'Jurassic Park 3D' review: Nonstop fun

Audiences accustomed to routine technological breakthroughs in the movies -- "Avatar" in 2009, "Life of Pi" just this past November -- might be wondering how the rerelease of Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster "Jurassic Park" will fare in 2013. Will those computer-animated dinosaurs look as breathtaking as they did 20 years ago, even magnified in IMAX and converted to 3-D?

The answer is yes, though the magic lies less in the pixels than in the storytelling. Based on Michael Crichton's novel about scientists who clone living dinosaurs for an island theme park, "Jurassic Park" remains an absolute thrill from a Spielberg in top form: Funny, scary, fast-moving and full of just-right details. (The terrific script comes from David Koepp, of "Spider-Man," "The Paper" and many others.)

Granted, Sam Neill as our hero, the paleontologist Alan Grant, is no Indiana Jones (despite his straw hat and red neckerchief), and his two young charges (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello) remain mostly generic "kids." But that's what supporting casts are for, and "Jurassic Park" has a great one. Laura Dern, as Dr. Ellie Sattler, brims with mommyish sex appeal; Richard Attenborough blends kindness and madness as park mastermind John Hammond; and two small but juicy roles go to Wayne Knight (Newman From "Seinfeld") and a pre-fame Samuel L. Jackson (playing, of all things, a grouchy IT guy).

That's not even counting Jeff Goldblum, whose Dr. Ian Malcolm is the film's most implausible and pleasurable character, a swaggering chaos theorist with the vocabulary of Carl Sagan and the wardrobe of Jim Morrison. Coming on strong with unbuttoned shirt and suggestive talk of "strange attractors," Goldblum's Malcolm chews the scenery as heartily as the dinosaurs do.

Speaking of which, the friendly brachiosaurses, vicious velociraptors and Kong-like T. Rex are all as wondrous as you remember, even if Stan Winston's animatronics have more charm than realism. Though it's too early to tell, "Jurassic Park" might once again be the most enjoyable movie of the summer.

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Here's what four major movie critics had to say about the original "Jurassic Park" when it hit theaters on June 11, 1993: