Sure some things have changed — no reserved seating, social distancing reminder stickers on the floor, Plexiglas at registers, reduced $5 admission, etc. — but it still promised a good time.
If one wanted to escape a world altered by the coronavirus pandemic, enjoying a blockbuster in the comfort of a cool theater during the summer would top my list most days of the week.
Frank Lee
The Baxter theater brought back that magical feeling for moviegoers of experiencing a movie together even if what the Mann Theatres-owned venue was offering was hits from years past.
A recent Mann Theatres survey resulted in about 1,200 responses, according to officials, and among the questions asked was what kind of movies people wanted to watch when theaters reopened during a time when many movie studios pushed back their release dates.
As for the first movie that I chose to see at the Lakes 12 after it reopened June 26 was “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” the Steven Spielberg sequel to his monster hit from 1993.
With climate change, a politically divided country in turmoil in a recession and COVID-19, an imaginary world with larger-than-life dinosaurs seemed oddly less scary to me than reality.
The 1997 science fiction adventure film stars the idiosyncratic Jeff Goldblum, the talented and versatile Julianne Moore and a young Vince Vaughn in a San Diego-based creature feature.
But let’s be honest. The main attraction of the Jurassic Park film franchise is and has always been the snaggly tooth, voracious, man-eating dinosaurs and that’s what I wanted to see.
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Unlike some, I also enjoy the sneak previews or the movie trailers of upcoming attractions played before the feature presentation even if they’re available on social media and YouTube.
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” “The King’s Man” and “Tenet” were shown for the audience before the PG-13 movie started on the big screen; the first two are part of well-established franchises.
But as the lights dimmed and the silence was replaced by the Universal Pictures brass instrument-intro and the sounds of drums, the adrenaline kicked in — now doubt fueled by a caffeinated soda following months of abiding by the stay-at-home order by the governor.
John Williams had returned to score “The Lost World: Jurassic Park.” The Oscar-winning composer provided the music for many critically acclaimed and popular movies, such as the “Star Wars,” the Indiana Jones and the “Superman” film franchises that are ingrained in our culture.
“The Lost World: Jurassic Park” finds Goldblum’s character, a mathematician and survivor of the first film, discredited and dismissed by the public after he tries to warn people of the danger.
Much to his dismay, he comes to learn from there is a second island of genetically engineered dinosaurs that a nefarious corporation plans to relocate to San Diego as a tourist attraction.
What could go wrong? It turns out plenty — plenty of jump-scares, action sequences and close-ups of a Tyrannosaurus breathing down the intrepid adventures’ proverbial necks.
I don’t believe I have seen the Michael Crichton movie since it first hit theaters, but the family-friendly franchise was minimal on gore with most of the munching taking place off-screen.
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One of the reasons for me to see a movie is to experience the extraordinary, like a dinosaur brought back to life, and the special effects are admirably seamless in shots with the actors.
“The Lost World: Jurassic Park” was profitable for the movie studio that produced it and so it was followed four years later by “Jurassic Park III,” which was not directed by Spielberg.
“The Lost World: Jurassic Park” was well aware of what made the original film a hit judging from the dialogue in the sequel delivered by a talented cast that could sell the preposterous premise.
Chuckle-worthy lines include Goldblum telling those who have the sense to listen, “Oh, yeah. ‘Ooh and aah!’ That’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and, um, screaming.”
Or the park’s owner revealing to Goldblum the existence of a second dinosaur-filled island by saying, “Don’t worry. I’m not making the same mistakes again,” to which the chaos theorist replies “No, you’re making all new ones.”
“The Lost World: Jurassic Park” held the record for the biggest opening weekend in history until 2001 when it was surpassed by “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” which will return to the silver screen at the Lakes 12 starting Friday, July 10.
The Jurassic Park franchise was rebooted with “Jurassic World” in 2015, featuring Chris Pratt from TV’s “Parks and Recreation,” and Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
“Jurassic World” was followed by “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” in 2018, and “Jurassic World: Dominion” is scheduled to be released in 2021, a testament to the popularity of the franchise.
“Jurassic World: Dominion” started filming in February, but the production was halted in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming was scheduled, however, to resume this week with several health precautions in place, including COVID-19 testing and social distancing.
Until then, audiences can enjoy “Jurassic Park III” — another PG-13 movie which starts Friday, July 10, at the Lakes 12 Theatre in Baxter — so they can expect more terrifying thrills from the bone-crunching dinosaurs in the 2001 sequel in the original Spielberg trilogy. … “Bon appétit!”