Review: Jurassic Park III

Joe Johnston, 2001


To what degree is yet another example of Man vs Nature necessary? Did the first two films in the Jurassic Park franchise fail in promoting the fact that dinosaurs and humans do not co-exist for some damn good reasons? As much as I personally appreciate the entire franchise, it is with difficulty that I try to write about a film which was clearly milking it for it's worth.

So Dr Alan Grant dislikes the idea of Jurassic Park and InGen to the point of refusing to speak about it at some kind of university talk. So why then does he accept a large cheque to provide his expertise on a tour of Isla Sorna? Is this not remarkably similar to the pretence in which Grant travelled to Isla Nubar back in 1993? In agreeing to visit Isla Sorna, Grant is the biggest idiot of the entire film. Apparently, money completely cancels out any concerns over being chased by T-Rexs' or stalked by Raptors, which leads to the question; why are the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park so pissed off all of the time?

Throughout the entire film I was on the edge of my seat just waiting for a T-Rex to come pounding through the trees and eat everyone, which would have made a more entertaining and convincing ending. It was very difficult to muster anything resembling sympathy for these people and I really couldn't care less about that stupid woman's family. They went para-sailing next to Isla Sorna with the express aim of spotting some dinosaurs and they have no one to blame but themselves. It was like a tech-thriller episode of Scooby Doo. So a character has a lucky backpack. Didn't Julianne Moore's character have a lucky backpack in The Lost World? I mean, is this some kind of ongoing joke?

My fundamental issue with this film was the insulting lack of continuity. Vending machines within a dilapidated and derelict facility are smashed and their contents consumed. Are we to presume that these food items were still within date and perfectly edible? Isla Sorna was abandoned and in a state of disrepair in 1997, so which brave vending machine guy was presumably parachuting onto the island and maintaining stocks of convenience foods for a completely uninhabited island, while trying his best to evade hungry and mad dinosaurs?!? On the point of lack of continuity, who does the human skull in the Pteranodon nest belong to, the vending machine guy?!

It's not all bad, but it is very easy to rant about this film's sore misgivings.

5/10