Jurassic Park III (2001)

What Can We Do with Dinosaurs This Time?

When Jurassic Park III was being made, I'm sure the people who heard about it had to wonder: what was the point? The Lost World was as weak as a sequel could be. The original novelty of Jurassic Park, that of seeing lifelike dinosaurs on a big movie screen, had disappeared long ago. How many more movies did we need to see about the same old raptors and T-rexes chasing around and eating people? Wasn't the concept already old?

I guess the philosophy behind movies like this is that special effects will sell and that no one really expects anything more than a good ol' thrill ride during the summer blockbuster season. A good ol' thrill ride is pretty much what Jurassic Park III turns out to be. The movie-makers had a lot of potential to explore in terms of science fiction; the last movie ended with the world having full knowledge that a whole island of dinosaurs was thriving. What impact could this possibily have on science and the dinosaurs' place on earth? Well, the filmmakers decided to ditch any scientific mumbo-jumbo and went with a straight-to-the-point horror/chase flick. Jurassic Park III requires little brain-power to contemplate its almost non-existent plot; instead, it tries to sustain audiences with one dinosaur chase after another.

The nearly non-existent plot is this: Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill, reprising his role from the first movie) is lured by a couple (William H. Macy and Téa Leoni) to guide them on a tourist flight over Isla Sorna, home of the dinos. The couple's real purpose for visiting the island is not what they told Grant, although the truth isn't all that complicated either. Foolishly, against Grant's wishes, the plane lands on the island and is subsequently wrecked. The party of people runs from dinosaurs on the island in an attempt to reach the shore.

The real meat of the movie comes from the dinosaur sequences. There's no chaos theory stuff this time, no poachers regretting the morality of their profession, no tampering-with-nature-is-very-very-bad lessons. You come to watch the dinos. For that, the movie is pretty fun. The special effects team can still make incredibly convincing dinosaurs. Highlights include:

- A new villainous gigantic carnivore: the Spinosaurus.

- Raptors who can communicate with each other and have high intelligence.

- Perhaps the most marvelous of the new creatures: the Pteranodons. They're the flying dinosaurs (although I didn't like to see their flying portrayed with flapping wings; I had always learned that the wings served as gliders, and that they didn't flap to land on braches and things like that).

- An exciting but sadly brief fight between Spinosaurus and Tyrannosaurus Rex.

- New herbivores to gawk at: a stampede of duckbills, and the appearance of Ankylosaurs (turtle-like dinos with heavily armored shells).

The best scenes involve the Pteranodons, but the other scenes are mostly just run-and-hide chases again. I really wanted to see more dinosaur fights, like the one with Spinosaurus and T-rex. I mean, we all loved the face-off between King Kong and a T-rex, right? Or how about the Godzilla movies where the monsters fight each other? And aren't we all captivated by Discovery Channel shows depicting predator and prey in their deadly cat-and-mouse games? I guess I'm not asking for a full-blown nature show here, but it really is getting a bit tiresome just watching people run from the dinos. Some get eaten, some don't. We expect this now, and the movie becomes less thrilling because of these expectations. We end up playing guessing games like who's-going-to-die-next and who's-going-to-live instead of getting truly thrilled or excited.

Jurassic Park III delivers a mostly satisfactory dino-show, but it does leave one with an empty feeling upon leaving the theater. As far as summer rides go, it'll do nicely. But, note to the filmmakers, this is it, ok? Next time (and you've promised that there will be a next time), crank up the creativity before we really start getting bored.

Rating: 6/10

©Jeffrey Chen, Jul. 22, 2001

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