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| Jurassic Park III 'pure Hollywood' Jurassic Park III Film review by Daniel Parkes A huge spotlight circled the Dunedin Otagon, momentarily illuminating large film posters, while anxious crowds and GE protesters lined the red carpet, held back by a team of security personnel. At a cocktail party inside an art gallery, celebrities and special guests mingled over cheese plates and bottles of Two Paddocks as photographers picked their way through the crowds, camera flashes intermittently interrupting the excited roar of conversation. The atmosphere that enveloped the Australasian premiere of Jurassic Park III in Dunedin last month was pure Hollywood. New Zealand actor Sam Neill, star of the film and who choreographed the night�s proceedings, did not fail to deliver. The pre-premiere cocktail party was a proverbial constellation of New Zealand stars he had personally invited. At the premiere itself he and his Japanese wife Noriko were received with enthusiasm seldom seen this far south, while at the party afterward he managed to get almost everybody onto the dance floor. Not that it would have hard. A rarely seen line up of talented kiwi musicians, including Midge Marsden, Annie Crummer, Tim Finn and multi-talented Bic Runga, played into the early hours of the morning. In fact, with all the hype one could almost be forgiven for forgetting the purpose of it all. That the film premiere began an hour late didn�t help, thanks to speeches by Sam Neill, Dunedin Mayor Sukhi Turner and Variety Club President Simon Dallow who revealed a penchant for stand-up comedy in addition to being a rather good �auto-cue jockey�. But the frustration in the audience was almost palpable: they wanted to see dinosaurs. And preferably eating people. Before I had even seen the film I had grave concerns: Steven Speilberg, who was at the helm of the original Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World, was not going to direct this time around. Other key members of the original creative team would also be absent: author Michael Crichton, screenplay writer David Koepp and composer John Williams, although ideas from all three would be used with Spielberg overseeing as executive producer. Instead, lesser known Joe Johnston (Jumanji) took the reigns as director and wisely retained much of the formula from the first two. The story revolves around the familiar theme of a paleontologist being duped into going to the island for monetary gain and/or a rescue mission and then all hell breaking loose. In this instance Sam Neill reprises his role as Dr. Alan Grant, now a raptor expert, who is dragged along as a tour guide on an alleged sightseeing flight over the island that in actual fact is a doomed rescue mission which of course results in a lot of running and screaming. Some scenes are almost identical from the original, notably arrival at the island, (the helicopter journey being replaced with a fixed-wing aircraft), an aircraft fuselage crashing down through a tree (instead of a car) and an obligatory youth mad on palaeontology. Laura Dern also makes an albeit brief appearance as a now married (not to Grant) Ellie Sattler. Last, but certainly not least, Stan Winston and the team at Industrial Light and Magic make a welcome return with even more impressive live action and computer generated dinosaurs that stomp and maim with more realism and vitality than ever seen before. This is where Johnston and the third installment succeeds: a rollercoaster ride of special effects that dazzle and exhaust you, filling that commercial void among popcorn munchers and dino-philes the world over. What it lacks is that Spielberg magic, the wide-eyed wonder at the recreation of the prehistoric. The dinosaurs burst onto the screen, play their part and then disappear. It as if they too have grown tired of forever chasing and eating these humans who constantly return to harass them. The most famous of dinosaurs, the T-rex, has its all-powerful image shattered when it is downed by an even larger yet less likeable spinosaurus, while the intelligent and usually fearsome velociraptors seem to also have lost their touch, outwitted by the simplest of plot devices. And the inevitable finale is disappointingly straight out of a how-to-end-a-Jaws-sequel handbook. All in all, the scare factor is well diminished �no jumping out of your cinema seat this time around. There are clear explanations for the deficiencies: Spielberg is a genius at creating fear, stimulating the viewer�s imagination, not through in-your-face special effects but by means of subtle point-of-view shots and gradual anticipation of the unseen. While prot�g� Robert Zemekis (Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump and Cast Away) has imitated this to a degree, Johnston has not, revealing why his background in the film industry was primarily in the special effects department. And if you thought the plot was limited before, then expect even less this time around, with a screenplay strung together from ideas that were too expensive or time consuming for the first two. There is also a distinct lack of endearing characters and no strong female lead. Sam Neill, his character unhappy at being deceived, mopes his way around the island while Tea Leoni is so annoyingly dumb as the lost boy�s mother that you are almost egging her on to join the list of dino-fodder. However, the film is saved by a much larger dose of laugh-out-loud comedy, by the huge flying pteranodons and undoubtedly by the far superior and truly impressive computer effects. Like Sam Neill�s cleverly crafted Dunedin premiere, it is pure Hollywood. |
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