With Jurassic World: Rebirth having just released, it seemed like a good time to revisit Jurassic Park IIIconsidering the similarities between the two films. The 2001 feature sees Steven Spielberg sitting out of the director’s chair, and the results are certainly mixed. But there are still decent moments in this third entry, which, for lack of a better term, killed the franchise until its revival in 2015.
The main selling point of the third film was the return of Sam Neill’s Dr. Alan Grant in the lead role, who sat out The Lost World. This time, though, Grant finds himself hoodwinked onto Site B to help a divorced couple find their missing son, whose last communication was three weeks prior and has since gone radio silent. Fearing the worst, but optimistic their son is alive, the Kirby family, Grant, a few mercenary red shirts, and Grant’s student Billy, find themselves on Isla Sorna without a plane or working radio after their initial plane is destroyed by the Spinosaurusthe new major threat in this movie en-lieu of the traditional T-rex.
Special effects guru Joe Johnston takes over the directing duties in this one, which is a weird fact to say as the VFX in this entry definitely feel a lot weaker than the previous two entries. There’s a bigger emphasis on CGI dinosaurs this time around, and they just don’t look that great overall. The same, unfortunately, is also true for the practical effects. Specifically, the animatronic Spinosaurus looks more like a robot you’d see on a theme park ride. The raptor animatronics at least do look convincing. It’s weird that the movie looks so rough, considering Johnston is a big shot over at Industrial Light & Magic and worked on the original Star Wars films’ visuals.
There is an appreciated sense of dread and terror in this entry that works, and the jungle setting feels appropriately untamed and wild, more so than The Lost World, I would argue. There’s also some genuinely good sequences in the film, such as the introduction to the raptors, which involved them setting a trap for the other survivors, and the aviary sequence, which felt very fresh for a franchise three movies in. But the film’s script is messy, and the acting is weak, especially Tea Leoni as Mrs. Kirby, who yells her way through the movie. But none of the characters, including Grant, feel particularly memorable or interesting. The film also ends extremely abruptly, undoing the goodwill that the decent pacing the film had going for it (the film clocks in at around an hour and a half). And much like Gladiator II’s score, the best moments from this soundtrack, composed now by The Matrix’s Don Davis, are when it riffs on the original Jurassic Park (a problem Rebirth had now that I think of it).
Jurassic Park III, at its core, feels more like a big-budget version of a Syfy special. There’s a few good sequences, but the effects are inconsistent, the characters are boring, and nothing much stands out as memorable or iconic. But much like a bad B-movie, Jurassic III is still enjoyable in its own way and isn’t a slog to watch at the very least. But for its problems, it’s still leagues better than Jurassic World: Dominion.