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DokBrowne [ 0.5 ]
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I’ll begin at an arbitrary point, for complementary reasons that will soon make sense. Nick pointed out a flaw of the action scenes in The Lost World compared to JP3, that being their ineffectiveness. The bus-dangling-over-the-cliff set piece had little consequence on the events or the outcome – no one died, they didn’t learn anything, they neither gained nor lost, nuffin’. It was just a random obstacle to overcome – such was the structure of Nick’s complaint, which then opined that at least in JP3, the big moments led into proceeding ones. With the pteranadons, the troupe seemed to move halfway across the island, one character apparently dies, and so on. The scenes flow into each other, I guess is the presumption. My rebuttal: JP3, unlike The Lost World, has no overall repercussion. Whereas in LW: JP2, the dinos came to the mainland and finally interacted with human society, and then a peaceful governance was established over Isla Sorna to let the creatures roam free and happily (or whatever that shocking “save the environment – even for rampaging mistakes of nature!” ending was meant to signify), in part 3 all they do is go to the island, escape the dinosaurs, and leave the island. There’s a suggestion that the to-the-rescue military is going to “take care” of the dangers (i.e. destroy the entire misbegotten place), and by all rights they should, by virtue of several people getting killed every single time humans have come into contact with these dinosaurs, but then again, maybe that’s an overly complex assumption for this movie. Given some/many/most/all of the decisions made for plot, dialogue, and ideology, I have no incentive to give Jurassic Park III any credibility points whatsoever. It’s a stupid movie that was obviously re-written with each new scene. The purpose of that giant fleet, I believe (as according to the movie’s logic), is just to save them, their mass (even Normandy Beach wasn’t this stacked with the artillery) to convey a relieving, humorous sense of absurdity. They probably have no intention of accomplishing anything beyond saving Grant, as per Elie’s orders (although what gave her the authority to wield such efficient, powerful defense resources is not at all clear). Likewise, the movie as a whole’s got no bite. It aimed towards nothing impressive. The Lost World achieved some things, broke some new ground. This one doesn’t, unless you count introducing recently-theorized species and the possibility that raptors can communicate by screeching at one another (with very cartoonish jaw movements), but those elements mostly just serve the trailer, making the affair seem exciting when in fact it hardly matters. The raptors in Jurassic Park de 1993 were a lot more threatening than the chatty buggers roaming around here.
In keeping with this inconsequentiality (wow, that word cleared my Microsoft Word spell check; I expected it to be too pre-/suffix –icated), the Spinosaurus wasn’t even killed. Granted, big T-Rex wasn’t taken down in the original either, but this time they could/should’ve handled his final moments more valuably. Y’know, imaginatively. Ditto the raptors – they weren’t foiled, and since this movie has no greater aspirations than its action-adventure genre role-playing (as so many sanctimonious critics – like that increasingly erratic dunderpate Ebert – have been fond of using as an excuse to approve of JP3), it’s not as if the plot has anything better to do than follow the traditional scheme of good-defeating-bad. So it couldn’t even live up to its own “modest” standards, in forgetting an essential climactic rule. In fact, there was no climax at all. The encounter with the raptors almost qualifies as an anticlimax, but it’s not even remotely similar to what should be the apex of the film-viewing experience. A tense square-off, Tea Leoni gives back the eggs, Grant uses Billy’s communication device, and the sound of helicopters scare the raptors away. The End. If that sounds almost complicated enough to be a decent finale, I’ll take you through the entire story to prove otherwise, but first, a sidebar. The “no way, is it seriously over now?! What about the last 20 minutes where something exciting and conclusive actually happens?!” finales of horror movie garbage like Halloween 3 and Arcade are what come to mind, and comparing Jurassic Park to a the worst sequel of all time and a Full Moon Entertainment flick (they’re the proud proprietors of Puppet Masters 1-8 and other miserly fuckfests co-starring Julie Newmar, George Takei, and the like) is not only unexpected, but downright depressing. Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, like it or not, was one of the classiest things to happen to mainstream science fiction in years, and seven years later, here we are, a mere three chapters into the saga and already sunken into the sticky underground of straight-to-video devastation.
