Whenever I watch any film, my first question really is; ‘Is this a film that can justify its own existence’, as in, if this film didnt exist, would I really be sad that it never got made. ‘Jurassic Park 3’ is a film where honestly, had it not been made, i’d have probably been 90 minutes richer.

The plots pretty straight forward Sam Neill returns as Dr. Alan Grant, 8 years on from the events of the first film and notably abscent barring a passing reference in the last film. Here? while he’s still largely doing the whole palentology thing, he’s really more of a fundraiser now than an active member of the field. travelling from campus to campus to give lectures on his theories on Veloceraptors using their throat muscles to communicate hunting instructions and updates to their pack…while also putting sly notes in that funding these researches would be infinitely benefitial to increasingly tepid crowds who are more interested in his experiences in Jurassic Park, or the events his coworker Dr. Malcolm experienced in ‘The Lost World’.

That is until a couple flag him down with a proposition, they wish to visit Isla Sorna as they claim to be thrillseekers looking for the next big thing to add to their extensive lavish lifestyles. They want Alan to effectively be their tour guide as they fly low over the island, to essentially see the animals and get a feel for the majesty of what could have been ‘Jurassic Park’. Alan refuses at first, but the couple offer him a blank cheque and eventually he reluctantly accepts.

Shortly after arriving at the island however, the pilot lets slip that they intend to land the plane, something Alan forbid as part of the terms of him accepting the tour guide role…he’s then promptly knocked out. When he wakes up, the planes landed, and its revealed that the couple who hired him misled him, they arnt a married couple of thrillseekers, they’re divorcees who lost their son 8 weeks ago when a boat trip with him on board skirted past Isla Sorna, got into difficulties and the paraglider he was attached to was seperated from the boat and crashed onto the island. They’ve essentially hired Alan to be their navigator as part of a rescue mission to get their son back.

Alan then promptly informs them that he has NO idea what the georgraphy of this island is, as he’s never been to ‘Island B’ before, and only had fleeting panicked experience with ‘Island A’…they get stubborn with him, but this is quickly put to one side when the landing strip is attacked by large dinosaurs, and on trying to escape, the plane is clipped by a T-rex, who cuts the fuel line, causing the plane to nose dive through the canvas and down into a revine…forcing the survivors to form a search party to try and find this couples son, locate ANY kind of communication tool, and once again; escape ‘The Lost World.’

I didnt really enjoy this one, the 90 minute runtime was probably the best part for me, as had this been 2 hours i’d have likely turned it off.

I enjoyed the original Jurassic Park, it was a fantasy, adventure film for the family that felt like a melding of ‘Jaws’ and ‘ET’ giving some rock solid action pieces, but largely focussing on complex characters working through their own problems and discovering that ‘life finds a way’ in many MANY different interpretations.

‘The Lost World’ I felt tried to capture that same energy, but with the lack of Laura Derne or Sam Neill and a stripping back of those more humourous ‘slice of life’ moments, it wound up feeling a bit dry and a bit bleaker than the original, which wasnt really what I wanted out of it.

Jurassic Park 3 seems to overcompensate and course correct in the opposite direction, taking the character complexities more or less out of the picture entirely, as it becomes a ‘we’re not so different you and I’ picture about parents trying to reclaim their children that I felt was very heavy handed, and all the nice interwoven character arcs and complexities are boiled down to a divorced couple of melts who I had absolutely no patience for, being tempered by Sam Neills Alan Grant.

We lose the wonder and charm of the first 2 films, and this is essentially just an all out survival action film that seems more interested in set pieces and chase sequences than it does about the smaller character moments that make you ACTUALLY give a damn about the people your watching.

The plot itself is a bit too daft for me, the idea that an top secret and heavily restricted island could have been compromised by ‘some guys in a boat’ and later by ‘a couple from oklahoma’ is a bridge too far for me to take this one seriously. It really screams ‘direct to video’ for me, and I really struggled to ratify the idea that this film shared a universe with the original.

The pacing is WAY too slow, its a 90 minute film that feels like its 120, they seem to think the action sequences will help push the film along, but they’re clunky, not particualrly well choreographed and felt forced in when things got a bit too dry. The tone is playing much more to just flat out comedy than the whimsy of life, but its not the best comedy in the world (if a gag about t-rex pee is your thing, then go right ahead) It felt at times like it was trying to just remake moments from the last 2 films, but on a significantly smaller budget and WAY more emphasis on CGI, and it just absolutely fails to capture that energy of the first two films. This at times, felt just like a generic monster movie from this period.

