Does anyone actually watch these movies before they’re released?
If I were Stephen Spielberg (and I know, he’s an easy target, yes) I’d
have my name ripped off this movie shortly before its incineration.
I'm making a check list for the movies I’ve seen for the last year:
Here’s a little sample:
Check one of the following:
- A _ Just Bad
- B _ Amazingly Bad
- C _ Wonder if you can get your money back by falling down the aisle stairway
- D _ Try to forget you paid 7.50 for this film and try to get some sleep
- E _ Pass a law banning American Films.
I thought it was just me. I honestly, did. I’ve been told that I am
incapable of just going to a movie and suspending my sarcasm and disbelief long
enough to enjoy mindless entertainment.
After Jurassic Park III I’ve found that I don’t care if it is me. Movies
lately have just sucked ass - and this one is no different. I could sit though a
24 hour marathon of Battlefield Earth, A.I. and Plan 9 from Outer Space, with a
goofy grin on my face than watch even another trailer from this … movie.
Yes, Sam Neill returns to “recapture” his role as Alan Grant,
Paleontologist- and Dino guru- along with Laura Dern (who gives a forgettable
cameo appearance to support some kind of unimportant back story- and provide
an important plot device), William H.
Macy and Tea Leoni (who do far too well playing a couple of mind-bogglingly
stupid people) - all in search of a lost boy (I’m not going to bother finding
out the actor’s name - because he deserves to be diced and fed to small
creatures for the crime of appearing in this film.).
The line I’ll quote from Ereneta from the review in Jurassic Park 3 is
: I have a hard time believing that an audience is going to get excited with
velociraptors running around mainland Costa Rica.
If that had happened, this film MIGHT have been interesting. If that had happened I would have stood and cheered that they decided to
take an actual risk in plot.
This was the most predictable movie I have EVER seen - even The Green
Mile held more surprises and I read the goddamn book!
I’m not going to comment on Wonko's write-up other than to say he’s just
wrong. I’m wondering what kind of drugs he was taking when he saw the film so
I can get my hands on a fistful just to forget it. I keep wondering if I
saw the same film as Wonko.
Consolidating:Too violent for kids, too dumb for adults. But really, what should I expect,
Amadeus?
This film should be burned.
I know, I know, that wasn’t fair. It was just another useless, trolling
rant. So, I’ll go into some details and try to support my opinion on this
piece of reeking shit...
Everything below this line is a spoiler:
They come to the island in an attempt to find a little lost boy, the “resourceful”
son of William H Macy character and Tea Leoni (who cares what their
character names were, after ten minutes of watching these two you wanted their names to be
“dinner”). How these two people could have raised anything other than a gerbil is beyond me.
They fool Alan to accompany them, by promising lots of money to help his
recent digs, telling him they are just going to fly over the island. When
Alan realizes what's happening they bonk him on the head and land the plane at
an abandoned airstrip.
The couple, some mercenaries they've hired, Alan and his assistant get off
the plane where we are introduced to plot device D5.
Now, apparently, the T-Rex from the previous two movies got too much airtime,
thus signaling a lawsuit from the Dino-Actors union. To soothe the
discrimination suit, they downgraded the big bad dinosaur, and added in a bigger, badder, dinosaur (with a name
that thankfully escapes me). They just discovered the bones for this creature in
the last few years and thought it would be cool to go ahead in incorporate it
into this tale. They have him kill a T-rex to drive the point home just how
BAAAAD he is.
The first scene where you get a good look at the creature is near the
beginning when they are trying to take off in a plane. It runs in front ,
snapping up a tasty character, and causes them to graze across it and crash into
the jungles of Isla Sorna. It pursues them, breaks the plane in half, and rolls
it around endlessly - everyone is screaming and yelling appropriately. This
scene reminded me of the “Cripple Fight” scenes from a recent episode of
South Park because it went on FOREVER.
Everyone should have just been eaten. Period. Close the set, roll the
credits. Fin.
Unfortunately, most of them escape.
After the harrowing scene of carnage they continue searching the jungle
for the kid. While strolling the jungles they trip across a raptor nest. Alan
Grant’s assistant, an annoying pretty boy who’s acting is as transparent
as the plot, steals a few of the eggs (it eventually becomes an -“I was
gonna sell um and save the farm, Alan! Yuk,yuk”- plot device)… this is supposed
to be a secret - but is telegraphed so badly that you can practically see the
writers sniggering at their laptops.
Eventually they run across the old lab compound from JP2 and are
subsequently attacked by raptors. We lose our last victim at this point. The
rest is running around and screaming.
Also, they “upgraded” the raptors to allow them to communicate via series
of whoops and gurgles, made them smarter - and even made one up to look like the
character “Stripe” from Gremlins, crest and all. Apparently Alan didn’t
notice any of these “smarter, communicative” raptors in the first movie.
