Hey folks, here's a ton of JURASSIC PARK 3 reviews.... They screened it in London apparently, and also New York? True, false? I don't know... some are loving it, some hate it... Back and forth... There have been some folks faking the review, but a friend in London missed the screening but confirmed it existed... now the New York screening I don't know that that took place.... but here they are for your pleasure....
JURASSIC PARK 3 - REVIEW!!!
Hi Harry - Long time reader, first time writer.
Tonight I managed to see a screening in London of Jurassic Park 3! I have been looking forward to this film for a long time so I was extremely happy this aftenoon when a collegue at the BBC gave me two spare tickets to a press screening.
Since receiving these tickets I have spent most of this day in shock because I have searched high and low for reviews of this film and there is just nothing out there, I've been desperate to know what kind of a job Joe Johnston has done and suddenly I've been able to find out for myself - and I thought I would let you know the result.
By the way call me the judge, you will see why is this review.
I'm pleased to say this film did not disappoint me, its a success and more then we could have hoped for. Yet there are things that undermine my happiness at the same time.
See I'm calling myself the judge because this film has a distinct for and against feeling for me. Many viewers will love this, many will loathe - its that kind of movie.
You see I love my 'Jurassic Parks' and I love my 'memento's'. I'm someone who can seperate my appreciations of films and movies. Yet in Jurassic Park 3 I found my film side completely objecting to my movie side.
The problem with JP3 is that the film is so 'slight'. Nothing really happens in the sense of narrative. There is no begining, just a 10 minute sequence introducing characters, and the film just kind of ends and your left thinking 'hey where did they put the last 20 minutes'. Maybe this is a result of the problems leaked from the set.
What we have here is just one massive middle section of film. Plane crashes, people call for help, leave the island - and that is it!!! And this bugs me because I love Jurassic Park 1 because it had story, a moderate intelligance and it made you appreciate the dinousaurs when they attack. Here though we have one long series of attacks and escapes. It doesn't do any more then this. Plus the dinosaurs (especially the spinosaurus) appear so early you get worried that Johnston is going to blow his load to early.
But that is my critical side. All I can say is to all those I have worried is this - the middle section KICKS MAJOR FUCKING ARSE. The dinosaurs are amazing and it is so intense and exhausting when they attack. This film does not give you room to breathe and I found this good. I was generally excited and thrilled during JP3, and that hasn't happened to me since Crouching Tiger and in terms of event films even as far back as Toy Story 2. The dinosaurs look amazing, Stan Winston has outdone himself this time. The set pieces are spectacular and don't look like some half arsed piece of crap like the FX in the Mummy Returns - no these creatures are REAL - REAL GOD DAMN IT.
Another contradiction is this. I was upset that the T-Rex is in the film for about five seconds, and that is it. I love T-Rex and I missed him like a son in this movie.
But then Johnston has had the balls to drop the most savoured dinosaur in the world for the spinosaurous. And it does pay off. Part of the problem with the LOST WORLD was that Spielberg just made JP1 again in terms of set pieces.
But here we have a director with balls and it makes JP3 feel fesh, almost a different series alltogether. And the peradactors are extremely exciting- dinosaurs attacking in the air, I've been waiting a long time for that on the big screen.
I also didn't like the way that these characters have a 30 second introduction.
But then I felt like I knew them anyway. I had a big smile when Sam Neil went off on his whole 'playing god' argument again. Then I didn't like the annoying kid.... only acctually despite a dreadful 'heroric' introduction I quite liked him.
My only real complaint that I can't defend is that there is not enough DEATH!! The fact that there are only a few characters means that we know most of them will survive. And they escape the claws of the reaper so many times that it almost began to parody. It felt like Adam West in Batman. 'Bollocks Robin we are fucked... what we going to do Batman... I don't know we will have to wait till next time' JP3 was like this. An impossible situation that always seemed to have some piece of fortune.
And this relates to my problem with the ending
-SPOILER ALERT-
Basically they get off the island by finding a mobile phone in dinosaur shit and then phoning for help!! What?? I mean what kind of climax is that? Did they run out of budget? I don't know but I felt they needed to kick some dinosaur arse, or kill some people off.
