Jurassic Park III (2001): With the Best Intentions
Jurassic Park III had a much rockier production than the first two movies. For one, Steven Spielberg didn’t have much interest in making a sequel after how much strain he’d been under during The Lost World, feeling Jurassic Park was a difficult film to make a sequel to, as did Michael Crichton, who didn’t write a third book. Joe Johnston, a friend of Spielberg’s, best known for his effects work on Raiders of the Lost Ark as well as directing Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Jumanji, and Captain America: The First Avenger, had been interested in directing a sequel since the first movie.
Several scripts were written between 1998 and 2000, potentially titled Jurassic Park: Extinction or Jurassic Park: Breakout, with the movie scheduled to be released around the middle of the latter year. One script had been planned to star a bunch of teens stranded on the island, while another, closer to the plot of the final product, involved a B-story about multiple unexplained killings on the mainland, eventually revealed to be pterosaurs that escaped the island. Most of these scripts had been scrapped, slowly conglomerating into a script that had elements of all of the former ideas, but simplified to a simple rescue mission plot as suggested by David Koepp, who wrote the first two films.
As filming began the script still hadn’t been finished, and most of the five months of shooting was filmed completely without a solid script in place, leading to a slow production and a lot of displeasure during filming, not helped by how physically taxing much of it was. William H. Macy was particularly unhappy with how it had been handled, and Joe Johnston himself considered quitting on multiple occasions because of how unsure he was of the film’s quality.
In the end, Jurassic Park III was released to mixed-at-best and vitriolic-at-worst reviews. While box office numbers were still decent, it wasn’t the record breaker the previous two movies had been. Since, III has generally held the reputation of a franchise-killer, and one of, if not the, worst film in the series. While the former is strictly untrue - Jurassic Park IV went through a development hell itself completely unrelated to the underperformance of III - I don’t really believe the latter is either.
Jurassic Park III is a much simpler movie than either of its prequels, especially The Lost World, and I think that’s both to its detriment and benefit. Probably because of its partial lack of a script, it’s an inherently less thoughtful film than either of the previous two movies, and really doesn’t try to be. Jurassic Park is a discussion of the morals of genetics and the power of modern technology, and how little respect we have for either, while The Lost World is an expansion of this idea in a violent display of nature’s contrast with humanity, unable to coexist until we find that respect. III, on the other hand, has nothing to say. It’s a completely straightforward action movie that takes all the bombastic set pieces and special effects from the previous movie and cranks them all to 11, and you know what? It sort of works for me.
Sam Neill returns as Alan Grant in this movie, even more cynical than before and now without Ellie, who has married someone else and had a child. This decision was Joe Johnston’s, who didn’t want them to be a couple anymore, thinking they didn’t look like one. This decision was strange to say the least, and would’ve probably made more sense with one of the initial script ideas where Grant and Ellie were in the process of splitting up rather than having long since split, and Ellie ending up as a housewife is a bit insulting to her character considering how untethered she was in the original film. This is one of the only large problems I have with the movie, and one of the few things Jurassic World: Dominion got right as it corrected for this mistake; I’m getting ahead of myself, though.
Grant is constantly bombarded by questions about the Jurassic Park incident, as well as questions about the T. rex in San Diego incident (one of the last times the events of The Lost World would be acknowledged), but he clearly has no interest in recounting the horrors of the park. He refers to the creatures on the island as theme-park monsters, while the animals he studies, the fossils in the ground, are real animals. A student at his lecture asks if he would ever visit Isla Sorna to study the animals, given the chance. Ironically, he says, “No force on Heaven or Earth could ever get onto that island.”
Back at his dig site, the site manager, Billy Brennan, played by Alessandro Nivolo, shows Grant a 3D printed Velociraptor resonating chamber, and blows into it, creating the sound of a raptor call, much to the discomfort of Grant. At the same time, a man named Paul Kirby, played by William H. Macy, enters the site, and asks him out to dinner with his wife and him for a proposition. While Grant declines initially, Billy accepts for him.
