I couldn’t sleep last night so I watched Jurassic Park III. What more do you need to know? This one is pretty unnecessary in the franchise history. The original Jurassic Park was an amazing, exciting film directed by Steven Spielberg. I loved it, saw it many times. The sequel, The Lost World, was not nearly as good and falls apart on repeated viewing, going on a little too long and getting bogged down by that trip to America. This is the first of the franchise not directed by Spielberg and it has a different feel.
Directed by Joe Johnston, this one tried to be bigger and badder than the previous installments. He introduced the spinosaurus, bigger and scarier than the T-Rex, as the main bad guy our heroes face but I was unimpressed, not of the Dino but of the cynicism of the story trope. Universal, kind of, does this again in Jurassic World, much later but it makes more sense in that film than this one, for better or worse. I did like the way the series, including part three here did update their velociraptor looks and attitudes, as the science about them also improved. Johnston is a fine director, I like The Rocketeer and Captain America: The First Avenger was good as well, but this one just felt wrong. There were some great moments, I loved the pteranodon sequence but that wasn’t hard, I love pteranodons. Watching the pteranodon walk on its wing stalks out of the mist gave me chills.
-via IMDB.com
The story features Sam Neill, reprising his role from the first film, being tricked into helping the Kirbys, played by Tea Leoni and William H. Macy, search for their son on Isla Sorna. While there, the plane crashes, chaos ensues and characters are killed and eaten. They are hunted by the aforementioned spinosaurus and a pack of velociraptors that are seeking the return of their stolen eggs, snatched up by Grant’s assistant.
The best parts of this film are the ones that don’t play a huge role in the story. Grant trying to teach paleontology in a world where everyone knows about the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park is quite a thoughtful inclusion that is underdeveloped: How do we stay relevant when our jobs are, technically, obsolete? Apart from the pteranodon entrance, I was mostly checked out of this one. Grant waking up on a plane beside a talking velociraptor just shut this one down for me. The attempts to out-scare us with bigger and badder just didn’t work for me.
You can find this one in lots of places. They are making a second Jurassic World now so expect to see more of it and the other films in the coming years. It passes the time but it isn’t very engaging, unfortunately.
-via IMDB.com
