Jurassic Park 3

One of the longer reviews I've written, but every word is relevant. Well, almost every word.

SUMMARY

Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) is conned into searching for a lost 12-year-old (Trevor Morgan) on dino-infested Isla Nublar by divorced parents (William H. Macy, Tea Leoni) who don't deserve a kid so much smarter than the both of them combined.


RECOMMENDED FOR:

People who can't get enough of seeing dinosaurs chase humans.


REVIEW

Remember Arthur Dent's reaction to the beast who asked him to eat him at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, in the book of that title?

Let me clarify. Let's say you are in a seafood restaurant one day, and ordered a live, fresh lobster. It arrives on a platter and prefers to say, "hey, Bub!" in perfect English. Do you eat it, or do you shake your head at this ridiculous crustacean and order something else?

This is just one of the many questions Jurassic Park 3 poses to the audience. I kid you not.

The Jurassic Park franchise seems to be headed on a trend lying somewhere in between the two other sequel-spawning Spielberg franchises, Jaws and Indiana Jones. Jaws is such a cultural staple that if any filmmaker wants to make a shark-attack film without the Jaws label and successfully escape the shadow of Spielberg, he's going to need a bigger boat. Similarly, the sheer cultural phenomenon of the first Jurassic Park marked it as the definitive movie blending dinosaurs and humans. From that point onward, it became an unwritten rule that any other film involving dinosaurs and humans had to be one of two things: a JP sequel or a JP ripoff. Since projects brandable as inevitable ripoffs are not exactly viewed by studios as potential commercial successes - just look at how Small Soldiers tried to pick up on Toy Story - the chances of a movie involving interactions between humans and dinosaurs without the Jurassic Park label are virtually extinct.

This happened with sharks and Jaws, and the abominable sequels are remembered today only as an argument against sequels, or as an analogy to other franchises that are being bled to death, such as the one I am discussing right now. Fortunately, there is one major difference between the Shark and the Park: the Jurassic Park franchise continues to deliver what it is best at - outstanding special effects and exciting action sequences. Furthermore, it appears that dino-attack movies are still in demand, and that is to the franchise's commercial credit.

The Lost World was the Temple Of Doom of the Jurassic Park franchise. The dinosaurs and the action were solid enough, but there was a distractingly large departure from an aspect in which the first film was successful. Temple Of Doom holed Indy up in a single location instead of letting him roam from location to location in an epic and adventurous manner that was captured in Raiders. The Lost World was a good movie, a mediocre Jurassic Park and a piss-poor novel adaptation that somehow decided to become a Godzilla spoof in its final half-hour, serving as a slap on Steven Spielberg's wrist and scolding him in a whiny voice: "Didn't 1941 teach you not to make any more comedies?" Both films were sequels that were only worthy successors in effects and action, and nothing else. The Last Crusade, however, replicated the other successful elements of Raiders Of The Lost Ark quite well, bringing back Nazis, a well-known Biblical artifact and a lot of traveling on Indy's part, while adding enough fresh material on its own right to be interesting.

Jurassic Park 3 does not match up to Jurassic Park to quite the same extent as Crusade does to Raiders, but is indeed a good recovery from the inappropriately comical flaws that plagued The Lost World. What it lacks is the thematic and sensitive elements of the first JP about creation, ecological balance, playing God, and the ethics of applying science and technology. However, since that ground has been covered somewhat sufficiently already, that is not to be expected of this three-quel. What is expected is more humans defending themselves from spectacularly-rendered dinosaur effects that run after them.

Well, not only do said dinosaurs run - they swim and fly, too.

That said - Jurassic Park 3 is an exercise in more dinosaur effects, which as mentioned earlier, is something on which the JP label has a monopoly. It delivers. Sure, some of the wider shots reveal lacking detail in the shading and texturing. Sure, we don't get any legendary and iconic images like the T-Rex in the first JP as seen in the rear-view mirror of the Jeep, or letting out a mighty roar while a "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" banner floats to the floor. In fact, Jurassic Park 3 is a continuous barrage of dinosaurs chasing the lead characters, with a requisite supply of expendable redshirts for the carnivores to rip into shreds while everyone else runs off. This is something that works for a target audience that wants to see exactly that. It will not work for everyone.

Joe Johnston isn't Spielberg as an action director, but manages to carry the torch quite smoothly. Don Davis doesn't carry John Williams' torch quite so smoothly, but the occasional swelling repetition of the Jurassic Park theme suffices, since this entire movie is a swelling repitition of the theme of dinosaurs attacking humans, where variations at different tempos are played on two new instruments that have never been seen in great capacity before - the Spinosaur and the Pteranodon.

