Review of Jurassic Park III (2001) by Aquophis — 29 Dec 2011

For all its cutting-edge special effects and compelling thrills, the third Jurassic Park film installment has the feel of a B-movie, minus the Michael Bay-esque explosions and scantily clad women. The movie makes the mistake that so many other dinosaur movies make - it fails to tell a human story as well as an adventure story, and the result can easily be called the world's longest chase scene.

It was merely a series of climaxes with brief and generally meaningless pauses that don't advance or contribute anything, not to mention little to no character development. While I was glad to see the pterodactyls in action, the T.

rex gets hardly any screentime at all before being abruptly killed off by some bigger, badder dinosaur called Spinosaurus. I kid you not - they basically took the beloved mascot of the franchise, the one who commanded such a powerful, memorable and screen-stealing presence, and they kicked him into the dust and spat in his face.

I don't care if there's another, equally-scary dinosaur to take his place - Tyrannosaurus rex was everybody's favorite dinosaur in the films, and it's oddly hearbreaking to see him cast aside for something "better" that somehow unconvincingly evaded the humans all throughout the previous film.

But the worst part was the raptors. They were even smarter than the humans, and they basically controlled the whole plot. Overall, the sequel to the two greatest dinosaur movies of all time (and two of the best movies of all time) ended up as something less than extraordinary.