And now for the play-by-play:
1) prologue to establish conflict: some kid gets lost on Isla Sorna
2) character introductions for Grant, new character Billy (Alessandro Nivola, what happened to your quirky Face/Off edginess?), new characters William H. Macy and Tea Leoni, and, for no reason because they all die after their 2nd-3rd lines of dialogue, the three mercenaries. All that’s missing are name titles: Dr. Grant! in the Jurassic Font
3) plot point #1: why the movie will be taking place on an island (reason #36708.4, the retrieval of missing persons)
4) rising action: they arrive at Isla Sorna and are immediately attacked by the Spinosaurus
5) a series of conflict-resolutions all throughout the middle (walking around, seeing a dinosaur, getting chased by it, temporarily averting it)
6) plot point #2: achieving plot point #1 (retrieving the kid)
7) a series of conflict-resolutions all throughout the middle (walking around, seeing a dinosaur, getting chased by it, temporarily averting it)
8) climax: um...no
9) resolution: military rescue
10) epilogue to establish perpetuity: pteranadons flying away from the island
Within these scenes are many comedic asides, such as Macy acting goofy while trying to kick open a candy machine, and some moments of bondage (the relationship kind, not what you think). That’s all there is. Steven Spielberg may have produced this – and it shows in various aspects, mainly the futile inclusion of a resourceful, parentally-challenged kid – but he sure didn’t try very hard. Poltergeist, Back to the Future, Men in Black, The Mask of Zorro – Spielberg has grown into a Jedi Master of the producing market as thoroughly as he has his famous directing career, but everything about this affair, from the amateurish pacing to the “big summer movie” vestigial dialogue and plot operation, and even to the anachronistic modeling of the characters (Tea Leoni with a bowl cut, William H. Macy with a mustache, Alessandro Nivola with lots of shaggy curls, Trevor Morgan looking like an overgrown Cabbage Patch kid – in this lean ‘n’ over-stylized day and age, the people should’ve had as little hair as possible), screams rushed and retarded. Dr. Hammond would be disappointed to see just how much expense was spared on this turkey. Mr. Band of Brothers/Minority Report Spielberg alleged himself too busy to carry on as director of his 2nd-most profitable franchise, but it’s reasonable to just cut through that diplomatic treacle to reach the core of the matter, that Spielberg saw the barren wasteland of ideas that Universal had in mind for a third Jurassic Park, so refused to direct and then, to appease executives terrified as how to possibly sell a Spielberg-based movie without Spielberg, he settled for a credit that could easily trick audiences into believing he was still the big man in charge. The decision was wise of him, but unfortunate for us, because it is upon us that this crappy imitation has been dropped, and our insatiable curiosity magnetizes us to the box office, regardless of where Steven Spielberg happened to be during filming. He snuck out the back door, compromising some integrity but scoring some extra cash (not unlike Alan Grant’s motivation within the movie itself) and another blockbuster credit on his resume, leaving us to suffer the cancerous consequences of his absence.
