MOVIE REVIEWS
Jurassic Park 3
Jay Perry
Originally, I planned on writing a review on How To Eat Fried Worms: a film based on some crappy kids book that everyone will proclaim they have read, but in reality, have never glanced over a single page. However, TBS (aka The Super-Seinfeld-Station), caused a change of plans. While channel surfing the other night, looking for something to take my mind off another clean sweep of the Boston Red Sox, I stumbled across a former acquaintance from my garbage-cinema past.
Picture yourself walking down the street one bright, sunny afternoon when all of a sudden, the ugliest person you have ever laid eyes on approaches you. Seriously, I’m talking hideous: their reflection is shattering windows, babies are crying…and then exploding, the sun is dripping blood, etc. This person is living proof that God doesn’t exist. As you begin to reel back from powerful force that their wretchedness emits, they make a leg-crippling statement:
“Hey, remember a few years ago when we had hot sex?”
That statement hits you like a wrecking ball to the skull. “Holy fuck,” you’re wondering, “When the hell did this happen?” Then it all starts coming back to you: that one night you and your friends went out on New Year’s Eve. Captain Morgan, with the help of Coca-Cola, was giving you quite a mind-fuck that night. You spotted a shadowy figure across the bar and, for some reason, the aura they emitted was too strong to ignore. A sense of hesitation was felt, but it quickly disappeared. Your friends kept telling you “It’s not what you think. Don’t do it because you’re going to regret it,” but you didn’t care: the possibilities and excitement that ran through your mind just overwhelmed you. Sure enough, as the night progressed, you acted on your inhibitions and fulfilled every fantasy with that mysterious figure. However, when you awoke the next morning, the person was gone. In addition, a strange feeling reverberated through your body: something was wrong. Your friends denied anything that could have happened that night and, eventually, the strange feeling faded away…until now.
“What the fuck was I thinking?” you wonder.
That pretty much sums up my initial reaction to watching Jurassic Park 3 once again. It’s amazing how the past can come back to haunt you.
The original Jurassic Park holds a special place in my heart: seeing dinosaurs realistically represented on the big screen was breathtaking. You can even argue that the CG used in Jurassic Park still holds up well to most of the modern CG-filled films of today. Not only does the film contain great special effects, but the screenplay is well-written and the casting is fantastic. Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, and Laura Dern are excellent in presenting us with multi-dimensional characters. Sure, the two kids in the movie are seriously annoying, but one of them gets electrocuted and falls fifteen feet to the ground, so I’m happy. Jurassic Park 2, while not on the same level as the original, is still a decent film (it gives us a young Vince Vaughn before he was crashing weddings and getting hit in the face with large, red balls).
But, Jurassic Park 3 is a prime example of squeezing every last cent from an original money-making idea. If you ever want to witness a raping of a franchise, go down to your local video store and get your hands on JP 3. Hopefully, if the store clerk at the counter has any sense, he’ll smash you in the face with a tire iron in an effort to prepare you for the 90-minutes of pain you’re about to endure.
I mean, where do I possibly begin when discussing this crap? The plot is certainly nothing to write home about: Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) is deceived into accompanying a couple (played by William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) to Isla Sorna, in an effort to help them find their 14 year-old son who crash landed on the island while parasailing. Naturally, there are some pissed off dinos on the island, and they take none to kindly to visitors or parasail enthusiasts. So, the movie consists of the main characters running away from the monster creatures in an effort to escape off the island.
And run they will. Not only will they run, but they will run…really fast. And then, after they are done running really fast, they will run REALLY REALLY fast. In fact, all they fucking do is RUN. Seriously, about 75% of this movie is based on running: I’m surprised studio executives missed out on the opportunity for some Nike and Reebok product placement. I can see it now: Nike Monster Shox – no other shoe will give you the comfort you deserve when running from a pack of Velociraptors…Just Do It!
JP 3 delivers nothing new to the franchise. In fact, I can’t imagine who thought it was a good idea to make this series into a trilogy. Let’s see: the first movie is about a bunch of dinosaurs on an island. Naturally, the audience is going to wonder, “What would happen if they got off the island and into a populated area?” Enter Jurassic Park 2. For some reason, I doubt when people were watching Jurassic Park 2 they were wondering, “Gee, I wonder what would happen if the dinosaurs got back on the fucking island?” This type of story doesn’t have a lot of room for progression, especially over the course of three films. It can only take place in two locations (populated or unpopulated) and the protagonists can either fight the dinos or run away from them. It’s not like you can have the dinosaurs all of a sudden stop chasing after the humans, and instead, deciding to play a game of basketball with them. JP 3 is just a mish-mash of the first two, and that just creates a serious “been there, seen that” feeling that’s going to produce more yawns than screams.
Supposedly, roughly 4-5 weeks before JP 3 was supposed to begin shooting, there was no script. Yes, you read that correctly: no script. There wasn’t a rough draft, pre-draft, a piece of paper with a picture of a triceratops on it: nothing at all. Needless to say, it’s pretty apparent when watching the cast fumble with their dialogue. Sam Neill couldn’t look more disinterested reprising his role as Alan Grant. Can you blame him? He spent a couple months of his life running through a jungle of fake dinosaurs…again. At least the first time, he had a friggin’ script to read.
The only new element to the franchise that JP 3 delivers is the introduction of the Spinosaurus. This monstrosity dwarfs a T-Rex and is twice as irritable. Naturally, the introduction of this potential ass-wrecking machine doesn’t consist of it ripping through a pack of T-Rex’s. That would indicate that this film does something correctly. Instead, we hear an off-screen ring tone that is supposedly from William H. Macy’s character’s cell phone. Problem is, Macy gave his cell-phone to the previously eaten mercenary who was accompanying them. Apparently, the raptor that ate the mercenary was devoured by the Spinosaurus, so now every time the phone rings, that’s their cue that the Spino is in town. How they can hear a cell phone ring when it’s in the bowels of a 40-foot tall dinosaur is beyond me. Christ, I can’t even hear my cell phone half the time when it is in my fucking pocket.
What director Joe Johnston created with Jurassic Park 3 is a poorly-paced, rushed installment of a trilogy no one asked for. While Steven Spielberg used a B-movie-like plot to create a high-quality blockbuster, Joe Johnston helped bring the plot back to its B-movie roots. The film is void of any memorable characters, stand-out moments, or scenes that make you go “Wow!” Actually, that’s a lie: there are plenty of scenes that make you go “Wow!”, but they are usually followed by “Can this movie get any worse?”
Watching Jurassic Park 3 again was like bumping into that regretful one night stand. The only feeling that the encounter creates is disgust.
One last note of interest: apparently, a fourth installment of the Jurassic Park franchise is in the works, directed again by Joe Johnston. Dinos and humans playing basketball in space? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
I must admit; I do wonder how good of a jump shot a T-Rex has.
