rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 2001
Directed by Joe Johnston; produced by Larry J. Franco, Kathleen Kennedy; written by Peter Buchman, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor
Starring Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Laura Dern, Michael Jeter
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
The third installment is an improvement over 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park'
but it does not even come close to the original. Where the first one was a
highly enjoyable adventure film, the second one was more like an action
film. This one plays like a horror for younger audiences, or a thriller
where the dinosaurs act like typical thriller-characters. Still, there are
some fine examples of how to make a scene suspenseful and isn't it true that
we basically want to see some dinosaurs, nothing else?
In this part we see plenty of them. The main attraction is a predator even
bigger than the T-Rex, combined with a lot of Raptors. The animals are still
on an island and it happens to be a boy is lost on that island. (Do not ask
why and how.) The parents of the boy, played by William H. Macy and Téa
Leoni, hire a couple of people including Dr. Grant (Sam Neill), returning
from the original film. Laura Dern returns as well, although only in scenes
without any predators. But in this film the dinosaurs are the main
characters, the smart characters (too smart), even the characters you sort
of feel the most sympathy for.
If nothing else 'Jurassic Park III' is a monster movie better than average,
with some nice looking creatures, a silly story and actors too good for this
material. It is especially strange how Macy makes his character almost as
interesting as any dinosaur in a film like this.