The act structuring is fine enough, though the 2nd act feels like it drags for an eternity, the characters are sanded off to be just the barest elements needed to give them one hermoginised character arc. The characters of Paula and Amanda Kirby are, for most of the runtime, just quite thick and unlikable people. and I get that their arc is them finding their son and learning that family is important, but the fact they willfully had 4 people killed and misled and assaulted a palientologist in order to GET that life lesson, I feel is both horrendous, and unearning of redemption. These were unlikable characters who got the ‘redemption’ ending for not really doing a whole lot, and It left me feeling by the time the credits rolled that they’d really missed a trick by not making them just…likable people.

Direction wise, it just feels like a generic monster movie, for 2001 its maybe still a bit ahead of the curve given its a studio picture. I dont think its inherently bad really. But the fight scenes feel messy, the chase scenes feel drawn out and an overeliance on CGI, which at this point in time was supposed to be a ‘WOW! See what we can do with modern tech?!’ has backfired SPECTACULARLY 24 years on, and now looks frankly hideous and painfully distracting for most of the runtime.

The cine is fine, but again, it feels almost like its relying on apeing the more memorable moments from the last 2 films to try and keep people on board, strip away the grander dino reveals that borrow from the other films and your left with a pretty slim set of okay shots, with maybe the Pterydactily sequence being the strongest of the pack. But its an underwhelming experience to say the least.

The edit also feels a bit over frantic at times, its hard to really get a read of what im supposed to be focussing on, and this is the kind of film where, when a thrilling action moment happens, rather than curate a select number of prime cuts for maximum impact, they seemingly just cut EVERY SINGLE B-ROLL clip they had into the sequence at 3 cuts a second. its disorienting, not helped by some of the bigger set pieces taking place at night or in heavy fog. Which makes it hard to even see whats really going on most of the time.

Performance wise, this is just Sam Neill’s show honestly, Dr. Alan Grant as a character was a good bonding agent for Laura Derne and Jeff Goldblum, here? he’s the best performer, and I think he does a fine enough job, but its clear this is really just a paycheque and a holiday for him. He delivers his lines belivably, he’s physically very present, but its not the same energy as the original Jurassic Park, and there are a quite a few moments where it felt like the energy needed to be high, and he DOES go high…but not high enough.

I love William H. Macy usually, but his turn here as Paul Kirby is just really not for me, I feel like theres just an element of personality, some kind of ‘good guy’ spin thats just missing from his performance here, and what we’re left with is just a guy who’s done a bad thing for selfish needs and doesnt really ever apologise for that. Same goes for Tea Leoni. The physical elements there, but I feel like had the pair of them played it with just a tinge of sincerity and desperation, rather than just a sense of a shrugging ‘well…we’re here now, so might as well do the thing we were explicitly told not to do!’ i’d have probably liked them more.

I think the funny thing for me in all of this was that Laura Dearne DOES return in this film as Ellie. But its clear they could only afford her for a day or twos shoot in one location, because she appears in one scene at the beginning of the film, she appears for collectively about 45 seconds near the end of the film, and at the VERY end theres a moment where clearly there should have been some kind of ‘sign off’ reunion with Dearn and Neills characters that just…never pays off. Shes a core mechanic in how the film resolves, the film spends a good chunk of the runtime setting up that Alan should thank her for her friendship and kindness over the years…and it just NEVER comes to anything. god bless her.

The soundtracks basically just tracks from the first 2 films with half a dozen new compositions that stick rigidly to John Williams original scorings…its meh, and again; really doesnt help the ‘direct to video’ accusations…

I first saw this film being illegally projected in the bar of an all inclusive hotel in Spain around 2004. the bar was full of screaming children, their were hornets everywhere and I could only hear every 4th word, and had to rely on the subtitle track running on a heavily faded screen in order to figure out what the hell I was even watching…and I had a more enjoyable time watching it then, than I did now. This film has aged like milk, I didnt really care for it, I probably wont watch it again for a long time unless fulfilling my duty as a caring partner. and I absolutely cant recommend it.

I totally understand why it was 14 years before another one of these got made.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/jurassic-park-iii/