And it’s easy to spot the hacking in Joe Johnston’s work. For example, at three points, big dinosaurs will just stand and stare at the people. Not counting every single raptor attack, in which a pack of them will mill about talking until their prey finds a way out of it (wow, the talking killer cliché via dinosaurs!), or the times when the pteranadons just walk slowly towards a victim (wow, the calm-yet-diligent motion of a Michael Meyers serial killer cliché via dinosaurs!...), there are three separate instances in which the stupid-osauruses give patient observation to the humans they once so vigorously hunted. The T-Rex cameo is wacky in this case: Grant opens some brush and sees a carcass, and then T-Rex’s head pops up, his mouth all bloody from the feast that’s just been interrupted. He and Grant & Co. exchange curious, muted, prolonged glances at one another, until it’s the humans who make the first move, by running away (as always; you thought it was bad how in Kevin Smith movies he constantly transitions scenes by having characters point at something just off-screen – well here it’s just as bad in that the only way the humans travel/advance is by fleeing, and in that you’d expect a big-budget project like this to be able to handle itself that way). The T-Rex, I assumed, in all his instinctual prowess, would instantly seize that opportunity. What’s he got to think/pause for anyhow? My word, quite the dilly of a pickle: to continue eating this tasty dinosaur flesh, or to go for some fresher action with these humans? Dum-dum-dee-dum, la-la-lala, oh wait, they’re running. Bastards! I’ll show them who’s champ of the 50-meter dash! And then maybe I’ll eat ‘em, too! Bwahahahaha, ahahahahahahoh crap, it’s that “new” scary-osaurus. He’s such a bully! Well, I can’t let myself look like a pussy in front of the tourists, so’s I better try to get off at least one good chomp before running away. Aw fuck, he pinned me! Dude, he’s gonna break my neck! Hey, you little motherfuckers, a little help! I suck yo dick! Noooo~aacck! Oh yeah, that was the rest of that scene. Actually, to see the wrestling match between the King of the Dinosaurs (or whatever his tag-name is, not that it matters any longer, because T-Rex winds up a big time loser) and this new pretty boy (the Spinosaurus) was an entertaining sequence, replete with glorious gusto that gives new girth to the phrase clash of the titans, even though we’ve never even heard of the Spinosaurus until now. By the 7th Jurassic Park, when they’ve lost interest in applying human foibles, they can just hire The Rock and some former employees of Capcom to choreograph a Mortal Kombat-style arrangement and have odd-coupled fights between, say, a prehistoric snail and one of those giant sea monsters. They could call it Jurassic Park Licks My Nuts. Anyway, it’s sad how they had to kill off the T-Rex so quickly in order to make the Spinosaurus look scarier, even though it just became a T-Rex stand-in, no more no less. It was the main villain, with the raptors and pteranadons almost like its henchmen. It made you ashamed of the three kickass T-Rexes in the first two movies. It was just a case of sequelitis – next time there’ll be a different threat altogether that will somehow have to assert its dominance over all previous threats just so we’ll still care, being that the mindset behind all this is if we’ve seen it once, we don’t care. We adapt, like the Borg, so there must constantly be a newer, more powerful weapon to stay ahead of our immunity shields
The second awkward pause is when the people hear Macy’s phone jing-a-linging, and realize that it was consumed by the Spino, and then turn around (even though half of them were already facing that direction) to see Spino watching them from a few hundred feet away. A) What happened to the ominous majesty of foretelling the evil dinosaur’s presence by the thunderous quakings of his every step (or the reverbs of those steps in tiny ripples of water)? B) Why is the big guy standing right behind them? In the original, or in a darker, R-rated JP adventure, Spino-snore-us would’ve “crept up”, and just as they hear the phone ringing, he’d bite off someone’s torso. Here he gives everyone too much of a head start. Or just that he gives them one at all. What an innocuous softy. And then finally, there’s a celebrity cameo by some more obscure allisaurus-type sister T-Rex, one that’s got a spike on its head and is red all over, called the Ackywackydon or something, that appears at the dung farm – where Grant and the Keystone Krusaders are rummaging through the excrement (scene ripoff #1548) – to get a look at the gang, then take off. Actually, I think it said, “Pfff, whatEVA” and told them to talk to the Hand before continuing on its journey to the fabled Green Valley, but maybe that was just its attitude or particular stance.
What other failings should you expect from Jurassic Park 3? The ides of repetition. In one of many virtually-creepy-but-not-really devices, the pteranadon shifts the focus of a scene for us by watching as a character gets swept away to his doom and continuing to swivel his head around until he’s looking straight at the camera/Dr. Grant. It’s like on “Who Shot Mr. Burns” where Dr. Hibbert says, “Well, I couldn’t possibly figure this out. Can YOU?” and then he points right at us, until the shot pulls back to show he’s actually pointing at Chief Wiggum, naturally. It’s supposed to be all threatening that these primitive predators are suddenly staring right at us like any evil human/knowingly-conscious threat might, but it’s just an effect. It means nothing, and no one in the movie ever credits those pteranadons with intelligence. The raptors are the tweed-wearing Yale graduates, so stick with your own contrivances, screenwriters. The spinosaurus does the here’s looking at YOU thing too, I believe. And there are several ominous over-the-shoulder shots of a raptor turning its head to hear/see something behind it. Just one identical subterfuge after another.
