a review by Jeffrey Overstreet
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When I was a kid, summertime was great for a lot of reasons, but one of the best was that there was always at least one movie that was so much fun, it drew me back for two, sometimes three…okay, sometimes nine viewings. This summer? I don’t know…I’m much older now, but I haven’t seen one that a twelve year-old Jeffrey would have wanted to run back and see again.
Last night I attended a preview screening of Jurassic Park 3, and I am happy to say that the summer finally has an action movie made by people who really know what they are doing. It’s not art…it’s entertainment, and it knows it. Boy, does it entertain. It’s as though you went back to the county fair and found out somebody had made the rollercoaster faster and more dangerous, with drops that are steeper and corners that are sharper than you remembered.
Now you may be a big fan of the first or the second. I’m not. Another critic pointed out that Jurassic Park – The Original may be responsible for the trend of action movies that are popular for only one great sequence. Think about it. JP1 had lots of good moments, but that first scene with the T-Rex at night in the rain was what drew you back to see it again. I too loved that scene; nothing that scary had appeared onscreen since Jaws in 1975. But the rest of the movie was long, tedious, with all that rambling on by Richard Attenborough, all that talk about different theories that sounded oversimplified for the masses and thus not very interesting. JP2 had its moments, but nothing ever seemed very scary. Spielberg was on auto-pilot. And there was even more hokey philosophizing. Forget it. I paid to see dinosaurs tearing things apart, looking real, marveling at the monsters that God once allowed to roam the earth. I don’t want Evolution 101′s latest desperate theories, which will probably be disproved tomorrow.
JP3 is everything I enjoy about this franchise, and none of the things that bother me. Director Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, Jumanji) seizes the reins that Spielberg surrendered and shows he understands the series even better than its creator. He’s Anakin Skywalker climbing into a starfighter for the first time. He’s a kid who can drive a car better than Daddy. He bypasses all of the pretension, exposition, and new-agey hokum, and gives us lean, mean fighting machines.
The action starts in the first minute, and it never lets up. He stages elaborate chases, dizzying falls, deafening tree-splitting battles in the woods, and when the disposable characters get eaten there’s more of a bite to it than there’s been in the past. Velociraptors are back and mean as ever, although they generously share the spotlight with a massive, devilish new behemoth called Spinasaurus. Spiney’s bigger than T-Rex…bigger than Marlon Brando! And when Rex and Spiney play some smackdown, you can’t keep track of all the teeth, claws, and clobbering tails slamming and swooping and smashing all around the screen.
Best of all, he finally gives those beloved flying dinos…pterandons…the action scene that dinosaur fans waited for in vain through the first two installments. The first close-up of a pterandon has a Jack-the-Ripper quality that sends a chill down my spine when I remember it.
No, there’s nothing terribly unexpected. The story’s not profound. And the technology seems to have plateaued – I mean, how much more realistic can these creatures look? But you get jolts similar to those you got from JP1, and the jokes are actually funny. (The script was assembled by some witty writers who have the popular and intelligent comedy Election to their credit. Not a very moral film, but definitely a witty one.)
And thank goodness that so many talented actors are involved to anchor us and make wafer-thin characters interesting to watch. It’s amazing how endearing William H. Macy gives heart to a cookie-cutter character. As the rich dad in search of his son, he’s haunted, determined, and endearingly aware of his weaknesses. sincere but easily-spooked character. Poor Tea Leoni, as Amanda the anxious wife and mother, isn’t given much to do besides scream and run, but at least the movie doesn’t get too serious about the marriage problems between her and Macy.
Sam Neil is better here than he was in the first, more intent on action than science, less prone to lecturing. (When he lectures an assembly hall of students at the beginning, Johnston is merciful enough to bring us in at the end, to hear only a couple of key points. And even that is interesting and funny.) Neil cuts a fine Indiana-Jones-ish figure, right down to the hat, as though Joe Johnston is hinting at Spielberg to get back to what audiences miss most…pretension-free adventure. The biggest surprise is Alessandro Nivola, who played the creepy imprisoned brother in Face/Off; here, he’s tough and visceral, suggesting that he might be an action hero lead in the future, a destiny that Matthew McCounaughey has failed to fulfill.
Thankfully, this time the dinos don’t wear out their welcome. Just as the script’s idea-tank starts sputtering and you can hear the gears in the machinery grinding to a halt, it’s over. There are only a couple of brief Hallmark-card-squishy moments (must have been a prerequisite for those making a Spielberg product), there are no big teary-eyed speeches, and there’s no pulpit-pounding epilogue. Ride’s over. Go back. Get in line again.
Is there anything meaningful to glean from such adventures? Oh, I’m sure somebody could come up with something, just like somebody could probably find a life lesson in a rollercoaster ride. I should point out one moment that gave me pause – the sight of a cold-hearted, ravenous female velociraptor chasing down a human just because that human is carrying a raptor egg. I wonder if anybody anywhere will find it it oddly touching that even a creature as brutal and savage as this monster would care so much about the life of her unborn child.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Although I did not particularly enjoy this movie, I especially enjoyed this review – especially the last line. I had never considered this possibility, but it was a very intelligent interpretation. Velociraptors may be bad pieces of killing machinery, but at least they have the consideration for their babies. Who is the real monster?