At the dinner, the couple tells Grant that they’re world explorers looking for a new thrill, and want to fly over Isla Sorna for a tour. He says he’s never even been to Sorna (the first movie takes place on another island called Isla Nublar), but, just as John Hammond did in the first movie, the couple offers him an immense amount of money for his dig. The site is struggling even more than before, possibly due to the existence of living dinosaurs killing some of the magic of fossils, which is something the series never really explores that deeply. Grant, hesitant but desperate, accepts.
On the plane to Sorna, we get a bit of banter before Grant falls asleep, and we get probably the movie’s, if not the series’, most infamous scene. He awakes, face to face with a Velociraptor who says his name before he wakes up for real, just being a nightmare. In theory, a nightmare sequence involving Grant’s trauma is a good idea that could’ve given this film some much needed depth, but it’s done in such a hilariously stupid way.
There’s several pretty obvious reasons why this scene is so maligned, like the silly voice of the raptor or the fact that it speaks at all, or how it’s just sitting there in the plane, not even really attacking him. Even more nonsensically, the design of the animatronic raptor used in the scene is the one used in this film, which is completely different from how the animals looked in the first movie. It’s only a 15-second long scene, but it’s laughably bad and deserving of being considered the worst scene in the series even if I think it adds to how campy this movie is, which I’ll discuss in more depth later.
The infamous talking raptor scene.
After this, they finally get to the island, and see dinosaurs out of the window of the plane. Grant tries to give the tour he was hired for with a little bit of the passion he once had for dinosaurs reinvigorated by the mere magic of seeing them alive, but he’s largely ignored as the Kirbys and the other “guests” they’ve brought along, one of which ends up knocking Grant out in the commotion as he questions what’s really going on. When he wakes up, much to his horror, they’ve landed on the ground surrounded by jungle.
Another one of the most criticized aspects of this film are the Kirby couple, Téa Leoni’s Amanda Kirby in particular. She spends a lot of the first half of the film shrieking obnoxiously, such as in this scene, where she’s yelling the name “Eric” into the jungle over a megaphone despite the imminent dinosaur threat, and Paul. This isn’t really any fault of Leoni’s, or Macy’s - Paul acts similarly later - but more so the writing, or lack thereof. Having to film practically without a script, making up dialogue as it comes along is both incredibly impressive considering this film isn’t a complete disaster. Many of the actors cited that they barely had anything to work with, resulting in some somewhat flat performances, like Billy, or compensational overacting, like the Kirbys. It definitely makes this film feel like a much less professional production as compared to the first two films.
The main cast of Jurassic Park III; from left to right, Amanda, Eric, and Paul Kirby, Billy Brennan, and Alan Grant.
Back to the film, inevitably, bad things happen. Two of the three other “guests” the Kirbys brought along, Udesky and Nash, run out of the forest after a massive, unfamiliar bellow is heard, yelling to get out of the plane. The whole group does, but they question where the third man, Cooper, has gone. As they take off, the man appears on the runway, bloodied and terrified. The plane can’t stop, in spite of the pleas of Cooper, but it doesn’t matter anyway once an enormous dinosaur runs out onto the airfield and eats him. The plane lifts off the ground, but only manages to skim along the monster’s massive sail, and crash into the treeline. The creature, something never before seen, finds the plane, tears the front of the plane off, and proceeds to grab and throw Nash to the ground and eat him. The remaining part of the plane falls backwards with the passengers still inside, and falls to the ground in a pretty cool shot.
The dinosaur kicks around the plane segment like it’s nothing, and then stomps on top of it, attempting to crush the humans. Then it uses its crocodilian snout to burst through the plane and snatch up another victim, but the group manages to escape. The monster notices, and chases them into the forest, but is too large to get through the treeline, and they get away, or at least they think so. A mere moment later, they run into a young Tyrannosaurus that chases them back towards the other dinosaur. Grant gets stuck under the dinosaurs for a moment, but manages to escape with the others as they fight in another one of the most infamous scenes in the series. The Rex has the upper hand for a moment, but after some dodges, the larger new carnivore gets its jaws and much larger, prehensile arms on its opponent, and snaps the T. rex’s neck, killing it.
Credit to Universal, HaSanMMD.
