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#343 - Jurassic Park III
Joe Johnston, 2001
This film made me pull the exact same face.
Dr. Alan Grant is employed to go on an expedition to the same dinosaur-filled islands from the last two movies.
If The Lost World demonstrated that Spielberg himself wasn't able to recapture the magic of one of the most fun blockbusters in recent memory, then what hope did this extremely lean and very unnecessary threequel have? Bringing back Sam Neill as dinosaur expert Alan Grant does very little to endear one to the film as he is both traumatised by his experiences in the first film yet desperate enough to fund his archaeological digs that he decides to work for a couple (William H. Macy and Téa Leoni, the former of which is wasted here while the latter is especially excruciating to watch) employ him, his assistant, and a trio of mercenaries as part of a trip to the islands for what seems to be a mere honeymoon flight but which soon devolves into a disastrous situation as Grant and the others end up stranded on an island that is crawling with dinosaurs.
From there, Jurassic Park III becomes no better than a straight-to-video continuation of the series as it brings in a whole bunch of flat and frequently irritating characters to seemingly serve as meat for the monsters on display. The effects aren't especially awful - it doesn't go overboard on the CGI and actually features practical effects - but they're put to bad use as a result of some badly structured setpieces (even those that start off promisingly, such as the aviary sequence). Not even the fact that it's slightly darker and more graphic does anything to distract from how convoluted and contrived a lot of the developments tend to be even in a film as short as this one. All this would be fine if it had a sort of ludicrous charm to make up for its considerable shortcomings, but no, it squanders any goodwill left over from the first two films and as a result is only worthwhile as an object of scorn and derision.
Joe Johnston, 2001
This film made me pull the exact same face.
Dr. Alan Grant is employed to go on an expedition to the same dinosaur-filled islands from the last two movies.
If The Lost World demonstrated that Spielberg himself wasn't able to recapture the magic of one of the most fun blockbusters in recent memory, then what hope did this extremely lean and very unnecessary threequel have? Bringing back Sam Neill as dinosaur expert Alan Grant does very little to endear one to the film as he is both traumatised by his experiences in the first film yet desperate enough to fund his archaeological digs that he decides to work for a couple (William H. Macy and Téa Leoni, the former of which is wasted here while the latter is especially excruciating to watch) employ him, his assistant, and a trio of mercenaries as part of a trip to the islands for what seems to be a mere honeymoon flight but which soon devolves into a disastrous situation as Grant and the others end up stranded on an island that is crawling with dinosaurs.
From there, Jurassic Park III becomes no better than a straight-to-video continuation of the series as it brings in a whole bunch of flat and frequently irritating characters to seemingly serve as meat for the monsters on display. The effects aren't especially awful - it doesn't go overboard on the CGI and actually features practical effects - but they're put to bad use as a result of some badly structured setpieces (even those that start off promisingly, such as the aviary sequence). Not even the fact that it's slightly darker and more graphic does anything to distract from how convoluted and contrived a lot of the developments tend to be even in a film as short as this one. All this would be fine if it had a sort of ludicrous charm to make up for its considerable shortcomings, but no, it squanders any goodwill left over from the first two films and as a result is only worthwhile as an object of scorn and derision.