There’s also an easy way to tell when more dinosaurs are going to arrive (aside from the obvious method, which is counting to ten after the previous appearance of a dinosaur): just listen for any of the following phrases, repeated continuously like some kind of story rhythm:
1. “Ssshh, do you hear that/Ssshh, listen!”
2. “Hey Dr. Grant, I think you better come take a look at this!”
3. “What’s that?!”
And for more interactive gaming, you can play “spot the so old they outdate the dinosaurs clichés”. From “I’d bet my bottom dollar” to “Nobody move a muscle”, they’re all here, scattered around like Easter Eggs in a mine field of entertainment shortcomings, among the more deadly including mines of logic (Dr. Grant didn’t try to validate the check before the expedition? And how did William H. Macy expect the mercenaries to react when they realized their money was fake, too, because Macy couldn’t have known that he’d avert that ethical pickle by relying on the formula-tested, formula-approved inevitability of minor characters getting eaten), of questionable ethics (Macy and Leoni put the lives of Sam Neill, Alessandro Nivola, John Diehl, Michael Jeter, and a black guy at risk for their own selfish motives, and yet they’re our protagonists. Even the disingenuous Wayne “Nedry” Knight wouldn’t have nonchalantly endangered lives, and yet he still got eaten. I guess it’s all about how important a star you are on the Hollywood Grapevine), of common senselessness (after many lectures – not that she should need any – Tea Leoni still has the gall to casually scream in search of her son, right in the middle of the shark-infested jungle), of boring drama (I didn’t, couldn’t, pay attention to any of Macy’s excruciatingly labored bonding scenes with Leoni. They were just so weak. All I kept thinking during each one was “yeah, pretty cute. 10 people are dead, including ones you yourself tricked into coming under false pretenses.”), and of accidental red herring (asked how he got a specimen of T-Rex urine, the kid says “you don’t wanna know”, even though it makes no sense, is just a lame attempt at excusing a hole in the script with humor, and despite that the explained utility of the urine – to ward off lesser dinosaurs who fear the scent – is never employed, unlike every other insignificant detail mentioned in the first half of the movie, like the raptor eggs and Billy’s raptor conch). Not to mention that Dr. Grant is patterned identically after Malcolm in The Lost World – an experienced JP survivor struggling in vain to warn foolish others of the dino-dangers ahead, and alternately being smug about the whole thing (every now and then I still wake up in the middle of the night, my dreams haunted by Sandra Bullock’s vainer-than-vain, so-called performance in Speed 2). Furthermore, for a junior paleontologist, Billy was pretty dumb not to even consider that the raptors would track their missing eggs. Hasn’t he ever seen The Lost World, or even Jaws 3? Parental monsters always come after their children. It’s a maternity complex, something dating back to Steven Spielberg, the originator of both Jurassic Park and Jaws. He must’ve had a hand in both 3s’ plot points. And lest you think there’s absolutely nothing left to quibble over, pee on this stick: there must be a shortage of parasailing green screen f/x in the archives of filmdom, because Johnston works his like he’s never been taught how to combine foreground action with simulated background images. The result, similar to virtually every detail of JP3, is cheap and laughable, as if we’re watching test footage from The Land that Time Forgot instead of a deluxe, high-priced treatment of the same idea. But wait, there’s more! Upon finding the utterly decomposed skeleton of her husband, Tea Leoni shrieks and frets for about 25 years, but when William H. Macy calms her down, she explains that her agitation is not over her husband’s death, but over the thought of their son being on the island all alone. Like, okay, so maybe it’s understandable that you overlook the tragedy of your spouse’s (obviously-gruesome) death in light of knowing that another cherished family member is still at risk – you gotta focus on getting someone out alive – but Jesus Christ, the guy was a fucking skeleton! That’s one of the most extreme states of death during which to discover a person, yet beyond the immediate shock, she doesn’t even care. Of course not – in an hour she’s gonna be back together with William H. Macy, and we all know what an irresistible stud he is. Plus he was in Fargo, and on behalf of my sacred duties as a film critic, I’m obliged to accompany any reference to that movie with a standing ovation and at least 2 sentences that are wall-to-wall this is why I love movies praise-tricks. But...no. That movie kinda sucked. And as usual, JP3 Macy plays a character who is not at all tailored for romantic lead status, nor, to cover all my bases, one who defies convention and succeeds as an offbeat, alternative romantic lead. He just doesn’t jive as that kind of guy.
