Jurassic Park III

What do you do when a franchise has become a monster moneymaking machine? Milk the core out of it of course, and Jurassic Park III was exactly that! Now, it's not to say the film's right off the bat terrible. In fact, it is indeed a watchable movie. Only when it's placed side by side with its two predecessors that it would seem like one of the worst products ever made.

On writing standpoint, Jurassic Park III required tremendous rewrites before even seeing the daylight as a motion picture. Although it didn't protrude through, the story was weak resulting in a run-off-the-mill plot. Few characters walking around a dangerous island inhabited by dinosaurs was all this feature had to offer. Minimal conflicts throughout, absence of any theme, technobabble-filled Act I and blocky flow of events in the beginning will prompt to reconsider your stay here.

Two of the main leads played by William H. Macy and Téa Leoni as the divorced couple Mr. and Mrs. Kirby were very unlikable, selfish and to a large extent, idiotic. The latter excels at screaming, shouting and taking stupid decisions. Worse, she's not a bit concerned about her missing new husband, which makes you wonder why did she marry him in the first place. The former's a liar and a bad joker, whom you could dispose anytime, but instead, the filmmakers chose to mandatorily kill the black dude like in every other generic films as such. You could even see both of these characters swap personalities here and there. After offering such awful personas, the movie had the nerve to request you to root for their broken marriage and wish they could reunite once again.

It was a relief to see Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) back again to be honest! But his characterization? Not so much. After openly saying in the public that nothing on Earth would convince him to return to the dinosaurs land, he agreed to do it upon money offer in the next scene. Seems like money has always been a naturally great tool of motivation, hasn’t it? The moment this happened, our interest on him was lost too. However, to not see him and Ellie (Laura Dern) end up with each other was sad though.

Let's talk about the technicalities. Don Davis' repetitive background music piece even when nothing monumental was happening onscreen ripped the power off the score. Yes, it was cool to witness new species such as the Spinosaurus and Ankylosaurus. But, the unpolished mechanical animatronics work and heavy dependence on computer graphics were ultimate letdowns. You could see green screens all over and say little attention was paid to pull off the reality nuances, such as the all neat and tidy arrangement of Raptor eggs.

With all these being said, some of the action sequences were good! Spinosaurus chase at the gate border, Cooper (John Diehl) standing in front of a darting airplane before being chomped down by the reptile king, T-Rex versus Spinosaurus battle with tiny human beings in the middle and Raptor remaining still behind a water exhibit before revealing itself to be real were well done actually, despite not having much setups, payoffs, buildups or excitements. By far the best sequence would be the birdcage escape! Pteranodon grabbing the kid to feed its hatchlings at the nest with Billy (Alessandro Nivola) saving him using a paragliding chute was fun to watch. The same can be said about the pre-climax boat survival as Dr. Alan's attempting to call Ellie, with her baby having the phone in hand watching Barnie the purple dinosaur on TV while the former was dealing with an actual predator! Climax round-up with the Raptors was decent too. Real stakes and consequences would have rendered these last two stunt segments greater.

While it's true that the conch creation, search for satellite phone inside a dinosaur's dung and Billy's Raptor egg theft were competent ideas or scenes, questionable things such as Billy's survival, 'lucky pack' and 'cheque for visit' recycles from the previous instalments, fitting a torchlight's battery into a camcorder and satellite phone's ring that could be heard from inside of the Spinosaurus' stomach will make you feel like a fool for even expecting the filmmakers to respect their audiences' intelligence. Also, please don’t show the exact creatures that tried to kill you moments ago flying peacefully and happily ever after prior to ending the movie - it's ironic to say the least!