Despite these problems I still really enjoyed it. I have felt let down a lot this year by the unfulfilled promises of the summer season. The mummy was as much fun as watching your mates on a computer game, with Tomb Raider I would gladly prefer to watch my mates on a computer game. Captain Corelli was tedious and lazy and Pearl Harbour, although I liked it, could have been so much more.
So I'm just glad that Joe Johnston has given me a 90 minute movie filled with more stunning set pieces then you will find in all the movies mentioned above.
If the thought of a fight between a spinosaurous and a T. Rex gets you foaming then just you wait.. thats not enough for you... how about a massive battle of wits with those pesky raptors... or the Stampede... or the underwater cage vs the spinos teeth... or the peradactors plucking characters from the ground like worms to a bird.
At the end of the day I left JP3 with a smile on my face. One of happiness and one of content. Content that Joe had the balls to make a movie that was different to a Spielberg one - a Spielberg immitator scared me sooo much, but JP3 is not that. It has its problems and some will not like this, but it did it for me and it will be a triumph.
Verdict: Guilty of being a loud fun, exciting piece of entertainment.
THE JUDGE
AND NOW A NEW ONE...
Harry:
Patch from Madripor checking in. I was invited to an exhibitor's screening of JP3 in NYC today. I wasn't about to miss this screening. I enjoyed the first two films but like the majority of moviegoers I was left a little disappointed by The Lost World.
Jurassic Park 3 is a fun summer popcorn movie. It is darker and gritter than the Spielberg films and parents may not find this one suitable for younger children.
Spoilers ahead.
The plot: A para-gliding accident strands a man and a young boy on the Site B island from The Lost World. An ill-prepared rescue team lands on the island and is quickly in need of rescueing from the dinos.
Is this film as good as the first two? I found it better than Lost World which I thought was uninspired. It is not as good as the first film. The novelity of dinos on film is what made Jurassic Park. These sequels suffer from the same problem as the Jaws sequels---You have seen the shark or dinos before so what do you do now. Make bigger dinos --of course. The new dino, Spinosaurus is bigger and faster than the T-Rex.
Joe Johnston handles the action sequences with the same deftness of Spielberg. In fact I found the two major action sequences " The Avairy" and "The River Boat ride" to be more exciting than anything in the Lost World and nearly as exciting as the T-Rex sequence in the first film.
I found the editing in spots to be choppy. The film is about 90 minutes and it appears to have been trimmed down to keep the pacing tight. This works well throughout the film until you get to the end which seems abrupt.
I think some people are going to find problems with the film such as not enough characterization or plot and the acting sucks, but tell me which summer film doesn't suffer from these same problems.
If you want to have a good time, get a large bucket of popcorn, a large pepsi and a bag of peanut M&Ms and enjoy.
See you at the movies!!!
AND THIS ONE....
Good day, good day!
John Hammond here, fresh from cloning a whole flock of dodos for use on my new island in the Mediterranean. I happened to take in a screening of Jurassic Park 3 this morning, and I wanted to pass along my thoughts on the whole thing.
First, let's dispense with the spoiler-free critique (I'll leave the plot summary mostly shrouded in misty fog): Alan Grant and a group of not-so-bright people go on a rescue mission to Isla Sorna, where they quickly find themselves immersed in dinosaurs and death. This is a fun movie, a fast movie, the very essence of a summer popcorn blockbuster. When the dinosaurs appear, cool stuff happens. When the dinosaurs are absent, though...well, that's when the movie drags. A lot. I don't want a tepid love angle between Tea Leoni and William H. Macy to stand in the way of dinosaurs. Do you?
Oh, and at this point I have to put in a formal request to the bigwigs at Universal (and this may even be directed at Stevie Spielberg himself): RE-EDIT THE END. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T LEAVE IT HOW IT IS!!! I will explain that in a moment, when the spoilers pop out of their eggs and run around.
Yeah, you leave the theatre going "That was certainly a movie of an exciting nature. I suppose it was a thrill ride. I suppose it was a video game. But was it Jurassic Park?" Joe Johnston has a much different feel than Stevie S. did. His goal is not an exloration into chaos theory or a call to arms against hunting. He just wants to make a good old-fashioned dino action movie. His characters (with the exception of Grant, who was established in the first movie) are chock-full of tedious development and really, really bad jokes. And meaningless insight. Whoo, boy. They could chop out ALL of the so-called character development and have just the rest and this movie would be fine. It clocks in at an hour and a half, dammit! There just aren't enough big dino scenes to support hokey jokes and estranged couples falling back in love.
