Jurassic Park III

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: Joe Johnston

Starring: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Allesandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan

From: Universal

Believe it or not, until Wednesday night I had never seen this before. I finally decided to check it out and it turns out that it's about average, although it's a masterpiece compared to Jurassic World, which I saw last night and boy did I not care for it. I'll make a post about that in a few hours but for now you can read my Letterboxd review for this film below:

(Note: Today has just been a horrid day all around for me, between those celebrities dying and many little things adding up; I did not want to post this so late but I have to; tomorrow afternoon I'll talk about Jurassic World, which I just saw earlier in the evening. Ooh boy do I have some things to say about that.

I figured it was about darn time I finally saw this film for the first time in full, considering that-even with strong reservations over whether it'll actually be any good-I plan on seeing Jurassic World tonight. Of course I have seen the first two more than once before; the original is a 4 ½ star affair I am glad I got to see on the big screen again in '13, while the first sequel I also rate at 2 ½ stars; while there are some quality moments there are also many stupid ones and characters just act so dumb in the film. Yes, I have actually avoided seeing JP 3 from beginning to end until late last night when I rented it on Amazon.

The plot is that Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) returns and he is promised a lot of money by an apparently rich couple (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) to fly them over the island from the second film, to sight-see. Yes, their dopiness in hiring a guy who was never on that island before was mentioned. Things go wrong and the rich couple has ulterior motives so things happen on the island that aren't expected by Dr. Grant.

There isn't too much for me to say about this film: it feels slight-almost like a DTV entry-and there are many stupid moments. Yet, it has a B movie feel to it (to echo thoughts I've heard elsewhere) and that charm does help, and it being only 93 minutes means it doesn't wear out its welcome, which is more than I can say about Jurassic World... Leoni's character wasn't nearly as annoying to me as I had been told, and there's a kid character (about 13 or so in age) who was actually tolerable and I wasn't irritated by.

While I don't need to see this ever again at least there are some decent action scenes and I can rate this as being average.