Jurassic Park III is just a fun adventure film, nothing more, nothing less. It's not as good as the first (obviously), but it is better than The Lost World and Jurassic World, which are just bad movies. I like JP III for what it is. It's fun and entertaining, and for that reason, it's a good film.
Care to elaborate how a film with utterly lazy and shoddy character motivation, pathetically phony family drama, a bare bones plot, a rushed ending and the weakest effects of the franchise is better than two films that feel like they actually have something to say?
TLW and JW are flawed films. But they actually have themes, idea's and messages they explore. They actually feel like genuine extensions of the first film and not a weak excuse to throw more dinosaurs on screen. JP3 comes close to expanding the mythos of the series only to have an action scene interrupt it. I could maybe except JP3 being nothing more than a simple action adventure film if I bought into the basic conceit...but it even failed at that...something fundamental to EVERY FILM EVER MADE. This film does not exist in a vacuum. It contains characters from previous films...acting totally antithetical to the last time we saw them. Grant's arc from the first film is completely ignored and done away with. They turned him into nothing more than a bitter Malcolm clone. He's really gonna get suckered into going back by money? The same thing that got him there in the first place? Really? He doesn't even bother to ask the obviously lying strangers for some kind credentials? A down payment? It's weak and stupid and unbelievable.
The little family drama between the Kirby's couldn't have felt more phoned in and corny. I didn't give a rats ass about any of them and I actively hated Amanda-worthless, screeching annoyance incarnate. Macy, a great actor, looked like he couldn't have cared less. Billy was so boring he may as well not have been a character and Eric was too much of superkid. So people are going to spit on TLW for the gymnastics scene but forgive JP3 for basically making the kid into a superhero with no set-up at all? At least Kelly's gymnastics bit was eluded to earlier in the film. As silly as that moment was, it at least had some background. Eric simply knows how to survive for over a month alone on an island filled with man-eating prehistoric beasts? Give me a damn break.
What about the raptors? Oh boy the raptors. Gone are the intelligent but vicious killing machines. Now we have full blown Bond villains with sharp teeth and feathers on their head. The amount of scheming and trickery the raptors pulled in this film jumped the shark in an extreme way. So a raptor somehow knows that by standing still behind a glass cylinder filled with water it will look like a dead embryo and waits there for a character to walk by and look at it before it attacks? Does the utter stupidity of this scene not register? It's laughable how dumb it is. They then proceed to set a trap by crippling a guy only to snap his neck and leave him behind. They don't eat him? They don't take him back to the nest? If the raptors in this film had moustaches, they would be twirling them. They don't act like animals. They act like nefarious Bond villains.
How about the stupid as hell Spinosaurous? Nice design, but terrible execution. The transitions from animatronic to CGI for the Spino are the weakest of the whole series and the animatronic is simply too big and bulky to look convincing. In too many shots it looks like what it is...a machine on a set. How did the thing sneak up on them at the fence in broad daylight without them hearing it? Why is it just standing there brooding? How can they possibly hear the ringtone from inside the things gut while it's still standing a good distance away? Why can it bust through a metal fence but not a wooden door? Like the raptors, the Spino isn't an animal...it's a monster-a slasher villain.
And do I really have to discuss how botched the fight between it and the Rex was? Fans hate that scene for a reason. Even as a 12 year old kid in the theater, that scene pissed me off and left a bad taste in my mouth.
I don't normally like the Nostalgia Critic, but he's dead on with an observation he made about this film: It's a paint-by-numbers JP film. It has all of the pieces a JP film needs, but it just throws them onscreen without any proper execution or reason. He doesn't like TLW or JW either, but he even concedes those films have stand-out moments worthy of the franchise. No such thing is seen in JP3. It doesn't EARN anything.
Oh, and the film...just ends. No build up. No suspense. It just ends. Oh, and Billy survived. Yay?
The only good scene in the entire film is the Pterodon scene.
So please, go ahead and tell me how TLW and JW are somehow worse films that JP3? Because that is simply an opinion I can't tolerate. It would be different if you said "I enjoy JP3 more than TLW and JW". But you didn't say that. You said its better and that those two are simply "bad films".
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