Still great after almost a quarter of a century

Rating: 10/10 (28 June 2017)

After a worker is killed in an accident at the dinosaur theme park 'Jurassic Park' owner John Hammond calls in experts Dr Alan Grant and Dr Ellie Sattler as well as mathematician Ian Malcolm to visit it the park and clear it to open to the public. 'Jurassic Park' is no ordinary theme park; it is on a remote island off the coast of Costa Rica and it contains real dinosaurs! It is explained how these have been created by extracting dinosaur DNA from blood in mosquitoes preserved in amber. The first ones the visitors see are harmless herbivores but they are told that the park also contains some of the most famous carnivores such as Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptor; something that both excites and concerns the scientists. After an introduction the visitors, along with Hammond's grandchildren, Lex and Tim, and the company lawyer take part in a tour of the park. As they travel things go wrong for two reasons; a tropical storm is heading for the island and, more importantly, a corrupt company employee as set up a computer program that will turn off various security systems including the electric fences that protect the guests so he can attempt to steal dinosaur DNA sell it to a competitor. Once things do go wrong those on the tour find themselves fleeing for their lives following a T Rex attack on their vehicles while those at the park headquarters try to find a way to get the systems working again. Inevitably not everybody will get out alive.
Like most people who watched this in the cinema when it was new I was amazed by the special effects that brought long extinct creatures back to life; watching it again over twenty years later and they still look fantastic. If one didn't know that dinosaurs died out millions of years ago you could be excused for thinking you were watching real animals. While these were the films big selling point it would have been for nothing if we didn't also have a good story acted by a fine cast luckily we have both. The action isn't rushed; a significant amount of time is spent introducing all the main characters and explaining the characteristics of the various dinosaurs. This means that by the time everything goes wrong we care about the protagonists and know which characters to look forward to seeing die! There aren't a huge number of deaths and those there are aren't overly gruesome; the goriest moment is the brief sight of a severed arm. Despite its UK-PG rating it is surprisingly intense at times and has plenty of genuinely scary moments. The cast do an impressive job; Sam Neill and Laura Dern impress as the two leads and there are also fine performances from Richard Attenborough, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeff Goldblum and Bob Peck. Child characters are often annoying but Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards are pretty good as Tim and Lex; especially the latter who is a great screamer! Overall I'd defiantly recommend this to anybody wanting a genuinely exciting film that is suitable for most ages.