is fine in this story, but it's not as enthralling as some of his other work, so I can't recommend this book when there is a far superior film out there, which I'm sure you've already seen. Plus, Lex in this book is SO annoying. I just wanted her to get eviscerated by a raptor. Overall, see the movie and skip the book. You'll be better off for it.

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