Live Review: Jurassic Park (25th Anniversary) in Concert @ SEC Armadillo, Glasgow (14/09/18)

Last year I was lucky enough to see Raiders of the Lost Ark in Concert featuring the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Essentially this is a screening of the original film with the music removed and instead an orchestra plays the score live. I enjoyed the experience so much that when I saw a similar experience was being produced for Jurassic Park's 25th Anniversary, this time with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, I was ecstatic.

Jurassic Park is one of my favourite ever films if not my all time favourite. This is in part due to my obsession with dinosaurs as a child; I devoured everything dinosaur related that I could and had, even at 7 years old, read the Michael Crichton novel before seeing the film. I don't pretend to have understood much of it at that age though, it's pretty "hard science" sci-fi. I still remember the amazing experience of seeing Jurassic Park for the first (and only) time on the big screen and my young mind was well and truly blown. That experience, nearly jeapordised by the fact that I nervously nibbled holes out of the cinema tickets, (I was a weird kid and I told you I devoured everything dinosair related I could...) cemented my love of film. The story is wonderful, the special effects amazing and the soundtrack by John Williams, absolutely iconic.

That iconic soundtrack is why it makes perfect sense for a film such as Jurassic Park to be developed into a concert experience.

So, how well does the movie hold up 25 years on? In a word; stupendously. Not a word to be bandied about but in this instance it's more than appropriate. The story is utterly captivating; a billionaire is opening a theme park where the main attractions are genetically engineered dinosaurs but his investors have cold feet and call in scientists to take the tour and endorse the park. Ultimately everything goes wrong, the dinosaurs escape and people die. This sets up some of the most intense cinematic moments ever seen. The T-rex attack, the Raptors in the kitchen and of course "sexy-wounded-open-shirt Dr Ian Malcolm". The special effects are still incredible and put many modern films to shame; they actually built a full scale animatronic T-rex for goodness sake ("Say again? We have a T-rex").

But what about the orchestra!? I hear you cry. They were excellent. In this kind of experience I think the true test of the orchestra is the music being so seamless that you get sucked into the movie and at times forget they're even there. At the intermission I overheard people saying they felt bad that they were watching the film and not the orchestra. To that I would say that the musicians are there to be heard and to expand the experience of the film and not detract from it so I was quite happy to get carried away watching the movie. The end credit sequence was where the orchestra really got to flex it's muscles and could afford a louder and more bombastic performance. Easily the best end credits sequeence I've ever seen.

Should you go and see Jurassic Park in Concert? If you love the film, you absolutely should. If you're a fan of unique cinematic experiences, you absolutely should. If you're anyone else and have a couple of hours to spare, you absolutely should.

Tickets are still available for tonight's performance at Usher Hall in Edinburgh.

"Remind me to thank John for a lovely weekend."

 DOES JURASSIC PARK ACTUALLY SUCK? FIND OUT HERE.