I haven’t mentioned it yet, but the logo for Jurassic Park III is the only one in the series that does not use a T. rex skeleton, and instead uses this new dinosaur, Spinosaurus, as identified by Grant afterwards. This was another big point of contention of this film, some people feeling as if the Tyrannosaurus was being replaced as the mascot of the series, which was furthered by the animal being straight up murdered 25 minutes in. This is very clearly not the case, and quite frankly, it would’ve been exhausting seeing the Rex as the main theropod threat again.
Tyrannosaurus rex vs. Spinosaurus, and their two distinct logos.
The Spinosaurus is the first real, big dinosaur villain of the series, treated as a relentless, motivationless killing machine that will follow the cast to the ends of the Earth just to end them, and I think that does work to its benefit - I think up to this point the Spinosaurus is by far the most actively intimidating force in the series. However, it stands in a bit of an awkward position in the series now as the monster that killed the mascot, and with our current understanding of the animal, as of 2022, painting it as a semi-aquatic, paddle-tailed, low-to-the-ground piscivore, 2001’s Spinosaurus hasn’t aged well, and has given people all the more reason to call this fight ridiculous. Frankly, I've liked Spinosaurus more than T. rex since I was a kid, so I always enjoy this scene regardless.
As an individual film, Jurassic Park III actually has a lot of incredible action sequences, and this fight is one of them. Most of the middle act of the film consists of big set pieces leading into other big set pieces without a whole lot of down time, which sacrifices pretty much any good character writing for pure adrenaline. Considering this movie is only about 90 minutes, the rapid pace and consistent action leads to a movie that flies by, so even if you aren’t fond of it, it isn’t nearly as long as any other movie in the series and fairly painless to get through.
Jurassic Park III is also a pretty visually great movie. It uses more CGI than the first two movies, but with the advancements from the second and especially first movie, it holds up generally pretty well save for some of the closer-up shots, and in particular I think the Spinosaurus looks fantastic in nearly every shot it's in. Whereas the first movie’s CGI didn’t really look very good during the day, and most of the Lost World’s special effects-heavy scenes take place during night, Jurassic Park III has a lot more brightly lit action scenes, and they hold up surprisingly well for the most part, showing how much technology had advanced from 1993 to 2001.
Three great CGI shots from Jurassic Park III.
The practical effects are also pretty good. The Spinosaurus was the biggest animatronic ever built by Stan Winston Studios, and was insanely powerful as well, requiring extra precaution on set. It was in fact so powerful, even compared to the previous animatronics, that it knocked the head off of the Tyrannosaurus animatronic used in the battle scene, the footage of which never ended up being used. The hydraulics it used allowed for a greater range of motion, which shows in many of the incredible shots of it that blend perfectly with the CGI. This was also the last film Winston worked on before his death, so to say the Spinosaurus was his magnum opus would be fitting, one last declaration of how he and his studio helped make monsters feel real.
Production photos of the Spinosaurus animatronic.
The creature design is as top notch as usual as well. I’ve done enough gushing about the Spinosaurus, which at the time was pretty accurate and incredibly intimidating, but the Velociraptors got a great redesign as well, my favorite in the series. The male raptors are colorful, a dark bluish-purple with a white stripe running down their side on top complimented by a light underside and red crests, while the female is mostly chalky white with dark patches along its top side, beautiful colorations all around.
Along with a slightly different skull shape with more pronounced head crests and smaller, more bird-like eyes, the males also have quills on their necks. At the time, the idea that dinosaurs were significantly more similar to birds, as well as possibly being caring parents and possessing intelligence, was gaining more and more traction. The addition of the beginnings of feather-like quills, bird-of-prey-esque pupils, and the behavior of the Velociraptors as protective parents in this movie is sort of a phenomenon in what is otherwise a dumb B-movie that isn’t terribly concerned with real world logic most of the time, and one of the best unspoken aspects of this movie. Jurassic Park gets a lot of flak as a series for not being scientifically accurate, the later movies especially, but the first three movies did their best to stylize their science and acknowledge new discoveries, while the World films seem largely unconcerned with the realm of paleontology.