All right, you’re halfway done, take a breather, grab a drink, re-establish contact with your fellow man, and resume when, or if ever, you’re ready.
Okay. The scenes of wonder, scored to the classic John Williams anthem, were so forced and beyond inappropriate that they make you want to disown this one from even being associated with the Jurassic Park genus. I cringed at what used to be one of my all-time favorite cinematic musical compositions (second only to Alan Silvestri’s Back to the Future suites, probably) because it had no place in a brief lil’ action flick. There is no profundity or grandeur to bargain escapism like this. It’s like trying to stuff Whitman’s Leaves of Grass in the middle of a Fantastic Four comic book. We don’t feel the magic anymore. Especially when it’s not even an epic sweeping-through or an awe-inspiring backwards/upwards panning effect, just a few overhead shots of a dozen assorted dinos. And the 2nd time the awe is evoked, after the crew narrowly averts the pteranadons and having lost four people, it’s hard to imagine them feeling anything besides contempt for and fear of these creatures. Which takes us to the end. I’m really sick of movies where lots of people die and then the survivors joke with each other at the end. We the audience aren’t supposed to notice or care, because it’s all about feeling mitigation after a long, intense ride. And if the dead was someone like Julia “Mrs. Ed” Roberts, I’d understand the dearth of lingering sadness, but it never stopped occurring to me that all of the deaths this time were Macy’s and Leoni’s faults. If Michael Crichton had penned a book version of JP3 (that he didn’t is yet another wink at the pointlessness and idiocy of it all), both of them would’ve been left on the island to pay for their sins. The son could live, if only because we’re all too timid to punish such innocence, but the parents should’ve had to atoll for their crimes. Let us not forget Dr. Hammond’s original fate at Crichton’s hands.
And for that matter, the death count was inadequately low. The three mercenaries pack their bags early on, and if I may tangentialize, they were more expendable in more contrived ways than any useless characters in movie history. As is the case with Billy’s “death” later on, we only see about 40% of the killing take place. Sounds shallow, but it’s fun and frightening to watch how the dinosaurs dispatch of us humans. Being deprived of that is like being deprived of penetration shots in a porn flick. Anyway, after they’re dead, for the next hour plus, there’s but a single additional demise, and it’s just a fake-out, like Richard Dreyfuss’s in Jaws, that resolves itself cleanly by the end. Going in, I fully (and dreadfully) expected for Grant to perish, especially with a younger protégé at his side, ready to fill his shoes. I also thought that either Macy or Leoni would eat it (or vice versa for the dinos, so the speak), and not just because they really deserved to as wretchedly belligerent assholes, but then they had a tacked-on rebuilding the relationship subplot that made their survival mandatory. So no one died. There was no carnage, no shocking displays of human dispensability against the might of the ancient animals for whose resurrection we are responsible. All that philosophical subtext is gone, presumably for the sake of more primary thrills, like gore and constant action, except that there isn’t any gore, and the action is devoid of effect, precision, and excitement. Here’s looking at you, Scream 3: it’s the promise of mayhem, unfulfilled. The numerous main characters are spared in both films, although in Scream’s defense, Sydney, Dewey, and Gale were endearing, and the trilogy, in that case, was ultimately about them and not their adversary. When it comes to Jurassic Park, though, there is no one at the focus of the story all three times. The people are replaceable, so that’s how they should be treated (i.e. getting mutilated by the movies’ actual stars, the dinosaurs). It’s all this kind of punch-pulling nonsense that makes Jurassic Park 3 weak, cowardly, and wasteful, on top of the many other demeaning adjectives I’ve used so far.
