"The point is, you are alive when they start to eat you."

Rating: 8/10 (1 July 2006)

As a fan of 'B' grade sci-fi and horror films of the 1930's through the '50's, I always get a kick out of the scientific rationale offered behind some new experiment or discovery. In "Jurassic Park", dinosaurs have left behind their blueprints as preserved DNA strands in the blood of prehistoric mosquitoes trapped in amber - I love it!!! Could anything sound more convincing to make you believe that dinosaur cloning is possible?
The buzz surrounding this monster film in 1993 took the movie world by storm, and with good reason. Here finally was a film where dinosaurs actually looked real, and responding just the way we might be inclined to think of them. A brachiosaurus nibbles from the tops of trees and tyrannosaurs literally shake the ground they walk on. There were even a few creatures thrown into the mix I'd never heard of when reading about dinosaurs as a kid - like when were velociraptors discovered? Seeing the movie the first time I thought they were invented for the film until I did some research.
Now one or two beasts at a time is remarkable enough, but the scene that really mesmerized me was the dinosaur stampede, once again with creatures I never knew about. If one is a gallimimus, would more than one be gallimimuses or gallimimi? Just wondering.
You would expect outstanding performances from the principal players, and all did well, but I found the acting of the kids (Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards) to be exceptional. Their expressions of wonder, awe, excitement and outright terror are conveyed as convincingly as if they suddenly found themselves actually surrounded by live dinosaurs. Ariana Richards' expression in particular, in the scene where her brother might have been electrocuted is almost heartbreaking.
"Jurassic Park" is one of those pictures you can take literally when it comes to a movie going 'experience'. The film was the first to be recorded in DTS digital surround sound, thereby adding to it's thrill as an auditory as well as visual treat. A little over a decade since it's original release, it's the kind of movie that just begs for the home theater treatment.