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    		•

    FILMS

    Jurassic Park III (2001)
  • Starring Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan, Michael Jeter, John Diehl, Bruce A. Young, Laura Dern

  • Directed by Joe Johnston

    • At the beginning of this film, Dr. Alan Grant says that there is no way he will return to the Jurassic Park islands, be it Isla Nublar (from the first film) or the "recently discovered" Site B, Isla Sorna. Ultimately, he's persuaded by a large amount of money.

    I'm hoping that this scene was based on a real-life occurrence where casting execs asked Sam Neill to come back for the third installment in the series, and he said, "Not unless you pay me an obscene amount of money." I hope, I really hope, that this is why he came back to play the part of Dr. Grant. If he's doing it to pay the bills, I can respect that. A job is a job. That's got to be the reason, because Neill is a smart guy and usually chooses good scripts. There's no way he could've read it and thought JP III would be good. The script is complete ass. (And remember: You can't spell Jurassic Park III without A-S-S.)

    If you haven't seen the movie, let me do a quick plot summary for you: People do stupid things near dinosaurs. Dinosaurs chase stupid people. Audience roots for dinosaurs. People use cheap, unbelievable plot devices to escape. Audience demands their money back.

    Go see the original Jurassic Park for a better movie dinosaur movie. The movement of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park III is more refined and a tad smoother. Wow, I'm really impressed. I'm so glad everyone worked so hard on making the monsters look real. I'd rather have a more-refined script than really cool special effects any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

    Not to put too fine a point on it, this movie is lame, lame, lame.

    I wanted the kid to die. I wanted William H. Macy's character to die (and I really like Macy, too). I wanted Téa Leoni's character to die. I wanted everyone on that island to die (except for Sam Neill, because Alan Grant is cool and smart). I wanted one of the big mongo-sauruses to grab the lot of them and make a nice, meaty, stupid-person sandwich. And then curl up some long-ago-extinct bush and take a long nap. That would've been a better movie. Had this happened, I would've cheered and eagerly returned to the theater to see it again.

    Unfortunately we live in a world where good movies make money and inevitably become franchises which, in turn, become unwatchable ass-fests.

    Don't get me wrong, though. This isn't always the case. Sometimes franchises are good and stay good (Indiana Jones, James Bond), sometimes they're hit-and-miss (Star Trek), and sometimes they go from being an exceptionally good film with the first iteration and become exponentially worse with each incarnation thereafter (Jurassic Park, Batman).

    Why can't people leave a good thing alone? And why the hell was Laura Dern even in this movie?