Jurassic Park III – Film Review

After being persuaded by a wealthy businessman to conduct an aerial tour of Isla Sorna, InGen’s second site for a failed Jurassic Park experiment, Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) discovers the true reason for his invitation. A tragic accident maroons the party of seven, and they must attempt to escape with their lives.

When Steven Spielberg released Jurassic Park back in 1993, it became a humongous success, grossing more than $1 billion against a budget of $63 million, which was practically unheard of. Of course, that naturally meant that a sequel was inevitable, and that was definitely true as The Lost World – one heck of a worthy sequel if you ask me – was released four years later. And because that second film did so well, you guessed it, a third movie arrived in 2001 titled Jurassic Park III.

But there was one key difference in regards to the third film in the science-fiction action series – it was not directed by Steven Spielberg, but rather, Jumanji director Joe Johnston. Obviously, anybody would choose Spielberg over Johnston any day, but that doesn’t mean folks didn’t enjoy Jumanji. This third Jurassic Park film should have been an exhilarating conclusion to the trilogy but instead, it served as a majorly disappointing one.

So much of this film doesn’t focus on the dinosaur aspect of the storyline to the point where it just loses steam. I really couldn’t care less in regards to the film’s actual plot which focuses on two new characters that are simply hard to root for. I’m all for movies that focus on characters first and spectacle second, but the problem is that the film’s screenwriters barely even tried to flesh out these new characters.

I do genuinely enjoy the work they did with Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler here, though. A lot has changed in their lives since the events of the original Jurassic Park, and thankfully, the film never shies away from getting deep into that. At the very least, it’s great to watch Sam Neill and Laura Dern have some fun in this film, stepping back in the shoes of two of their most beloved and iconic characters.

That still doesn’t stop the film from being unbearably dumb at times. Is the action fun and exciting? You bet. But there are so many moments that are highly cringe-worthy to the point where it’s hard to even care anymore, including one scene where a dinosaur talks to Alan Grant on a plane. Granted, it’s just a dream sequence – meaning that the dinosaur didn’t actually talk to Alan – but it’s still a “what the heck” moment in a franchise that genuinely took itself seriously for the last two films. So why does this one not seem to care as much?

You can watch Jurassic Park III and have a bit of fun with it in regards to the action sequences and some of the character work that is done with Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, but when it comes to the story this time around, it’s disappointingly flat and underdeveloped. It also introduces us to some new characters that are frustratingly annoying. It was the last Jurassic movie to be released until fourteen years later, we got Jurassic World. Given how mediocre to bad the new movies are, sometimes I can’t help but wonder how nice it would’ve been to end the franchise with The Lost World.