Jurassic Park (1993)

"I hope these dangerous killing machines don't escape." They escaped. And thirty-odd years on, I still grip the armrest when the Tyrannosaurus Rex appears in the rain, the water trembling in a puddle just before everything goes catastrophically wrong. That single image tells you everything about what Steven Spielberg could do at the height of his powers. He doesn't just put a monster on screen. He makes you feel it coming.

Jurassic Park is, quite simply, one of the great blockbusters. The premise, bringing dinosaurs back to life through genetic engineering and sticking them in a theme park for tourists, is brilliantly constructed. It gives you the spectacle you came for, but it also gives you something to chew on. The science is nonsense, obviously, but it's convincing nonsense, delivered with enough confidence that you buy every word. The film earns its thrills because it does the groundwork first.

What still genuinely impresses me is the effects work. The blend of CGI and practical animatronics was revolutionary at the time, and the remarkable thing is it doesn't feel dated. Compare it to plenty of modern blockbusters drowning in digital noise and Jurassic Park looks sharper, more tactile, more real. When a Velociraptor moves through a kitchen, stalking two terrified kids, every frame holds up. That sequence in particular is as tense as anything Spielberg has ever put together, which is saying something when you look at a filmography that includes Duel.

The cast does exactly what the film needs them to do. Jeff Goldblum essentially plays chaos theory as a personality, and it's perfect. Sam Neill is the reluctant hero who genuinely earns his arc. Richard Attenborough brings warmth and a hint of tragedy to a man who created something magnificent and catastrophically misjudged it. Nobody is phoning it in, and that groundedness stops the whole thing from floating away into pure spectacle.

Then there's John Williams. The main theme is one of those pieces of music that hits somewhere deep in the chest, the kind of melody that makes an ordinary landscape look like a miracle. When it swells as the dinosaurs are first revealed, it captures something rare in blockbuster filmmaking: genuine wonder. Not manufactured awe, not CGI-assisted bombast, but something closer to the feeling of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, that childlike sense of being in the presence of something extraordinary.

Spielberg in the 1990s was operating at a level very few directors ever reach. The pacing here is tight without feeling rushed. He lets the film breathe in its early stages, building character and wonder before the danger arrives, which makes the terror land that much harder when it does. It's a film that respects your intelligence while also making sure you're having the time of your life.

I should say, and I'll be honest about this: the franchise that followed didn't always honour what this film built. I've sat through The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III, and while there are moments worth having, neither comes close to recapturing what made the original so special. This first film stands apart. It's the one that got it right.

A blockbuster with brains, wonder, and just the right amount of terror. Four stars.

Rating: ★★★★  | Year: 1993  | Watched: 2025-04-14

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
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Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Steven Spielberg: Duel (1971) · Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) · E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) · The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
More with Sam Neill: Jurassic Park III (2001)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More science fiction: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Fantastic Planet (1973) · Nightmare City (1980) · The Long Walk (2025)