Some things dead, should stay dead

Rating: 9/10 (26 July 2016)

As a kid I so well remember my younger brother and those dinosaur toys he had as a kid. We've seen dinosaurs in film before going back to the silent version of The Lost World. But they were never better shown than when Steven Spielberg made Jurassic Park out of Michael Crichton's novel. These put other screen dinosaurs to shame.
Through some cloning billionaire Richard Attenborough has succeeded in recreating those long dead creatures of the past and now has a theme park, Jurassic Park. All the herbivores and the carnivores of the past are now alive. But when you come right down to it, Attenborough has just become another Dr. Frankenstein. Some things dead should stay dead.
At least that's what scientists Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum try to tell him. And I have to admit Attenborough does have state of the art security. But he has a greedy employee in Wayne Knight who has made a secret deal with some rival tycoon. His greed brings the whole operation to disaster as dinosaurs start running amuck.
The tyrannosaurus rexes and the raptors are what captured the imagination of the public when Jurassic Park was reached. Up to that time dinosaurs when they were on screen were slow moving behemoths. Spielberg's dinosaurs have some speed to them, far more like what they were in the Jurassic Age.
I have to say I loved Wayne Knight's performance in Jurassic Park. He's such a loathsome creep, but also a real putz. The end he meets is truly just.
Jurassic Park and its successors and imitators have brought about a renewed interest in paleontology. That's always healthy in any society, an interest in the sciences.
My brother Daniel loved this film when it came out. As will you.