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Jurassic
Park 3
(2001) |
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It's some eight years after a T-Rex romped and chomped its way through San Diego. Off the coast of Costa Rica, a second island near the original breeding site has become an unlikely and illegal tourist attraction for a child and his companion. Unfortunately they end up marooned on the island. Weeks later the child's estranged parents (Macy and Leoni) manage to con Dr. Allan Grant (Neill), our palaeontologist from the original Jurassic Park, into helping them navigate the island in search of their lost son. Inevitably, they come up against some old friends as well as some new ones.
The third instalment of the Jurassic Park series has received the least hype of the trio. In fact whatever hype there has been has been negative. Steven Spielberg opted out after his lazy, uninterested Lost World effort. Even his duties as executive producer were restricted to the very occasional set drop in. William Macy was subsequently apparently misquoted complaining about the mess the film had become. Much of this could have turned out quite positively if the film actually turned out to be good. Unfortunately, Jurassic Park III is the weakest of the three films. Jurassic Park was a benchmark in effects and had a good deal of wonderfully executed set pieces. The Lost World still offered some memorable scenes in between some shockingly weak ones. You had for example the T-Rex attack on the trailer or the velociraptor attack sequence in the grasses. JP III sadly provides nothing comparable. The other inherent problem in all three films but particularly accentuated in the latest version is the fact that dinosaurs have to be made child friendly and that necessitates that the scares be toned down. Every time we are promised a darker, scarier film and every time the film becomes less gripping than its predecessor. In JP III the accent is firmly on stunning rather than scaring the audience with the dinosaurs. In that the film succeeds. The magnificent beasts are as well realised as you could imagine. The Raptors glow with vivid new colours and there are debuts for the flying pterodactyls and the 'successor' to the T-Rex - a 'super' predator called Spinosaurus. But while the effects are once again breathtaking that is all we get. The film may be exciting in bits but it is hardly ever suspenseful let alone frightening. So we may marvel at the pterodactyls in flight but we are never scared by them. There is not a single sequence of sustained tension. I also have to say that Joe Johnston has much to answer for by doing his best to turn the Raptors into cuddly creatures. In addition, as if to announce that JP III was the brash new kid on the block, Johnston has also decided to promote the Spinosaurus as a replacement to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Well, Spinosaurus may have come out on top in the skirmish shown in the film but it will never have the charisma of the T-Rex. The performances are entirely forgettable. Sam Neil does his reluctant palaeontologist in peril routine and Macy and Leoni as the estranged parents have little to do except follow out an absolutely needless rapprochement sub plot. Along with the T-Rex, Laura Dern also makes a pointless special appearance. In fact the characters are so unendearing that you would never root for them against the dinosaurs. By the end of the film you wish that the raptors would afford the humans a slow and painful death. Jurassic Park
is a major disappointment and I have a feeling that after their
latest outing the dinosaurs could be in for a long hibernation
if not quite the extinction they suffered 65 million years ago.
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