Jurassic Park III
Directed by Joe Johnston
Starring Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan, and Laura Dern.
Ahh, yes, who could forget Jurassic Park? It was my birthday movie of 1993. Remember how we gazed in awe and amazement at these living, breathing, dinosaurs on the big screen? Remember the chills we felt when we heard the booming of T-Rex’s footsteps? We all left the theater wanting more. So, The Lost World came along. It was more, all right, but not more of what we wanted. It was missing that something that made us fall in love with that first film. But still, Lost World made a boatload of money, and we were all left hoping that they’d get it right with #3. So, eight years after I fell in love with dinosaurs all over again, I was back in the exact same theater where it happened, hoping it would happen again.
We catch up with Dr. Alan Grant (Neill) after his adventures in the Park. He’s back to digging up dinosaur bones in the dirt, having very little interest in studying the “genetic monsters” created at Jurassic Park and its Site B. He’s made great advancments in his research, and has developed all new theories in regards to velociraptor intelligence and communication. But, the world doesn’t agree with Grant’s methods. Why go digging in the dirt when you can see the real thing? And thusly, Grant finds his funding drying up. Enter wealthy socialites Paul and Amanda Kirby (Macy and Leoni). They approach Grant and offer him a huge amount of money to be their guide on a fly-over tour of Site B. Grant can’t help but accept, and even brings along Billy (Nivola), a grad student working with him and his protege. But when the Kirbys land the plane on the island, their true intentions become clear. It seems that their son Eric (Morgan) is shipwrecked on the island, and they needed Grant’s dinosaur expertise to help them find him. So, then, Grant finds himself running from dinosaurs he never encountered the first time, like pterodactyls and the giant Spinosaurus. But, that is nothing compared to the true menace. It seems that Grant’s theories of raptor intelligence were right. Can Grant and the Kirbys find Eric and escape from the island? Or will Grant have to call in some fellow Jurassic Park survivors for help?
Do you like your movies to be thrill rides? Do you wish that films would just quit with all that plot and character development and just put lots of kick-ass action on the screen? Well, then, this is the movie for you. For just about the whole 90 minutes (yeah, it’s kinda short), it’s just RUN FROM THE DINOSAURS! RUN FROM THE DINOSAURS! RUN FROM THE DINOSAURS! Don’t get me wrong, we all know who the real stars of the Jurassic Park films are, and it’s nice to see them get center stage. The animators at ILM and the animatronics folks at Stan Winston Studios have again done a top-notch job. The Spinosaurus is a classic movie monster, and I love those pterodactyls. The actors are pretty good, too. We are all reminded of what made Dr. Grant such a cool character, and I’ve always had a thing for Tea Leoni. Macy is pretty good, too. And you think that in this kind of movie things would get kind of serious, but they do find a way to inject moments of humor and help keep it from getting too serious. It’s better than The Lost World but still missing the quality of the first film that amazed us all. Maybe that one critic said it best. “Who would have thought that seeing dinosaurs eat people would get old fast?” All in all, this movie is just fun.