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JDheart
Reviews
Jurassic Park III (2001)
Terrible and quite painful to watch.
Terrible and quite painful to watch 3rd film in the Jurassic Park series finds poor Sam Neill slumming it and looking quite annoyed in a movie that manages to not only contradict the plot lines of the first two movies in the series but turns what was once an intelligent, thoughtful subject of those who should not be playing with nature into a sappy, painful melodrama about family issues. William H Macy and Tea Leoni play the parents of a missing child who was stranded on the island where the last film took place(The Lost World). So they trick Alan Grant into going on a rescue mission to find him. That's pretty much the story as a whole and its more and less a standard creature feature but with out the thrills or fun that comes with it. The 4th film in the series (Jurassic World)at least was fun and lived up to its B movie roots while this film does not know what it wants to be. The acting is poor and for 90 minute film, you're looking at the time wishing it was finish.
To sum it all up, don't waste your time.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Still the best sequel to Jurassic Park.
The Lost World has its problems. Yes, the wonder is gone and seeing dinosaurs this time did not have the same impact as it did with the original but this film still manages to pack a mean punch in terms of action and scares. Jeff Goldblem is fantastic, proving to be the best lead this series has had and the movie carries two of the best scenes ever filmed by Spielberg himself. The first involves the trailer over the cliff and the raptors in grass scene which still remains one of the scariest scenes Spielberg has done since the original Jaws. The movie also still has the intelligence and wit of the original Jurassic Park, something neither the terrible Jurassic Park 3 or its much more fun follow up Jurassic World had.
After all these years, The Lost World still remains the best sequel in the series and rightfully so.
Jurassic World (2015)
Its a Jurassic World after all.
The 4th film in the Jurassic Park series and the second sequel that Steven Spielberg did not direct starts off well enough with enough call backs to the first film of the series but quickly turns into a monster movie with a run away super killer dinosaur that was spliced by the DNA of other prehistoric creatures for the sake of selling extra tickets. If my description of the plot Is pretty simplistic,it's because the story is that simple. So forget the dangers of science morality tales that both "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost World" gave to it's stories and just accept that the series has become a standard creature feature that just swaps out it's main monster for every new installment. The last film in the series "Jurassic Park 3" pretty much threw away the whole plot lines of the first two films just to give us a chase film with a dinosaur that was never even seen in "The Lost World" and that film was set on the same island. While "Jurassic Park 3" just went on a painful 90 minutes long montage of talking raptors, horrible scenes of family bonding and an visible annoyed Sam Neill looking like he's about to go postal on the people working on the film set, Jurassic World manages to be a hell of a lot more enjoyable experience for the viewer in terms of just trying to inject a sense of plot and continuity to this other wise creature feature.
As a standard creature feature, the movie works well and gives you your money's worth of dinosaurs doing collateral damage to property and personnel with the occasional park visitor being killed for good measure. Throw in your slack jaw good guy ( Chris Pratt) who feels that the creatures are misunderstood and works with good guy dinosaurs(I Kidd you not) to help stop the super killer dinosaur. Throw in an human adversary for our hero to fight with ( Vincent D"Onofrio) who would blow the whole island up to get this monster and add an human element like two lost children who are related to a employee at this crazy theme park who by the way has the hots for our hero and you have the entire story right there.
It's hard enough to keep a franchise going, especially when you're dealing with dinosaurs walking the earth. You will eventually hit a wall in terms of storytelling if your primary goal is to keep turning these films out with out any care what so ever. We saw that with "Jurassic Park 3" where all the plot points from the previous two films were abandon for a B Movie creature feature. "Jurassic World" tries hard to correct that by having the movie be about something a little more and try to connect itself to the first film of the series. And Its much better film for it but it still ends up a creature feature all the same.