Jurassic Park

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Re-released to coincide with the release of the trilogy on Blu-Ray (with a thousand new features you don't really need), JP is a spectacle. The plot is thin on the ground: old coot does some DNA jiggery-pokery that allows him to breed dinosaurs and invites a small number of special guests to marvel at his creation. Then things go pear-shaped. Big time.

Not much there, sure, but Spielberg did create images and sequences that have burned into the memory: the first glimpse of that dinosaur who, on its hind legs, reaches for leaves at the top of the tree; Sam Neill's crazed eyes as he scrambles to yank off his sunglasses; the T-Rex attack; that guy on the toilet; the glass of water; Wayne Knight trying to convince himself that that cute dino is 'nice' and any scene involving those Raptors. On top of that you got the charismatic Attenborough and scene-stealer Jeff Goldblum's deadpan delivery: "that's one big pile of shit."

Characterisation is a little threadbare too: Neill's Dr. Grant is the only one who approaches any kind of development - he doesn't like kids but then likes kids, which isn't insightful really. In the years since I've come to empathise with Grant. He's a technophobe like me – if he even looks at a computer it crashes. I always felt that I should be employed by Apple or IBM: give me five minutes with your new product and I will find a million problems and glitches. Like Grant, I too found kids annoying but now look forward to the birth of my first.

Looking back now, the casting was a bit strange. There were no 'stars'. In the run up the release, Laura Dern only had David Lynch's cult hit Wild At Heart under her belt, Sam Neill was always there or thereabouts but no leading man in a major Hollywood vehicle, Jeff Goldblum was a character actor, Samuel L. Jackson wasn't Samuel L. Jackson yet, and who the hell is Richard Attenborough?

But these re-releases are fun, as The Screen on D'Olier Street have proved. Anyone who has been at their John Hughes season, or their screenings of Ghostbusters, Predator, Starship Troopers et al will know the atmosphere re-watching childhood favourites creates. This will be fun but don't be surprised if the novelty wears off towards the finale (which always ended quite suddenly, didn't it? It was if they just ran out of ideas and just called time). That said, I'll probably go.

By the way, please don't buy Blu-Ray. I'm asking for selfish reasons: I can't afford to update my movie library again. If we all dump our DVDs, like we did our videos, and get on the Blu-Ray boat, they'll only bring out Green-Ray or some nonsense. It's a con, I tells ya!