Review of Jurassic Park III

Introduction

"Life finds a way!" I remember the day the first movie was released, my friend came bounding back from the cinema, randomly spurting that phrase as if he had a bizarre form of Tourettes. He was convinced that it would be the next big catchphrase, that it would be as significant as "May the force be with you", and he was looking to get as much use of it as possible before anyone else cottoned on. Fortunately that didn`t come to pass, but if an even greater truism is, "Sequels find a way." it`s one that makes me long for a mass extinction. Still, it`s amazing what you can find being given away for free on the interweb thingy, and at that price even I won`t be snobbish and elitist towards a copy of Jurassic Park III.

Yup, the CG and animatronic dinosaurs are back, and this time they are anthropomorphised as never before. Dr Alan Grant, the hat-wearing palaeontologist from the first film is back in the wastes of Montana, grubbing for fossils, and refusing to have anything to do with Hammond`s freak show. His research is losing money again though, and when a couple of millionaires show up asking for a guided tour of Isla Sorna (That`s site B from the second movie), a big enough cheque twists his arm. He and his assistant Billy Brennan join an expedition ostensibly as guides, but the millionaire husband and wife aren`t being truthful. They`re actually looking for their son, who went missing during a sightseeing trip near the island. It`s time to play, guess who`s lunch next!

Video

There is some obvious grain at points, but the 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer is pretty much acceptable. Aside from a couple of misty, or dark scenes, everything is clear and sharp. But there is an overall dullness to the film that I can`t quite put my finger on. It`s the sort of thing that means you miss out on visual detail, but skipping back and pausing you see that the detail is actually there. It`s odd.

Paraphrasing Back To The Future II, "The dinosaurs still look fake." No matter how good your animatronic or CG skills are. You can`t get away from the fact that dinosaurs have been extinct for 65 million years. There will never be the same dread that you`ll get from a shark, a snake, a lion or a pack of wild dogs. In that respect the Jurassic Park movies are safe monster flicks. And while the dinosaurs look better than ever before, some really poor green-screen work lets the side down.

Audio

You have a choice between DD 5.1 and DTS English, with optional English subtitles. The dialogue is clear, the action is represented well, the music is unmistakeably Jurassic Park, and the dinosaurs are bloody loud.

Features

There looks like there are a lot of extras on this disc, but most of them are in soundbite format, lasting barely a minute in length, there`s plenty of repetition, and it all boils down to the light EPK nonsense that is little more than a glorified trailer.

By far the most substantial featurette on the disc is the 23-minute making of. You can see some of the new dinosaurs in this movie in another featurette. Blink and you`ll miss a tour of the Stan Winston studios. Fractured into around thirteen mini featurettes is a visit to ILM that totals 18 minutes. There are trailers, a look at real palaeontologists at work, a snippet of b-roll footage, some storyboard comparisons, photo galleries, and dino trivia. All of it so brief that your TV will be switching aspect ratio so often you`ll be worried that something might snap.

There are some DVD-ROM goodies if you dare install that Interactual nonsense.

The only substantial extra on the disc is the feature commentary with the special effects team, comprising Stan Winston, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Michael Lantieri. Prepare to have you inner geek enlightened. If you don`t like the sound of technical specialists having a giggle, you may not appreciate this track.

All of the extras, including the commentary are subtitled where required.

Conclusion

Jurassic Park III is worth every penny I paid for it, and not one penny more. I likened the first film to Jaws, a chance for Spielberg to remake that classic with the technology to get the `shark` right. Thankfully that comparison doesn`t hold, as Jurassic Park III is certainly no Jaws 3. It is however utterly devoid of what little magic the first two films had. There`s no sense of wonder, and what`s left is a brief thrill ride with monsters in. The first film was about what happened when humans played god, the second had something of an eco-message, this third film is about people running and screaming and being chased by monsters. It`s short too, with all of the annoying guff like character, story, and suspense being jettisoned to make room for the action. It`s 80 minutes long, not counting the 7 minutes of credits tacked on to the end, and at that length it feels as soulless and ephemeral as a fairground attraction.

The problems with this film actually start long before the daft dream sequence with a talking velociraptor, but it`s at that point that the stupidity of this film really kicks in. When our heroes aren`t running around screaming and avoiding being eaten, they play the film more for laughs, with William H. Macy particularly forthcoming with misplaced wisecracks. There are one or two cute callbacks to the first film, but that only makes it feel even more like a self-parody. The dinosaurs truly are anthropomorphised to a greater degree in this film. It looks as if they have a special grudge against the humans. Old Spinosaurus relentlessly pursues what is the dinosaur equivalent of finger food when there is a whole island of big fat herbivores to feast on. And then there is the capper, the twelve-year-old boy who survives on a dinosaur infested island for eight weeks where anyone else gets chomped. The reasoning? He`s read a couple of books that Alan Grant wrote, and he winds up rescuing said palaeontologist from a pack of raptors.

So I`m left with two questions after all this daftness. Why do flies only descend after a corpse is discovered? Also do you remember True Lies, the Arnie film that had to cut out all scenes of the Austrian Oak snapping Arab necks to gain a 15 rating in the UK? Well in JP III, Michael Jeter almost gets his head popped off by a velociraptor, and it`s a bloody PG. Sometimes I just want to head-butt someone at the BBFC with an imitable technique.

Jurassic Park III is fun, but immediately forgettable. God save us all if they make another one!