Then there’s Grant’s dream on the airplane. To borrow one of my own analogous devices, the dream was like trying to stuff Dude, Where’s My Car? in the middle of Raiders of the Lost Ark, or so it seemed before the inanities of this adventure sank in and I realized that the entire ordeal was just as amazing in its inconsistency of tone. The first obvious sign that this isn’t your father’s Jurassic Park, Grant’s dream, in which he looks around at an empty plane devoid of his associates, before turning to his left and seeing, seated next to him, a raptor, who exclaims, “Dr. Grant!”, constitutes madness of the highest order. If the movie is striving for juvenile scares like that, I’d advise it to go all the way. Say, by having the talking raptor hold a martini between its two claws and speaking with a snooty British accent, like that hilarious parody of Jurassic Park from “The Critic” (“The other raptors and I have formed a crude suspension bridge to Venezuela. Once there, I shall lie low and assume odd jobs under the name Mr. Pilkington...but perhaps I’ve said too much.”).
Approximately the second instance of unintended silliness involves more raptor action. They’re in the main camp, wandering through the laboratories inside, when Tea Leoni comes upon a large compartment containing the head of a raptor. Approaching it curiously is Leoni’s mistake, when it turns out the raptor isn’t really in the big jar, nor even dead, but in fact hiding behind it, waiting to pounce. It tricked them! This is reminiscent of the scene in Young Frankenstein when Friedrich and Yvette are going down the row of display cases of dead objects, then come to Marty Feldman with his head on a plate, but it’s just Eye-gor standing behind the shelf being wacky. Except that then I laughed, here I roll my eyes. The curvature of the tube the raptor’s supposedly in also suggests that if he were just on the other side, Leoni wouldn’t have seem him so perfectly. His face would be distorted and he wouldn’t look to be as close to the front. Lay. Zee. Also, I want to watch Young Frankenstein again. When I was a kid, Marty Feldman in that movie was the greatest achievement in comedy history. So strongly did I feel that I even sat through Yellowbeard, hoping to see more of his googly-eyed hijinks. Thankfully, youth obscures the details of our memories, so all I have to imagine when thinking back to Yellowbeard is how joylessly scatological it was. My goodness that sucked.
Speaking of SUCKS, how about the stupid ugly kid in Jurassic Park 3? He acts like some Lord of the Flies reject at first, and it’s hardly endearing how he tries giving Grant advice on his relationship with Elie (although that did set up a Die Hard with a Vengeance-esque “will he or won’t he?” cliffhanger at the end...y’know, like when Zeus insisted that John give Holly a call). Also, I want to watch all the Die Hard movies again. And no, I’m not still squirming over the World Trade Center. I have the magic power to disassociate entertainment from reality. I’m told others do as well, actually, but have yet to witness such apparent normality.