The Spinosaur seems to be marketed as the highlight of the movie, but this sort of overpromotion trips over on itself. While it is indeed quite the beast, it is a blaring advertisement reading: "Sick of seeing Tyrannosaurs as the ultimate in appendage removal services? Try our new and improved genetic formula!" This is overtly established by a fight where a Spinosaur makes short work of a T-Rex just to underscore this very point, in a scene that would have been legendary had it been a hell of a lot longer, and is just one of many ways in which this movie is too short.

The Pteranodons, however, are the most successful element of the film; beautifully modeled, and fluidly animated. The swoop-down-and-grab-the-kid scene is done just well enough not to fall apart in a comical manner and become markable as a ripoff of a similar scene in Evolution, which was played too hard for laughs. At least a lesson was learned from The Lost World - if it's intended to be any funnier than a kid covered with Brachiosaur snot, it's not funny, and don't even try to take a back door and convince people it's serious.

The Velociraptors, apparently an indispensable staple of Jurassic Park, are pushed to slightly ludicrous extents that are not utilized nearly enough. So maybe they try to pass off as sentient beings, but can that not be expressed in more meaningful terms than the Talking Lobster Dilemma mentioned earlier in this review?

Those elements are all that need to be covered. Plot? Watch the first one again. See Jurassic Park 3 for a summer one-action-sequence-after-another film, one of many this year, but one involving dinosaurs. See it as an effective sequel that takes into account that the first two films happened at all, as references to the prior events to the franchise are made, successfully linking this film to the others, instead of letting it float off on an island of its own only to be eaten like everything else that ends up on an island in this franchise. See it as a cornball popcorn flick that relies only on its FX budget, and delivers where it counts - action and FX. (To see how such low expectations for a film could possibly be screwed up, see Tomb Raider. Or on second thought, don't.)

And lastly, dear reader, I sincerely hope for your sake that your mother is not as bloody stupid as Tea Leoni's character.

hmmm... i still haven't seen the 2nd JP...

oh heck, i'll wait for the tv release, or the video at the $1 video rental at the corner of the street.

But what a great reviewer IP makes! Quite promising!

Well, you might want to wait a little longer than that to see JPII. Like maybe never. But at least they had the sense to keep III down to about 90 minutes. They ran out of plot a bit before that and quit (sensibly) while they were still ahead.

That movie is NOT, I repeat NOT, N-O-T, worth paying for.

Wait for it to be in videoclubs, when you have a 2 for 1.

Or do like me, go to some CinePark, see it to see The fast and the furious right after.

If you want to see a good movie: pub2.ezboard.com/fbenjami...=130.topic

Better yet, see Shrek for the fourth or fifth time. Or Memento or Moulin Rouge if either are still playing near you. Or A.I.

Or just wait until it hits the discount second-run theatre. It's pretty cheap there.

It wasn't that good. Was there any new music at all? I just heard the Jurassic Park theme played over and over again... I guess the new music wasn't worth remembering.

It ended so abruptly too. One minute they're surrounded by raptors, the next the Marines are on the beach to rescue them. And the thing with the raptor sound chamber was ridiculous - how would he know how to say "help" in raptor-ese?

**Spoilers**

If the raptors are so bright, don't they have stereo hearing? they tought the sound came form away? It was pretty obvious that it was from in front of 'em

The movie was ok, I thought that the raptor language was pretty cool myself. Though, I did have a problem with the boy, who I dubbed "Mriacle Boy". That was a little unbelievable for my taste. Oh well, I really like the Sinosaurus Egyptus. Now that was cool. By the way, you can see the Ingen's been up to quite a bit. :lol:

Jurassic Park 4: The Petradons have landed in New York city and the Spinosaurus has followed them!!!

I think it will be more like

"JP4: Pteradactyls peck the **** out of the Costa Ricans!"

Ahhh, but then the movie would be called "racist".

fine...how bout this...

"JP4: Pteradactyls Peck the **** Out of the People of the country that is Closest to them Which just happens to be Costa Rica. It's Not My Fault that they're so close to the Costa Ricans"

I was just kidding about the racist thing, sorry if you took it to heart.

Just kidding with you

:lol:

Oh yeah! Well uhhhhhh... I was kidding with you about kidding you !!!!