I have to go all spoiler-y now. It's the only way to truly get this out.
First, the ending I yelled about before. There is no grand finale battle between the T-Rex and the Spino where the Rex kicks the Spino's ass. Nope. Nada. It's gone. Therefore, the last time we see Mr. Rex, it's a half hour into the movie and he is falling to the ground, dead. So long, Rex. He doesn't come back. He doesn't get his comeuppance. AND HE NEEDS HIS COMEUPPANCE!! This is such an annoying cut that I almost have to say it ruins the movie. There is no satisfaction. The Spino is a villain through and through. He needs to be taken down. By raptors, by Rex, hell, by the Compys. But no.
The movie ends kind of like the first one. All the survivors are flying off in a chopper (including a survivor who, by all accounts, had NO REASON to have survived. He was eaten by pteranodons in the middle of the film but somehow popped up living in the end...) and three winged animals fly by. But unlike the first one, these aren't birds. They are pteranodons. Flying. Off the island. Loose. And no one seems to care much. Tea Leoni makes a stupid, stupid joke about how they better not settle down in Oklahoma (I kid you not) and THAT'S IT! Dear sweet mother of pearl, they need to re-edit that ending. I pray for it.
Let's talk about the humor. There are smart jokes in the movie (Ellie's son distractedly watching "Barney," for instance). But there are others that are so stupid that you want the characters eaten just for saying them. In this vein, I have to say that Michael Jeter was a BAD choice for Udesky. He is a fine actor (see Green Mile), but here he comes of as a cartoon. For that matter, so do the two gun-crazy goons he brings with him. Luckily, they are Purina Spino Chow in the first reel.
I guess I've sounded kind of down about ol' JP3 here. Let me make one thing clear: I liked this movie. I'll see it again when it's public. But it had some issues. Some movie badly need to have scenes cut to make the movie flow. With this film, additions need to be made. More dino fighting, less human interaction. The whole pteranodon action scene was amazing, as was the plane crash/Spino attack and the magnificent battle royale between the Rex and the Spino (except, of course, that the crowd-pleasing Rex should have come back to settle the score). The raptors were very well done, too, though they were much less of a threat. The whole "They can talk to each other" worked more to make them weaker than scarier, since Grant found a way to "talk" to them at one point. I guess you can chalk it up to the bad ending that the last time we see the raptors, they have all the humans surrounded and they end up just running away without eating anyone.
To wrap this stream of consciousness up, JP3 is a good popcorn movie. Go into it with no big expectations and you'll be happy. DON'T expect a scary movie. The violence is not that present, I'm afraid. It can be an intense movie, but it isn't as incredibly suspenseful or scary as the trailers imply. And be ready for a WEAK ENDING. I implore the powers that be to reinsert any cut last battle between the T-Rex and the Spino where the Rex wins. Oh, and cut out a half dozen or so "getting to know you" human interaction scenes which bog this (already short) movie down. These two changes would double the film's enjoyability. But alas, it won't happen.
In the words of Ian Malcolm, "there it is."
and here's this...
Hi Guys,
I thought I'd drop you a line....on JP 3 ....which was screened in London last night
which I thought was totally crap....the story is very weak (rescue the boy + leave) ...and it is a very short film 90 mins max....
there is no character development you don't feel for anyone of the players.....I do n't want to give away too much but there is a cameo from another character from JP 1......even though this does n't really add to the story much
dino effects were ok....I' missed the T REX which gets its cum up ance quite early on.......there is a running gag with a mobile phone but that is about it.....we 've been here before...this has nothing new to add except that the raptors are very intelligent
and speak to one another....
well that's it I hope I did n't give too much away.....but I would stay away from this moving as it is extinct
Pete
London
and then this one....
Just to let you know that London (England) Radio Station XFM sent 2 reviewers to see Jurasic Park 3 last night, and their views were aired on the breakfast show this morning, one was a journalist the other a listener, both declared that it was absolutely shite and certainly as bad as the Lost World, if not worse. (never seen The Lost World myself, so no idea how bad it is)
Don't know whether this is of use to you, they didn't really give out any more plot details, just said that the dino's were v.good
If you use this, I'm ActionJackson
