Hugely Successful Novel Works Well As A Movie

Rating: 9/10 (10 December 2016)

Before the smaller, slender, more harmless looking Dilophosaurus turned aggressive, the Tyrannosaurus Rex lived up to its fierce reputation, and Dennis Nedry attempted to make off with the Barbasol can of dinosaur embryos, I had already watched my favorite scene. When Paleontologhist Alan Grant (Sam Neill), and the park creator's grandchildren, Lex and Tim Murphy (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello), first hiked through the park, looking in amazement as herds of swiftly running Gallimimuses, swooping pterodactyls, and plodding brachiosauruses appeared all about them, they reacted so appropriately that the action and suspense that followed felt a little anti-climatic. Astonished and wide-eyed, Lex and Tim Murphy innocently asked questions, and wise Dr. Grant imparted his knowledge when he wasn't shaking his head incredulously each time he saw another enormous, heretofore extinct reptile.
The performances, images, script, and the scenes featuring the rampaging tyranasaurus as it thundered after the jeep or plucked a man from an outhouse toilet, all deserve very high marks. For me and possibly for other viewers, though, who as 8 year-olds had read about the brontosaurus, allosaurus, stegosaurus, and triceratops, and had played and pretended with little plastic versions of them, the makers of Jurassic Park had to present the first human-dinosaur encounter very believably. To me, they did.