By James Keller
Even Gilligan would’ve learned by now. But unfortunately, the professor is still way behind.
Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) is back in full form in Jurassic Park III, the third instalment in the series, to prove that, not only are raptors even more intelligent than ever imagined (even after almost being eaten in the first movie), but he hasn’t learned anything about getting tricked into going onto a dinosaur infested island. Again, Grant is lured with lucrative promises to fund his research.
In this film, Grant is approached by Paul and Amanda Kirby (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) to give a guided flight tour over the cleverly named "Site B." When the plane lands on the island Grant quickly realizes that the Kirbys are far from capable of funding anything. As it turns out, Grant, along with research colleague Billy Brennan (Alessandro Nivola), is there to help the Kirbys find their son, Eric (Trevor Morgan). Eric has been stranded on the island for eight weeks.
This movie has all the cheesiness and unrealistic plot twists of any stock Hollywood family flick. At one point, a Spinosaurus, one of two new creatures introduced in the movie, swallows a satellite phone. It is later found, working and ringing, in a pile of dino droppings. This level of style continues throughout the movie turn after turn.
nbsp; Even Gilligan would’ve learned by now. But unfortunately, the professor is still way behind.
Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) is back in full form in Jurassic Park III, the third instalment in the series, to prove that, not only are raptors even more intelligent than ever imagined (even after almost being eaten in the first movie), but he hasn’t learned anything about getting tricked into going onto a dinosaur infested island. Again, Grant is lured with lucrative promises to fund his research.
In this film, Grant is approached by Paul and Amanda Kirby (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) to give a guided flight tour over the cleverly named "Site B." When the plane lands on the island Grant quickly realizes that the Kirbys are far from capable of funding anything. As it turns out, Grant, along with research colleague Billy Brennan (Alessandro Nivola), is there to help the Kirbys find their son, Eric (Trevor Morgan). Eric has been stranded on the island for eight weeks.
This movie has all the cheesiness and unrealistic plot twists of any stock Hollywood family flick. At one point, a Spinosaurus, one of two new creatures introduced in the movie, swallows a satellite phone. It is later found, working and ringing, in a pile of dino droppings. This level of style continues throughout the movie turn after turn.
Unfortunately, even with all this in mind, the ending still falls flat. The main conflict, other than the fact that they’re trapped on an island full of man-eating dinosaurs, is created after Billy steals a couple of eggs from a raptor nestfor souvenirs. The raptors are understandably a little angry. As the Raptors hunt down the group, the final scene has all the familiarity of a Die Hard hostage scene and ends without much incident.
If the movie gave itself longer to build the final climax, and stretched it out a bit, it may have been a little more effective– the movie runs less than 90 minutes. But again, looking at Jurassic Park III from this light is relatively pointless. It’s fun. It has dinosaurs eating people. Sometimes that’s all you need.
Now if Dr. Grant would’ve made a new satellite phone from a coconut, we’d be in business