Speaking of Elie (my transitions are getting rougher around the edges, aren’t they? Sorry), her return was nice. Laura Dern, where art thou since Citizen Ruth? Not counting banal HBO dramas with Stockard Channing or Judy Davis, that is. At least she’s pretty again. Back in 1993, after seeing the first one, I had a big crush on her for a while. Then a year or so ago I saw Citizen Ruth and, more importantly, saw into the true face of ugliness. Not that it’s her fault – no one would look good after inhaling canisters of hairspray, getting that black after-effect crap around their mouths, then having hair that looks like dry salad and a face that looks as tired and miserable as I feel on a weekday morning before peeling myself out of bed and tying my body to a wooden post to keep from falling over in the shower. That was horrible. She looks good, and is a decent person once again. Too bad her role is so fleeting. Still, having thought it was just a cameo, it surprised me to see her pop up again at the end for the deus ex machina. It gave the impression that her role was more than just a gimmick in the picture, even though instead, it was just an economic plot device (by having her in the beginning, we can re-use her to establish Grant’s ticket off the island at the end). Her major scene is another screw-up for Johnston, though: at first we see Grant playing with Elie’s children, and she comes up and talks about them, so we assume that Grant & Elie spent the last 7 years together in marital bliss, just like we hoped they would back in the beginning. But then we piece together, vaguely and thanks mostly to our own functional talents as reasoning human beings, that he’s just visiting Elie and Some Random New Guy’s family). It’s also lame how, in their only real conversation, the 2 of them share about 1 and a half pleasantries before delving right into the “exciting” exposition from Grant (with Elie supplying his theories with the necessary prompt questions) about talking raptors that are “smarter than dolphins or whales...smarter than primates! Ain’t my grin infectious, just like Harrison Ford, whose cool, adventurous hat I’ve stolen?!” It’s a pointless scene, when it could have been heartfelt or based just a little on characterization. I mean, c’mon, it can’t be that hard to write dialogue for characters who already have a precedent in both novel and movie form. All the personality dots are already connected; now just roll them around to make it interesting again. The next cast member from the original to appear in a Jurassic sequel is going to hell, I’m telling you right now. Unless it’s Jeff Goldblum. There’s always room for Jeff and his stuttering. I love him. Loved, prior to Cats & Dogs.
Now what to write about Tea Leoni? She’s out of her element, but I can’t really imagine her fitting in anywhere. I used to think she had talent, and I certainly enjoyed her good looks, but now, years later, she still hasn’t found a niche...there’s something off about her, maybe the raspy voice. Worse is how she constantly looks stuck in the background. She never stands out. So I’ve lost hope until further notice. As for William H. Macy, he’s fine. I’m tempted to say “cool”, but he bugs a lot. Like I said, he’s just not comfortable in these standard-issue parts. For that matter, I don’t see why respected actors like Macy (Oscar nominee and two-time P.T. Anderson collaborator), edgy below-the-movie star-frequency Alessandro Nivola, the reputation-undefinable Sam Neill (he’s British, so he’s got class, and he was in The Piano, but I’ve never really read any praise for a performance of his, and of the very few films he’s even in, they’re not notable ones anyway), and even Tea Leoni, who’s at least costarred in three profitable hits (Bad Boys, Deep Impact, and The Family Man) and a David O. Russell movie, would agree to do this. The disgusting goblin of a script that was used and the minimalism of everything about it should ideally have forced Spielberg to demand a better copy, with the same discretion and taste that, presumably, he, Harrison Ford, and George Lucas have been demonstrating for the past decade in their search for another Indiana Jones story (although I’ve reached the point of cynicism where I find it more likely that the reason there isn’t a new movie is because they all have less risky, more refreshing work to do...except in Lucas’s case. He is not excused). What was chosen is the equivalent of a fan-fiction Jurassic Park, ironically like those Indy IV scripts on all the Internet screenplay sites, the scripts that are written by obsessive geeks who are too far gone in their own little worlds to use their storytelling prowess for higher purposes, like erotic literature. The theme and scope of this story parallels that of Lucas’ The Phantom Menace – it’s more episodic than complete, just a minor, workmanlike subplot, not the full-on experience (all the more reason, actually, for Lucas and the gang to hold off on any more Indiana Jones sequels). That’s why I’m wary of TV-to-movie adaptations. How can they come up with an important-enough idea to make the cinematic translation seem worth all the extra time, money, and effort? I hope this serves as a heads-up to Joss Whedon and Matt Groening, neither of whom should ever let their masterful, best of the very best creations suffer the bogus translation process to big screen Hollywood (or in Whedon’s case, ever again).
So now I’ve lost all sense of transition. Turns out I’m no better than the guys who wrote this movie. There’s just a couple more bitter points I need to make before slapping on a grade and ending my life. As a trade, I’ll just stop using paragraphs and denote changes in ideas with bullets.
The pteranadons flying away from the island at the end were just blown off, but what if they’re headed to a coast to wreak havoc on the world? Instead it’s just another “goll-ee, that’s wondrous!” Whatever.
