Jurassic Parkathon - Jurassic Park III

Welcome to the Jurassic Parkathon

So… Jurassic Park III came out in 2001, and was the first Jurassic Park film not to have the direction of Steven Spielberg, and didn’t have a book to base it on (even one that’s ignored) You can see the warning flags already

Joe Johnston is directing this film and he’s not untalented, having directed Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Jumanji and later heading into Marvel to direct Captain America: The First Avenger. He also did Pagemaster, but you can’t get everything right.

But there were some issues in production. The original script was rejected for being ‘too complicated’ 5 weeks before filming was due to begin. You might not surprised then that the eventual script was unfinished when shooting began and the ending had to be done during reshoots as it wasn’t finished during the original filming.

The movie was successful, making over $350m on its $93m budget but with a budget inflated and diminishing returns, it was clear the franchise had reached the end of its road, for the time being. Here are some thoughts

Because someone is a f*cking idiot, a kid and his ‘relative?’ Go paragliding right by an island that restricted because of killer dinosaurs. It ends just as badly as you might expect. We return to Alan (Sam Neill), who is no longer with Ellie Sattler (cameo by Laura Dern) because Johnson thought she looked too young for him (there may some validity to that, there is a 19-year age difference, although it isn’t exactly optimistic)

Anyway, Alan and his new partner Billy (I mean work partner, don’t get any ideas fan-fic writers, who am I kidding?) are approached by Paul and Amanda Kirby (William H Macy and Téa Leoni) who offer Alan much money to go to Isla Sorna and act as their guide. It quickly turns out it’s a cover and they’re really there to rescue the kid from the opening. Err, that kid landed on an island filled with killer dinosaurs and as we find out later has been there for 8 weeks, by all conceivable logic, that kid is dead, but it’s a Jurassic Park movie so conceivable logic is all an illusion, it just takes a lazy screenwriter to shatter that illusion.

On the island they come across the Spinosaurus, which quickly eats up the extras and then kills the T-rex. Wow, erm, that’s ballsy, not particularly bright as the T-rex was basically the star of the franchise but way to sell you on the main dinosaur villain… wait, what’s that, Billy idiotically steals raptor eggs and much of the movie is about getting them back, so the Raptors are technically the main villain? So, what was the point of that?

OK, positives, what positives can I give? Well, it’s nice to see some new dinosaurs get involved, from the Pterosaurs to the Spinosaurus each having unique and entertaining scenes. The actual action with dinosaurs remains consistently good looking and relatively suspenseful. That completes the positives of my review. This film sucks!

So, acting, there is some of that in this. Sam Neill’s acting feels like he’d rather be literally anywhere else, but he’s Shakespearian compared to the woeful performances of William H Macy and, in particular, Téa Leoni. I don’t know how much of this is down to the lacklustre direction this time around or whether it’s the godawful dialogue we get this time around.

The kid isn’t so bad, he’s actually pretty tolerable. I guess the Sixth Sense, the most acclaimed Shyamalan movie, helped him out there and I’m glad to see he had a bit of a career after this movie. I will say he kinda goes to being your general Jurassic Park kid after his first scene and has to be rescued a bunch.

But there’s one major problem, the tone. There’s a scene where the Spinosaurus, who somehow ended up sneaking up on our heroes despite being the size of a small building, is discovered because the phone inside his stomach is ringing. A 3D model of a Raptor’s vocal chords can be used like a flute and actually confuse raptors. Yeah, that’s totally how that works. The kid surviving for 8 weeks on his own also borders on cartoon logic

There are times when dinosaurs are fully rendered in CG, and it looks appalling. This was a mid-high budgeted movie for 2001, there’s no excuse for effects that look that bad.

And then there’s the ending… I’m not gonna talk about the ending, just know it’s a bit of a dues ex-machina and it makes little sense; also how is Billy still alive! Also, also, the Pterosaurs escape and fly to the mainland (again) but that’ll never be mentioned again. I guess at around 90 minutes it’s blessedly short, so there’s that.

Jurassic Park 3 is over the top and cartoonish, but bogged done with cr*ppy stuff involving character divorce and rekindling romances. It lacks interesting characters, memorable performances, any semblance of logic and any sense of wonder. It’s no wonder we’d wait another decade for this franchise to return

Rating 30/100