I know Jurassic Park 3 gets a lot of hate, and for the majority of my life I had agreed with most of it. But after rewatching the entire series recently, JP3 really stood out to me.
Let's face it, none of the sequels have even come close to the quality of the original. The value of JW and JW:FK can be debated (personally I think they are OK). The Lost World, even though it was my favorite when I was a kid, is BY FAR the worst of them all. That movie is completely indefensible.
Jurassic Park 3 stands alone among all the sequels as the only one that doesn't collapse under the weight of its ambition. All 3 of the others try so hard to be these big, epic stories about morality and science and blah blah blah. They fall short every time. To be 100% honest, even the original isn't really as profound as it thinks it is.
3 is perfectly content with what it is, and what the true appeal of the franchise has always been: a fun adventure story with cool and scary dinosaurs, with a sprinkling of real science to add a little pathos to the story. The original brought up the big questions about science going too far, and the futility of trying to control nature, etc. I would argue that none of the sequels have added anything of value to those ethical questions, or provided any intriguing answers. TLW, JW, and FK all attempt it, but they all fall short. The difference? JP3 didn't even try. The creators of the movie smartly focused their ambitions on the aspects of the story that they knew they could do well, and the movie feels a lot more fully realized and complete than any of the other sequels as a result.
It's not trying to be the original. It's not trying to be better than the original. It's just trying to be a good movie on its own, and it is!
Let me break down the several different areas where i feel the movie succeeds and makes it rise above the other sequels.
THE STORY
The plot is the number one thing i see people go to when criticizing the movie, and while it is the most simple and straight-forward storyline of the entire franchise, again i believe this to be its strength. It is economical; every scene either moves the story forward, or develops the characters, or both (and yes, i am including the infamous "Alan" scene in that statement). The stakes are established early on, the characters are introduced quickly and cleanly, and even with a spattering of comedic moments, there is enough tension to keep you watching to see what happens next. And don't forget, it is FUN! it's an adventure, a struggle to survive in a wild jungle filled with wild beasts! All held together by the glue of the dynamic relationships between the characters. Which brings me to the next section...
THE CHARACTERS
Compare the cast of characters in any of the other sequels to this one and it becomes very clear which ones are the most likable and engaging.
In TLW literally every character is constantly making horrible, bone-headed decisions that either get themselves killed or gets other people killed. Who wants to see Ian Malcolm stripped of everything that made him an interesting person in the original? Or vince vaughn's character, who is such a bleeding heart environmentalist that he brings a god damn t-rex baby into their camp to fix its broken leg. Ugh. Or julianne moore's character, arguably the least likable character in the entire franchise. She's selfish, obnoxious, and a pretentious know-it-all who clearly doesn't give a shit about Ian or his kid.
Jurassic world? Every character is a cardboard cutout. Same with FK.
Now let's look at the characters in JP3. You have an older, more bitter and weary Dr. Grant, who legitimately carries the movie as a unique type of leading man for an adventure movie like this. His greatest strength is his knowledge. His advice saves the lives of all the other characters over and over again. He's sarcastic and funny, and he still feels like the Alan grant we know from the original, only a little older and wiser.
The Kirby's. My God, they are brilliant. The perfect foils to the intelligence and resourcefulness of grant and his protege (whatever his name was, i forget. I will concede that he's kind of a bland and shallow character. More of a plot device than a character). It's so entertaining to see these average middle class people who get themselves in way over their heads, playing off of grant perfectly. And they have a nice arc where their broken family comes back together by the end. It's nice, and that familial love is the glue that not only set the story in motion, it holds the entire story together to the very end. It gives the movie some heart that none of the other sequels have (FK comes close with the father-daughter stuff, but that was pretty flimsy). You might not agree that that particular aspect of the story was so great, but all you have to do is look to the original to see that family and learning to love each other has always been a theme. The Kirby's are a nice, fun evolution of that theme that explores it in a new way, through the lens of divorced parents who remember why they loved each other in the first place. And in doing so, they (literally and arguably metaphorically) saved their son, who was lost and alone in the world (pretty accurate for a child of divorce, like i am). Maybe I'm stretching a bit here, and yeah I'm being a little cheeky, but i do think there is something to the idea of the island being a metaphor for an adolescent's post-divorce world. It's no coincidence that the mother's new boyfriend is the one who literally flew him into that world ;)
THE SPECIAL EFFECTS
While I did say that the plot and scope of this movie was appropriately un-ambitious, there is no doubt that the special effects were VERY ambitious. Some of the most ambitious special effects that had been done by anyone at that point. This movie came out 8 years after the original, and it does so so so much more than what was possible in 1993. Giant dinosaur fights (yes, probably the cheesiest part of the movie, but bear with me), tons of scenes of dinosaurs in broad daylight and up close, a much higher level of detail on the CGI. And the practical effects are more ambitious as well.
I'll never argue that any special effects can surpass the genius-level use of CGI and practical effects in the original. but on a technical level, we had come a lot farther by 2001. And i would definitely argue that the technology was used more effectively in this than in TLW, which again was too ambitious for its own good.
ALRIGHT ALREADY, I'LL WRAP IT UP
i strongly encourage everyone to go back and check out Jurassic Park 3 again with these things in mind. I think there is a lot more substance there than most people give the movie credit for. The acting is good, the dialogue is quippy and fun, the story is brisk and grounded with a good balance of scientific thinking and familial love. The action scenes are tense and exciting, and it's just a wild ride, way more successful in almost every single way than any of the other sequels are.
Oh, and don't forget this movie's greatest claim to fame: The first real scenes with Pteranadons! That whole set piece was worth the ticket price on its own!
Submitted May 30, 2019 at 06:07AM by FightTheFeed http://bit.ly/2WDdXti