"But when the pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists."

Rating: 8/10 (7 April 2004)

A grandfatherly mad man has created dinosaurs for his park. Dinosaur digging experts Sam Neil, his girlfriend Laura Dern, and math genius Jeff Goldblum are brought to the island to inspect the place. Naturally, everything that could possibly go wrong does go wrong and Sam is forced to lead two kids back to the safety of the main headquarters on the island.
Followed by two inferior sequels - "Lost World: Jurassic Park" which had Jeff, Jeff's girlfriend Julianne Moore and Jeff's adopted black daughter being towed around another island that was a breeding facility and "JP 3" which had Sam Neil rescuing a hapless couple and their son from another island. Neither film was particularly good.
JP 1, however, is a classic. The humans may take a backseat to the special effects, some of the best I've ever seen, but they do what they can to make you sympathize with them. Jeff is fun to watch as usual as a quirky genius. Too bad he's on his back for most of the film (and not in that sense either). Only real complaints are over length and some logic errors (like why the little boy doesn't try to get the gun to Sam and Laura when they're holding the door against the rapters).