Jurassic Park III - 2001

I always thought of this as the worst of them all, but re-watching it now I have to say it’s not so much worse than Jurassic World… I mean, the special effects are 14 years older, but the story is the same: one man who knows well the dinosaurs, a woman who can only scream, a child in danger, stupid people and a lot of nonsense… this one is older and in some way smaller, without any T-Rex vs I-Rex scene, but not exactly worse…

The story:

Alan Grant (Sam Neill) is at Ellie’s house (Laura Dern). She’s married with kids, but they are still fond of each other and she tells him she’ll always be there for him, and to not esitate to ask her help if needed.

He still studies dinosaurs, but the real ones, he says, not the genetically modified monsters created for the jurassic park. He desperately needs funds so when rich Amanda (Téa Leoni) and Paul (William H. Macy) Kirby approach him saying “I can write any type of numbers on this check” he agrees to take them on a flight ride over the Isla Sorna (a second island-lab full of dinosaurs) so they can have their exciting trip to celebrate their wedding anniversary…

Billy Brennan (Alessandro Nivola), who works with Alan, goes too.

Alan says “chances are we won’t see a thing” but flying over the island they see a lot, and Alan starts lecturing them, but it’s clear that they are not interested. They talk about landing, which was not part of the plan. Alan disagrees, refuses to land, and the man named Cooper hits him on the head. When he comes to they’ve already landed, and Amanda is shouting on  a megaphone! Truth is, they wanted to reach the island to look for a man and a kid that went lost during a stupid trip. The man is found dead but they keep looking for their son Eric. That was the entire plan: a divorced couple with three men - which includes a pilot and a mercenary, not sure why the third was there - and a man who knows well the island... which is not Alan because he was on another island!They really thought it through, didn't they?

Only when they hear the sound of a dinosaur she stops shouting, and Cooper is the first to be eaten. They try to fly away but crash down. The pilot Nash is the second to go, and shortly after him the third man Udeski is killed too. Amanda is completely useless, she can only panick and scream histerically…When they find a lot of raptor’s eggs, Bill tells Alan he stayed behind to take some picture but of course it’ll turn out that he actually took two eggs, which is why the raptors keep hunting them: they want their eggs back. Alan is very disappointed in him when he finds out.

At some point Alan finds himself alone surrounded by raptors, and surprise surprise, he is saved by Eric, the twelve-year-old kid who survived for weeks alone on the island… of course America loves a good family story, where the kid is found alive and his separated parents will get back together after such a terrible ordeal… even if it’s completely absurd, nonsense! It also looks rather unbelievable that the food found in vending machines on the island is still edible, when it all looks so long abandoned..

Eric reunites with his parents with big hero music but then they unknowingly enter a dino-birds cage (I’m not an expert on dinosaurs, ok?) and a bird takes Eric and flies away, so Billy looks at Alan and then goes to the rescue alone using Ben’s parachute, in an attempt to redeem himself at his eyes. The rest of them fall in the water during the escape, find Eric but Billy is surrounded by dinos and shouts to go away, and they go..

While on a boat Alan makes a phone call with the satellite phone retrived from dino-poo, and he calls Ellie (and the call is answered by her three-year-old..).

Now, I have no idea how they manage to start a fire on the water under the rain… anyway, they are later surrounded by raptors but they give the eggs back and the raptors take them and go away. They reach the beach and find a whole army came there for them (wow, Ellie has some power!).

They don’t do much, actually, but they found Billy still alive :-) this is the nicest moment of the show, when Alan is clearly touched to see him alive, and Billy looks at him and says “ehi you made it” :-) as if he was surprised to see them alive :-)

The end..