Like many, I was probably too young to watch Jurassic Park on first viewing. It wasn't the raptors in the kitchen which scared me, it was the dilophosaurus exploding at Newman, then spitting venom at him and then eating him in the car which disturbed and horrified me unlike anything I saw before it.
But like all kids, being scared is the ultimate form of entertainment and that's one of the reasons why Spielberg's masterpiece is still revered today. That and the groundbreaking special effects which even today look superb no matter how many times you think rose-tinted glasses play a role in it.
Jurassic Park never got the sequel it deserved. The Lost World: Jurassic Park was a mess which saw Jeff Goldblum return to try and save another island's free roaming beasts from an evil corporation which ends on a forty minute epilogue in San Diego which, even as a youngster, felt like padding.
Jurassic Park III in the meanwhile tried to streamline and make a simple rescue mission. What we got was an annoying female lead, special effects that looked better a decade earlier and non-inspiring set-pieces which, for intents and purposes killed the franchise stone dead for over a decade.
Thankfully, in an era of superhero movies, no ideas and nostalgia and much like the resurrected dinosaurs, life finds a way and the series is back; bigger, brighter and possibly...better than ever?
