Ahoy there, squirties. 'Tis I, the ever crusty seaman, Quint, here to give you folks a short review of Jurassic Park 3.
A brief prologue... The original Jurassic Park hit theaters during the summer of my 12th year of life. I had seen the trailer in the theater, thought it looked awesome and picked up Crichton's book. I was only about 60 pages into it when Jurassic Park was released. I saw the long lines on the news that Friday night, but didn't pay it much mind. News was boring, after all.
I was over at my grandparent's place, spending the night and when I woke up that next morning, my grandmother was there, as she was every Saturday morning, hair in curlers, bacon sandwich and orange juice ready for my morning consumption and the newspaper open to the funnies as she was completing the crossword puzzles.
About halfway through my bacon sandwich, she asks me if I wanted to see a movie that day. I said, "Sure." Even at that age I was never one to say no to a free movie. She flipped back to the movies section and we scrolled down the list... "How about Jurassic Park?" she asked. I agreed and promptly got ready to go.
We got to the theater about half an hour before the show, which was the first show of the day. I was disappointed. There was no line. I waited behind 3 people, bought my ticket and headed inside as my grandma went back home. I wandered in with the concession stand money she gave me, waited in a much longer line and got my Red Vines, large Coke and popcorn.
As I was walking to the theater, I got a clear view of the ticket booth and parking lot... and a line that was winding through the parking lot. I got in the theater and saw that it was about 3/4 full and sat in the third or fourth row, off to the left hand side. This was a Century Theater in San Jose, CA. It was huge, had a curved screen... it was amazing. But sitting off to the side in a theater like that is a bit of bummer.
It was around this time that the manager came out and announced that the screening had sold out and asked if we'd all move to the center, leaving all the empty seats on the isles for the latecomers. By the time all the shuffling was finished, I had center seat. The lights went out and I saw the digital sound commercial for the first time. When those words hit the golden CD on the screen, it rang in my ears. "That sounds like a dinosaur," I thought.
Then the movie started and I fell in love with it. What can I say? It was the first summer popcorn extravaganza that I was not only witness to, but I was doing it all by myself. I loved the movie. I finished the book after the film and thought how much cooler the movie could have been if they kept the stuff like the raptors on the boat headed to the mainland or the waterfall sequence where the kids are cornered under a wall of water and a T-Rex almost nabs them... with his tongue...
BUT I never let that hinder my enjoyment of the film. So, you know where I'm coming from with this particular line of films. I love the first film. Still do. I was disappointed with the second film and had high hopes for Joe Johnston's stab at the series.
So, now we're at about 5 hours ago, when I was sitting at the Westgate theater in Austin, TX, and the lights went down. A bright image appeared on the screen... out of focus, but clearly the green of the beginning of a trailer. It stayed out of focus long enough for the audience to recognize the trailer as being American Pie 2, then the lights came back up on this packed house. It was 30 minutes of this theater trying to figure out how to FOCUS the projector.
So, the movie eventually started and I saw the latest dino-adventure start up. I dug it. Johnston did the majority of things correctly. I know that doesn't sound too flattering, but I assure you, it is. People have been saying that this film is darker in tone than the first two. I disagree. I think Lost World: Jurassic Park was the darkest of the three films so far. Sure, Jurassic Park and JP3 both have more dino-killings, but Lost World was so much more mean spirited and depressing. Of course, this is coming from somebody who would rather see a dino eat someone than see it get shot by a human.
It was fun seeing Sam Neill returning as Dr. Alan Grant and Laura Dern returning (albeit briefly) as Dr. Ellie Sattler. You can't go wrong with either William H. Macy or Michael Jeter either. Tea Leoni... one of my least favorite actresses in the world. I was hoping she'd get eaten in the first 20 minutes. Alas, that does not happen, but you know what? I didn't hate her in this film. I didn't dig her, she was my least favorite character, but considering how much I dislike her as an actress, that's pretty complimentary.
But do you folks know who stole the show for me? Trevor Morgan. Yeah, the kid. Who'da thunk it? The kids in the first film were pretty good, but not scene stealers, to me at least. The little girl in the second film... arggg.... I just have one word: gymnastics.
Now we have this boy who was pretty damn good in both The Sixth Sense and The Patriot who is the person that is stranded on the island. The Newt, basically. But he doesn't act like the Newt. He not only takes care of himself, he takes care of the others in the group! He's smart, he takes his situation seriously and is put through some pretty fucked up shit in this movie. Well, as fucked up as is allowed with a PG-13 rating.
So, the film has a good cast that does a damn good job. The script is pretty smartly written and doesn't let up once the action gets going, almost to a fault. I think the characterizations suffered a bit by the wham-bam pacing of the film. The ending I think is a bit abrupt, too. It's like, action-action-action pause action-action-action credits.... what the fuck?!? Where was the end of the movie? I wanted there to be an ending that was at least on par with the kickass ending of the original film. Instead, I got a Lord of the Flies ending minus the intense build up.
On a whole, this film is definitely worth dropping the matinee bucks to see. There are many moments of joy for those looking for fun, popcorn entertainment, the T-Rex vs. Spinosaurus scene being the king of those scenes, followed very closely by the winged reptiles flying about and being just about as badass as you could imagine.
Anyway, I said I'd keep it short and I think that's long enough. Just know that I enjoyed it, but don't think it's the end all be all of the series. Well, squirts, that's about it from this old salt. I gotta get ready to shove off for San Diego on Wednesday for the Comic Con. I'll be there all through the event, so if you're attending and want to hang out, drop me an email and we'll see what can be arranged. 'Til that day, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
