"Jurassic Park III" review

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Directed by Joe Johnston
Writing credits Peter Buchman

Sam Neill.... Dr. Alan Grant
William H. Macy.... Paul Kirby
Téa Leoni.... Amanda Kirby
Alessandro Nivola.... Billy Brennan
Trevor Morgan.... Erik Kirby
Michael Jeter.... Mr. Udesky
Laura Dern.... Dr. Ellie Sattler

Sam Neill is dragged back to dinosaur land. Some kid went vacationing near Dino island and his parents trick Sam along to help them find him. Things don't go as planned. Chaos happens. Dinosaurs attack. Plenty of little people running from big dinosaur action.

This was an OK flick. The question is, "Are we tired of watching dinosaurs chase after people?" The answer is: Sort of. So instead of having the same old dinos doing the chasing and the howling, they have thrown in two new dinos for our viewing pleasure: The Spinosaurus and the Pterodactyl. Both of these are fine additions. Overall, it was a fairly fun romp on dino island. Sam Neill struck a nerve with me though. He was an arrogant, condescending, pompous windbag in this flick. His dressing down of Billy for stealing the eggs did not endear him to me. He was overreacting just a tad. I thought he was going to start comparing Billy to the Nazis. "You'd perform genocide if you thought it would further the dig wouldn't you, Billy Hitler?" Geez, he needed to lighten up.

The one plot point that irritated and amazed me was that incredible, one of a kind, built to last, yellow as the sun, satellite phone. That phone passed through more hands and more dino intestines than any phone in the world. And it kept working! I'm surprised there wasn't an ad for the makers of that phone plastered at the end of the movie. "Buy this phone today! It will never fail you! It can survive dino ingestion and still make collect calls!" There are too many points in the story that depend on that phone working to go into but let's just say this movie would not have been possible without it. The last scene where Sam is calling his ex girlfriend while drowning caused me to stretch reality beyond any hope of ever coming back.

SCORE: 3 out of 4 dinosaur saving phones