Happy 'camping' - Jurassic Park III Reviews

"No force on Heaven or Earth could ever make me go back to Isla Sorna," Sam Neill declares at the beginning of the third film in the JURASSIC PARK trilogy. That, of course, is the Hollywood code for, 'Within 15 to 20 minutes, I will be on the Island, knee-deep in dinosaur dung, with my sleeves rolled up in the plot of this movie' (looking for a young boy, played by Trevor Morgan, who disappeared on the island). Reluctant heroes are usually crowd-pleasers. The island, a hell for the humans who end up stranded on it (Neill and a band of would-be rescuers led by William H. Macy and T?Leoni), is a haven for legions of dinosaurs who escaped destruction in the first two JURASSIC PARK movies. These include the ever hungry -- and, now, smarter -- velociraptors; the massive spinosaurus, which dwarves, and elbows out, tyrannosaurus, for screen time; and the alluring, airborne pteranodons (which audiences are likely to mistake for the more popular pterodactyls). The unhappy troop of castaways runs through a maze of dinosaur encounters, with lots of jolts, but little danger when all is said and done. The thrills here are darker, as in a scene where the group makes a gruesome discovery about the missing boy's landing on the island. But, as it turns out, this has little to do with dinosaurs. With its mix of chills and special effects eye-fills, JURASSIC PARK is standard fare, totally passable summer entertainment. But, it's not much more than that. From the way the dinosaurs are sent galloping across the screen, without having to establish anything by way of premise or having to convince us of it, to the easy use of familiar themes like "the reluctant hero," one gets the sense that JURASSIC PARK III isn't really trying. The densely vegetated setting adds darkness to many scenes, and a pretext not do the amazing things the first two movies did with shadows and nuances of texture for stunning visual accomplishment. The establishing scenes, in which the Sam Neill character gives speeches about his theory of velociraptor communications are clearly put there solely to explain to us some of the scenes that will come later, and hardly advance any other strand of storyline related to his character -- and, the same can be said for many other things that happen in the movie. This is the 'Old Professor' trick from second rate horror movies, where one of the characters is an expert on a subject, just so he could have a couple of lines that will explain something that would be too much work to actually have to *show* us. A good cast helps a lot, though. Here, character actors William H. Macy and Michael Jeter, who some may remember as the homeless cabaret singer from THE FISHER KING (1991), back up Sam Neill when the forest canopy of a script threatens to collapse around them. (Carlos Colorado)