Jurassic Park III
2001/Action/PG-13
Stars: ** 1/2 Explanation of ratings
An animal attack movie with little scientific interest.
Remember those cheesy animal attack movies of the seventies? They usually featured huge, terrible animals that were usually depicted much larger and far more vicious than the animals are in real life. Probably the best of this genre was Stephen Spielberg's Jaws.
Since then, Spielberg has made many escapistic movies (and a few serious ones) that span a wide range of genres. My undoubted favorite of his was Jurassic Park, which redefined the technical action film. With Jurassic Park III, Spielberg leaves technical action behind and revisits the animal attack genre. Gone is the fascinating dialogue about chaos theory, and the cute dinos that the children petted and fed. Present is lots of action and running and screaming and huge claws and teeth! Malevolant dinosaurs have only minor roles.
The problem is that the action is not believable. Some of the pivotal scenes in the film do not seem likely scenarios. The characters are shallow and some of the character development seems pointless. The cameo scenes of Ellie (Laura Dern), and motifs of Williams' original musical score come off as a slightly pathetic attempt at rehashing the original movie's dynamic. Contrary to what some may believe after watching the cinematic trailer, the dinosaurs do not lure the humans into a cage. In fact, the carnivores in JPIII seem less intelligent than the ones in the other two JP movies, especially the original.
On the good side, the visual effects were great and the scenery was probably better than the original. Unlike The Lost World: Jurassic Park, this movie does not pretend to be anything but what it is: an animal attack adventure. I have always said that it is almost impossible to create a successful sequel to a highly innovative movie, and I guess that Jurassic Park was just too innovative for a few encores. When you see Jurassic Park III, compare it to Jaws instead of Jurassic Park.
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