Jurassic Park 3 is basically the equivalent of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. It looks kinda cool sometimes, but there’s no real point in its existence. Especially now, since Jurassic World has erased this one from its timeline, along with The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
And no, the Pteranodons aren't as cool, ominous, or threatening as this poster makes them out to be.
I don’t know why this movie was even made. Of course it was for money, but when watching it, it doesn’t look like anyone involved even wanted to make it! There was barely any effort put into it whatsoever. The only one that looked like they were trying was Sam Neill returning as Dr. Grant.
So… Jurassic Park 3 (also known as The One That Never Happened) is about a bunch of idiots that decide to go back to Isla Sorna, Site B. Why would anyone want to go back after what was seen in San Diego 4 years prior? Well… some idiot kid and his idiot stepdad decide to go parasailing right next to the island full of dinosaurs. Of course it doesn’t go well. Why would it go well? So the kid and stepdad are stuck on the island for 8 weeks before the kid’s mom and biological father decide to do anything about it.
Nobody apparently wants to help them get their kid back, so what do they do? They hire Dr. Grant, his idiot assistant, and a team of pilots to take them there without telling them their real intent! They put other people’s lives at risk to save their little brat! If that’s not stupid enough, it turns out the parents thought Dr. Grant had been to the island before, when he clearly hadn’t!!! He has never been to Site B, but they were too stupid to notice the difference!
So obviously, as soon as they get there, things start going to hell. And I’m not saying that it’s 10-15 minutes of “ooh” and “ahh” before things go bad, I mean that as soon as they land, people start dying. So now everyone is stuck on the island full of dinosaurs, and they just get even more stupid as time passes.
As you can probably tell, I don’t like this movie that much. Its plot isn’t something worthy of Jurassic Park. Heck, it’s not worthy of a wide release theatrical feature. It’s something you’d see on the sci-fi channel. If it weren’t for the special effects, this may have been on the same level as an Asylum movie. Jurassic Park 3 is by far the weakest Jurassic Park movie that’s been made, and I honestly don’t think Jurassic World can be worse. There’s no way it can be worse. The people working on that one at least wanted to be involved. It’s yet to come out yet, but I can assure you that its got more heart and effort put into it than even one frame of Jurassic Park 3.
The acting isn’t just bad, it’s annoyingly bad. You thought the parents from the first 3 Transformers movies were bad? They were only the novice students learning under the teachings of the parents from JP3. Dr. Grant’s assistant, Billy, isn’t much better. He does some of the more idiotic things in the movie. Somehow, he didn’t die. He was attacked by Pteranodons as he was drowning in a river.. yet at the end of the movie, he was magically found by the marines and put on a helicopter before they were even called there. I heard somewhere that the actor didn’t want to die, so the director, Joe Johnston (not Spielberg, this time) pandered to his stupid little actor. That is weak directing. If you’re an actor that’s scripted to die, you DIE, unless you can come up with something WAY better. Just wanting to live doesn’t count.
Everyone else sucks, too. The pilots are just there to die, Eric, the kid that got stuck on the island for 8 weeks sucked, and the Velociraptors… are just written into the story in a strange way. It’s hard to really describe.
But the most disappointing part of the movie (character-wise) was that Dr. Grant and Ellie Sattler didn’t get together after the events of the first film! She’s married to some other jackass (whose name I don’t even remember). That was a bit of a stupid call, wasn’t it? That renders a part of the first film pointless! Unless you’re one of those that’s completely excluded JP3 from the timeline, then it hasn’t. It doesn’t matter anyway, with Jurassic World ignoring both sequels to the original.
The only good parts of the film were the special effects. I did like the CGI for the dinosaurs a lot better than the practical effects. That’s rare for someone to say these days, when everyone’s supposedly thinking CGI is a bad thing and there needs to be more physical props. While I agree with that to an extent, the practical effects of JP3 were awful! The T-Rex animatronic was lifeless, the Velociraptor puppets were weak and awkward, and the Spinosaurus animatronic was stiff and boring! These moved more like something you’d see on the Jurassic Park ride than a feature length film! Especially one that’s in the legacy of Jurassic Freaking Park!
What I thought was more disappointing than the physical effects was the color tone of the environments. In the first 2 movies, the island itself, the jungles, and other environments were presented in appealing colors that made it seem much more alive, real, and overall appealing. In this movie, the entire time spent on the island is just bland, boring, lifeless, and gray. It doesn’t look good at all. This color tone could have worked better if JP3 was a different movie, or if it was done in a completely different way. But the way it is shot, directed, and presented don’t work one bit.
Again, the CGI was decent, and the overall designs of the dinosaurs were okay. I liked the Velociraptors, mainly because the filmmakers kinda tried to make them look more accurate by giving them a line of quills on their heads, but it still looked far from a real Velociraptor.
The Spinosaurus was arguably the best part of the entire movie. When you’re not looking at the stiff, cheap animatronic, you’re looking at a monster that’s very persistent with trying to kill the humans. He really won’t give up. He ate 2 people, a plane, and a T-Rex, so why would he still try to kill the rest of them? It doesn’t even make sense! Sure, his role in the movie was poorly written, but I won’t deny that it’s entertaining to see a mindless killer that won’t stop.
When I said ‘arguably’ I mean that people argue about him all the time. Yes, he killed the T-Rex in a fight that lasted less than 30 seconds. I could write for an hour on how a fight between T-Rex and Spinosaurus would go, but I won’t. I could also write for an hour about how inaccurate the Spinosaurus is when compared to modern knowledge of the Spinosaurus’ posture and lifestyle. The only thing about the Spinosaurus in JP3 that’s accurate by the information we have today is that it could swim. In fact, it was the most aquatic dinosaur in the current fossil record.
Anyway, I did like the Spinosaurus for what it was, and I wasn’t as bothered by it killing the T-Rex as others were. Other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot to like about Jurassic Park 3. Even the musical score was underwhelming. There’s no sense of adventure, no suspense, no real tension, no fear factor, and barely any fun to be had. In conclusion, it doesn’t matter how much dinosaur action they throw in, it doesn’t matter how good the CGI is, the atrociously annoying characters, the horrible writing, and the stupid plot bring this movie down to an astonishing low. I liked it as a kid, but now… not so much. Don’t waste your time with it. Just pretend it never existed.
FINAL RATING: 8 / 50
STORY: 0 / 5
ACTING: 1 / 5
CHARACTERS: 1 / 5
SPECIAL EFFECTS: 3 / 5
ADVENTURE: 0 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 2 / 5
TONE: 0 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 1 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 0 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 0 / 5
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