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Let's take a look back at the third installment of Jurassic Park and figure out what exactly went wrong!?
In a recent article published on NME.com written by Will Richards, actor Sam Neill, who portrayed the character Dr. Alan Grant, has come forth to say he believes the third installment of the Jurassic Park franchise is pretty good. Read article here
However, when it was released twenty years ago in 2001 it received plenty of negative reviews and was rewarded a degrading 49 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It would remain the lowest score of the franchise until 2018 when “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” would receive 47 percent.
So, we have seen the side to critics and now we have heard the side to the main star, but now we must wonder if “Jurassic Park III” really was terrible after all or if it’s just a misunderstood film.
Taking a deeper look at the film we understand the film wanted to return to having Dr. Alan Grant make a return to the franchise after not having any sightings in the second installment “The Lost World: Jurassic Park”.
We get enough of an explanation of what has happened in his life since the events of “Jurassic Park”. He still studies dinosaurs, mostly raptors and he and Dr. Ellie Sattler have found different lives.
That all is clear, but when we finally return to the island it seems like the film just tries too hard to combine both the first two films into a brand new one.
Yes, we do get to see a few new dinosaurs, but within the film, it had a few major plot holes.
The first having to do with the new start dinosaur of the film the Spinosaurus. I mean, yes, it was cool to see the largest apex predator of all dinosaurs finally make an appearance, but it doesn’t tie into the previous installment. In “The Lost World” we see the island has more dinosaurs and contains at least two Tyrannosaurus Rexes with an infant. Great, but where is the Spinosaurus? There was no sign of the dinosaur anywhere to be found. Of course, a few theories have explained the reason for the Spinosaurus’ absence is all due to the reason the two films take place on different locations of the island. Okay, that sounds reasonable, but if the Spinosaurus was there all along then why did Roland Tembo want to take the male Tyrannosaurus when he must have known there was a larger apex predatory dinosaur on the island.
Fences/cages are the next issue as John Hammond had told Dr. Ian Malcolm in the previous film that Isla Sorna contains no fences giving the dinosaurs access to roam free. That is not the case when we see a large fence that has the Spinosaurus enclosed in until he breaks free.
There then comes the scene when the characters stumble upon a flock of Pteranodons in a large bird-like cage wherein “The Lost World” they were seen flying freely. Unless in the time between the second and third installment someone flew to the island to build cages there should have been none in sight.
The biggest one has to be when the group stumbles upon the abandoned InGen compound which is the same one from the second film. Mind that I say this is exactly where Nick from “The Lost World” was able to call for help. If he was able to call for help then why couldn’t Dr. Grant and the others? It’s possible maybe the power was finally out, but they could have at least tried.
Moving on from the plot holes it then comes to mind this film seemed a little too rushed in general. The characters appeared to be washup and were only there to make a reason for why the film had to have certain events happen. We learn just a few things about each where others we learned very little as they were only thrown in the film to be eaten. I mean, yeah, we want to see dinosaurs eat people, but can we at least learn more about each character before they end up on the menu?
The special effects even didn’t match up to the first or not even the second. The dinosaurs don’t even seem life-like in this film and look more like things you see in a low budget indie film. Kind of an embarrassment for Universal which has made plenty of phenomenal films.
From the plot holes to character development and the special effects, it just didn’t stand out as a true Jurassic Park film.
It just seemed like Universal ran out of ideas and was in need to make fast cash so they just thought it was a great idea to make a new Jurassic Park film.
Hate to say it, but this was just one film they should have never let happen.
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