After the fight scene, all is revealed. The Kirbys are actually on the island in search of their missing son, Eric, who was shown in the opening scene of the film having to make an emergency landing on the island after a hang gliding vacation gone wrong. They’re also quite poor, Paul running a hardware store rather than being any sort of entrepreneur, so Grant isn’t even getting paid for his troubles. Perturbed, Billy and Grant decide to head to the coast, and the Kirbys and Udesky, revealed to be a mercenary alongside the now dead Cooper and Nash, decide to tag along, hoping to find Eric on the way.
As mentioned, the middle act of the film is mostly a series of action sequences. The group runs into an abandoned laboratory, encountering a pack of Velociraptors. The group gets split up, with Grant and Udesky on their own while the Kirbys and Billy manage to get up into a tree. Udesky is caught by the raptors, one of them sticking a claw into his back right below. Noticing he’s still just about alive, Amanda nearly falls out of the tree, barely being caught on a branch. Suddenly, two raptors rush out from the jungle and jump up to try and drag her down, barely being saved by the two men. Udesky was just being used as bait and, no longer being useful, a raptor snaps his neck, killing him.
The female and male Jurassic Park III Velociraptors.
Meanwhile, Grant is cornered by three raptors, but is saved by smoke grenades and a small figure dragging him to safety. It’s revealed to be 13-year-old Eric Kirby, played by Trevor Morgan, who has somehow survived for three whole weeks on the island, which is quickly brushed aside despite its ridiculousness. Their dynamic, though not focused on much, is actually pretty charming. Grant has clearly grown from the pessimistic child-hater he was from the first film, to being much less apprehensive to talk with Eric. It’s helped by Eric being probably the best child actor in the series, and being able to converse with Grant in a much less childish way than Tim in the first movie even though they both take similar roles, which is looking up to Grant. He even remarks on having read Ian Malcolm’s book as compared to Grant’s, finding it exceptionally preachy, much to Grant’s amusement.
After a night, the Kirbys and Billy in the tree and Grant and Eric in a small bunker, they all awake to hear the satellite phone the Kirbys brought ringing. The two parties follow the sound of the ringtone and reunite, the Kirbys ecstatic to be together again. However, they all realize that Nash, who’s currently inside the Spinosaurus, was the last one to have the phone. They all turn around, and there it is, not having made a sound somehow. It chases them, but they manage to make it into a small building, where this film’s best set piece takes place.
The group enter this building and start descending through a foggy valley over unstable metal pathways. It’s a great setting, and the sound design of the creaky footing combined with the extremely low visibility leaves you almost as on edge purely from the danger of the environment itself as the fear of what could be out in the fog. Before long, they have to cross a long bridge. Grant goes first, then Amanda. When it’s Eric’s turn, however, Grant finds some encrusted material on a guard rail, and the foul smell of it immediately clues him in as to where they actually are. He mutters to himself, “it’s a birdcage…”, as a monstrous Pteranodon creeps out of the fog, snatching Eric.
The ensuing action scene involves Eric running from the nest of the pterosaurs and bounding over pillars, while Billy attempts to save him using a hang glider he collected earlier. All the while, more Pteranodons appear out of the fog, attacking the others and trying to take out the glider. Eric drops off into the river below, and the Kirbys and Grant follow.
Billy, however, isn’t so lucky, and gets swarmed by the flying reptiles, dragged down the river, now turning red. The others manage to escape and get to a raft they spotted earlier. As they float down the river, they look back, the true scope of the massive aviary revealed, as well as an ominous shot of a lock keeping the pterosaurs in swinging open. The scene after it, though, involves one of the biggest issues I have with this film.
Credit to Universal.
Eric and Grant have a conversation about Billy, and who he was as a person. Earlier in the movie, he picked up some raptor eggs, planning to sell them and fund the dig site, which was the reason the dinosaurs attacked the group.
Right before the aviary scene, Grant found out and, furious, accused him of being just as bad as the people that made Jurassic Park itself, even despite his good intentions. On the boat, Grant says that there are two types of kids: ones who want to be astronomers, and ones who want to be astronauts. The astronomers, like himself, get to observe from afar, but then they never get to go to space, which is apparently what Billy wanted. Dramatically, they pass by a herd of herbivores and the lighting changes in what’s supposed to be a beautiful moment.