Maybe these were just pulling the strings then, who knows, maybe they were just
full.
Alan is separated from the main group by raptors and is subsequently rescued
by “Dino-Boy”, king of the jungle, with a handful of tear gas canisters.
The boy takes Alan back to his hiding place and they have a heartwarming
conversation about love, and parents, Ian Malcolm, blah, blah, blah… do they
really need to drop the names from the other movies? I could practically hear
the Director shouting “One more time, Tommy. This time with feeling!”
Alan and the boy eventually reunite with the rest of them.
As the mother
hugs her darling son (Who’d managed to stay alive for 8 weeks on the
island - fah!), I sensed another chase scene coming on and was rewarded by the
T-rex upgrade. Not content to let the characters wander or die, the upgrade
chases them into a shabby-looking building near a foggy cliff - spooooky!
It is here that Alan discovers that his assistant has taken the raptor eggs -
thus explaining why they were attacked by the raptors! No one ever would have
assumed that the raptors were just hungry, would they? He decides to keep
them, because the raptors knew they had them. His reasoning was “what will
they do to us if the find out we don’t have them” (insert dramatic
music, close-up on Sam Neill placing the eggs back in the pack- groan!).
I guess he was depending on the keen, moral sensibilities of the velociraptor.
They find a “back-way” out of the building and walk down precarious
staircases and metal walkways into the next plot element: The Aviary.
In the book, Jurassic Park, Alan and the children eventually find their way
into the Aviary and it’s a decent scene.
This Aviary is just miserable.
At one point the boy is picked up and dropped into a high-perched nest as
food. Since he’s a kid, you know he escapes. Frustratingly, movies like this
have kids that are far more brave and resourceful than real kids - or movie
adults. They also have that “hurt, but not too bad” magic shell
surrounding them that strips any scene, with their presence, of any real
tension or drama. Predictably, the kid lives at the “apparent” price of
Alan’s assistant. He’s seen fighting of Pterodactyls while trying to
stay afloat.
The rest of the crew escape the aviary - leaving the door open “for another
sequel”- and make it to a boat they’ve spotted on the shore.
To describe the next few scenes as “Blah, blah, blah, heartwarming
bullshit, Brontosaurus, blah, blah, blah, they find William H Macy’s
satellite cell phone in a big pile of poop” is merciful, so that’s how I’ll
describe it.
Actually, the above isn’t a bad analogy of the whole movie.
In any case, Alan makes a desperate call to Laura Dern’s character while
they’re simultaneously attacked by the T-Rex upgrade. The biggest moment of
tension here is when Alan drops the phone and it slides across the deck of the
boat. The roaring was far too loud in the theater, not the Dino, I was just
laughing, so I couldn’t hear what exactly he said to her. You’re left
wondering if she really “got the message”. Who cared?
Unfortunately, no one dies in this scene, either. Or any more that follow. I’ve
seen more mystery watching “the weakest link”. At least there you really
don’t know who will be left.
They manage to barely fight off the upgrade and make it to the shore where
they’re surrounded by angry raptors- looking for their eggs. Wow, that Alan
is sure a bright fella!Good thing he kept them eggs! They give back the eggs
and Alan uses a mock-up of a raptor’s resonance chamber (created during the
exposition phase early in the “film” -for ‘just such an occasion’) and
fools the raptors by mimicking their call for help. They flee- idiots.
As the raptors run away the helicopters predictably arrive.
They run to the beach to find that Laura Dern’s character apparently had
connections in the pentagon. She has managed to call out the navy and the
marines in a full-out beach assault. Since Spielburg produced this film I
figured he had extras left over from his last war movie. They storm the beach,
saving the day- more American Flag waving around… who hoo! We’re saved!
Hack!
As the helicopter flies across the open ocean, Alan finds that his
assistant has also been rescued and they share a heartwarming moment over Alan’s
hat. Outside, the pterodactyls soar across the sky, chase them at first, and
then bank off into the next sequel.
Oh, quick aside. the "upgrade" dino was called the "Spinosaurus"...(got that one from CNN.com)
Oh, and Pyrogenic it's not a high horse, it's a high Dino.
Wonko: Temper, temper - anyway, you've got much higer rep on yours so it is apparent that many more people agree with you. They're wrong too <grin>
One last edition. A friend of mine sent a link to E! online where they had to say the follwing regarding JP3:
Director Joe Johnston (Jumanji) says the dino franchise flick could have been extinct before cameras ever rolled. In fact, Johnston himself tried to get off the film just five weeks prior to shooting. The reason? JP III had no script.
Why am I not surprised?