Dr. Grant sells out, in the name of lowbrow crowd-pleasing humor. Then, after this switcheroo (Grant says “nothing on the world AT ALL – NOTHING NOPE NOT ANY POSSIBLE MOTIVATION WHATSOEVER UH-UH – will get me back on that island” then he’s accepting a big check to go), I was expecting something wacky when William H. Macy emerges from the river after a Spinosaurus attack and responds to Leoni’s “Why’d you leave me?” sobbing by valiantly declaring, “I’m not going anywhere.” It was an empty shot, with him in the dead center, so I figured he would suddenly explode for no reason. Which would’ve been funnier, even though I like him as an actor, despite his wimpy antics and ethical riff-raffery this time. In another “wait for it, he’s gonna explode!” moment, the survivors enter a clearing to see a man in a business suit standing on the other side. He waves to them in a long shot, and since he’s the lone item in the frame, it just seems inevitable that something huge (and, because this is a Jurassic Park, something terrible) is going to happen from below/above/to the side of him. It was surreal enough to see some guy standing on the shore waving at them; might as well blow him up, or drop a piano on his head. I mean, here we are now, entertain us. Damn you.
In the end, it’s embarrassing. Without a backbone or any shred of storytelling practicality, Jurassic Park 3 just looks pathetic. I honestly think an R-rating would have at least helped the movie maintain some dignity. More profanity (Neill to raptors: “Come and get me, you goddamn prehistoric cocksuckers!”/Neill to Leoni: “Crazy beeyotch, shut the fuck up!!”), uglier violence (as he’s running towards a helicopter that’ll take them all off the island, Macy gets knocked to the ground from behind by a pteranadon, which then thrusts its beak into Macy’s back and viciously gnaws on his flesh, until cracking his spine in half and sucking the meat off each piece; add a pitchfork, those little compy dinosaurs, a box full of dildos, and 300 sautéed goldfish dipped in boysenberries, and we get a nasty death scene that’d make the Troma freaks proud; on second thought, uh, no), and a darker resolution (from the island, the rescue team takes Grant and Co. up to New York, and the first thing they see is that the State of Liberty is actually a giant female raptor. Dinosaurs dressed in police uniforms arrive immediately and surround the humans...???!!!). But no. The franchise has been left out in the sun too long without the proper Spielbergian/Crichtonian nurturing, and as a result, there’s no carbonation left in this dino-cola. Which is really, truly a letdown to true-blue fans of the series like me and one of my best friends, Glen. To people who hated The Lost World, and that would account for everyone in the universe except me and Glen, this 3rd one is probably a step-up, because it’s all the meat of the sequel scraped down to the bones. It’s Jurassic Park without the fluff of philosophy, characterization, style, high quality filmmaking (creative ingenuity and technical wizardry). No more of these movies, Spielberg, or so help me Jeebus, you’ll get jur ass kicked! Bwahahahahahahahahaha, I hate this movie
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Qaizer [ 6.0 ]
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Sorry Joe, everything that was supposed to be scary, turned out to be quite hilarious. JP3 is a very bad sequel, but it has its good moments. The special effects where not bad but not as groundbreaking as one would expect. Amblin should have sticked to only 1 Jurassic Park. Very, very disappointing.
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RiderOfRohan [ 9.0 ]
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After seeing the first and second you just say to yourself what is there that you haven't yet seen. A lot that's what. It totally passed up my expectation. I have it on video along with the other two. I was in Cleveland for perticular reasons that I don't think anyone cares about when I first saw it. I thought to myself while I was watching it," I wonder what's coming up next. I just want to say if you haven't seen it now is your oppurtunity.
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jim [ 6.5 ]
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Your basic summer movie, dinosaur division. At least it moves at a brisk pace and has the good sense to end when it does, instead of dragging things out for another half hour. One wonders why they hired an actor with William H. Macy's range when his character could have been played by an inflatable dummy.
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Mohawk [ 6.5 ]
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More of the same. Jurassic Park was never a great movie in the first place. Actually this was enjoyable (to a degree) upto the point the US army came to save the day at the end....how American is that?
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| Weighted Rating | : 5.5 |
| No. Ratings | : 13 | |
| No. Reviews | : 9 | |
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