The problem with these attempts at emotion is that the movie never spends any time developing characters due to the aforementioned writing-on-the-go production, so it just falls completely flat on its face when it attempts to make you care about them. Billy is a nothing character, and the fact his personality had to be explained after his death makes it almost laughable that they try to make this moment emotional. This works when you’re just going to unceremoniously kill them off like the hunters from The Lost World, allowing for a larger amount of creative deaths or, alternatively, make an incredibly likable character like Eddie or Muldoon, making their death emotionally effective and even more horrifying and unexpected. The completely squandered character development makes what could have been a pretty effective death feel empty, though.
The Kirbys also get some similar moments as they slowly reconcile their marriage in a trial by fire, but the couple is so unlikable that you almost don’t want them to get together. Despite how frequently cheesy this movie is, their completely non-existent chemistry makes their romance stand out as corny rather than campy, and it probably would’ve been much better if they just didn’t even attempt sentimentality at all.
Continuing on, the group hears the ringing of the satellite phone again. They think it’s the Spinosaurus again, but instead find that it finally passed what it had eaten, and they find the phone after digging through a pile of its waste, briefly being confronted by a Ceratosaurus that gets scared off by the smell. Further down the river, Grant attempts to use the phone to call Ellie. Behind them, the Spinosaurus swims up and bursts out of the river, attacking the boat for the final time.
The severely underused Ceratosaurus.
This climactic sequence is another great set piece, with the Spinosaurus slowly capsizing the boat and attempting to fish out the snacks inside. Like the aviary sequence, this scene is a reference to the original Jurassic Park novel, from a sequence during which the Tyrannosaurus swims after Grant and the kids down a river. Paul manages to get out from under the boat and distract the monster while Grant barely manages to get through to Ellie’s son (comedically intercut with him getting distracted, ironically, by Barney, the kid show dinosaur) and then shoot off a flare, lighting the water around the Spinosaurus on fire, finally scaring it off.
Credit to Universal.
Later on, hearing the ocean nearby, the survivors run, thinking they’re finally free, but are stopped by the Velociraptor pack since they still have the eggs that Billy stole. Grant pulls out the raptor resonating chamber set up at the beginning of the movie and blows into it, confusing them enough to give back the eggs. The raptors take them and leave, an uncharacteristically merciful act for the species.
Overheard, the group hear a helicopter and run to the beach, where they find Ellie has sent both the Navy and the Marines, who also somehow found Billy still alive, making his “death” even less emotionally resonant. They finally fly off, but a flock of Pteranodons pass them by, having escaped the aviary due to that unlocked gate earlier, and the final shot is tonally confusing with the uplifting main theme contrasted by the terrifying realization that the creatures have been unleashed on civilization, a plotline that was never followed up on within the movies themselves.
The ominous final shot of Jurassic Park III.
Jurassic Park III is an incredibly flawed movie, one that could’ve used another year at least in the oven to let it actually be completely cooked. Frankly, it’s kind of a wonder that III isn’t a worse movie, or the worst in the whole series, considering there are two fully fleshed out films I still think managed to be worse. That being said, I think it’s inoffensive at worst, and a fun, dumb 90-minute blast at best.
The plot is so paper-thin that it barely affects the timeline of the series at all save for Ellie and Grant’s relationship, it’s too fast-paced and action-packed to be boring, and the visuals and action scenes are pretty great all around. It definitely feels a lot more like a B-movie than the first two between a more amateurish production, some shoddy performances, an unremarkable but decent soundtrack by Don Davis (better known for his work on The Matrix trilogy) a lot more comedy than the last two, and it has absolutely nothing to say as well. That’s all fine to me though; I enjoy cheesy creature features a lot, and you could do a lot worse than Jurassic Park III. If nothing else, it’s a fun little popcorn flick that’s over before you know it, so I can recommend it on that front even if it’s not technically a “good” movie.
As I said, though, III was not received particularly well, and often still finds itself as a contender for worst film in the series, which I can’t completely argue with despite my enjoyment of it. Regardless, the series had trouble figuring out where to go moving forward and spent 14 years in development hell, but ultimately resulted in one of the most successful, and interesting, reboots ever: Jurassic World.
