Jurassic Park (1993)

Twenty years on I still remember watching “Jurassic Park”: A college kid wowed back to age 5: Real dinosaurs chasing people! So it seemed. Even now, Steven Spielberg’s popcorn ride still rocks with “How’d they do that?’ dazzle, long before we overloaded on CGI. You know the plot: Two dinosaur diggers (Sam Neill and Laura Dern) are invited by a P.T. Barnum-type (Richard Attenborough) to see his latest joy ride-slash-money maker: A Pacific island holding a live dinosaur theme park, with the extinct beasts brought back via magical DNA tinkering. The scientists stare in wonder, as do we as moviegoers. Not impressed: A sharp geek (Jeff Goldblum) who dishes on chaos and dumps on the old man’s grab for big smiles and bigger dollars. Naturally, it all goes to hell when a storm and tech glitches set the “controlled” beasts free and they hunt and kill, as dino DNA dictates. That’s part of Spielberg’s genius here: These animals are never the bad guys. They merely are. The glint of power in a rich Scotsman’s eye is plenty danger. This is amazing fun, always will be, with Spielberg mastering that thing he does: Turning childhood wishful fantasies into unshakable adult nightmares. A+

The Lost World (1960)

“The Lost World” is some kind of crazy time capsule flick, a reminder how far most of America and the world has progressed since 1960. Here, a group of explorers led by a pompous professor (Claude Rains) jet to South America to claim what the prof calls “El Dorado,” a forgotten mountain where “dinosaurs” roam and dark-skinned cannibals screech and chase after good white folk. Among the heroes is a helpless, always shrieking lady (Jill St. John) who is repeatedly told a woman’s only place “is in the home” and her venturing outside is dangerous. She agrees. “150,000 years ago or today?,” the “Lost World” poster reads. That’s irony. Then and today, this is a Tea Party GOP’ers warped version of the world, as it was, is, and shall be forever. Hey, it’s an improvement over the 6,000 years thing, right? In the end, all of the white people survive, find wealth, and laugh. All the foreigners die, including the maybe gay guy. I cringed, winced, and, yes, laughed at the sexism and xenophobia, and the ancient special effects that have lizards with glued-on appendages “chasing” people. “Lost World” is accurate. C

Sharknado and Pacific Rim (both 2013)

“Sharknado” and “Pacific Rim.” Two films, two end-of-world disasters. One winner, but not who you or I expect.

There’s a scene at the end of craptastic cheap-o SyFy Channel flick “Sharknado” that drops the mike on “Pacific Rim,” a $200 million summer CGI flick from writer/director Guillermo del Toro. Facing raining sharks, heroic bar owner Ian Ziering (“Beverly Hills, 90210”) grabs a chainsaw (!) and leaps into the mouth (!!!) of a shark as it jumps him (!!!!). He then slices his way out of the beast, dragging with him his blood-soaked barmistresses, who was swallowed hole and mid-air by the same shark moments before. Brilliant! 

That gem of Fuck It! lunacy comes after a god-awful film that’s a high mark of guilty-pleasure joy. (Alternating between pain and hilarity: Watching Tara Reid “act,” girl cannot stand still without appearing as if the act is taxing her I.Q.) 

Shot and edited seemingly on the fly by director Anthony Ferrante, “Sharknado” makes you think, “Why hasn’t anyone done this before?” No wonder this $2 million flick jumped to theaters. This is a film to watch with an audience, preferably drunk. Take a shot every time the light mismatches. (You'll be under the table before 10 minutes are done.)

“Rim” has been dubbed “original” by critics, an odd gesture as the entire premise of giant robots fighting giant dino-monsters has been the fodder of afternoon playtime by millions of 10-year-old boys. Roar!  Punch! Crash! Is there more? No. Every character is “one-note,” from Grieving Action Hero to Angry Australian and Tough Boss. Dull. Among the cast is Idris Elba,a great Brit actor who cannot decide on an accent, his native Brit, or some bad put-on American accent. Mind you, I would never complain to his face.

But this is not about people, only the spectacle of massive Iron Men trash beating Jurassic Park monsters from another dimension. The kick in the face, though: Every battle takes places at night in the rain, or under water in the dark, rendering details blurry. The heart of the 10-year-old inside me sunk. 

Still, a few scenes rule: A baby monster goes after a character in a jump, pause, jump scene that is an absolute howl. Buildings get knocked around, whole ships get used as bats, and -- in a scene that plays like a bunch of kids making up the rules as they go along -- a hero robot pulls out a magic sword to render an opponent asunder. That is not a hidden message, I mean a magic sword is pulled out of no where. The laughter is intended, yes? I hope.

It’s not all a loss. Del Toro, who made child-horror classic “Pan’s Labyrinth,” one of the best films of young century, has great fun with a plot involving two mad scientists –- one a mathematician (Burn Gorman) with the voice of Ludwig Von Drake, and the other a fan boy biologist (Charlie Day) with the personality of Louis Tully from “Ghostbusters.” The duo is joined by Ron “Hellboy” Perlman as a trader of monster flesh who meets a fate crazily similar to that of Ziering in “Sharknado.” But, post credits, he only has a wussy switchblade to freedom. Against a chainsaw, that will not do. Not for del Toro.

Sharknado:  B+ / Pacific Rim: B-