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Posing as wealthy tourists, an adventurous couple (William H Macy, Téa Leoni) convince palaeontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and his protégé (Allesandro Nivola) to act as tour guides on a fly-over trip to Isla Sorna, the ill-fated "Site B" where all hell broke loose in The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2. In truth, they're on a search-and-rescue mission to find their missing son (Trevor Morgan) and their plane crash is just the first of several enjoyably suspenseful sequences. Director Joe Johnston (October Sky) embraces the formulaic plot as a series of atmospheric set pieces, placing new and familiar dinosaurs in misty rainforests, fiery lakes and mysterious valleys, turning JP3 into a thrill-ride with impressive highlights (including a T-Rex vs. Spinosaurus smackdown), adequate doses of wry humour (from the cowriters of Election) and an upbeat ending that's corny but appropriate, proving that the symptoms of "sequelitis" needn't be fatal. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
On the DVD: even though the original movie introduced DTS sound in cinemas, this is the first Region 2 DVD of the Jurassic Park franchise to boast DTS on the DVD. Great sound is complemented by a splendidly crisp anamorphic picture. The extras are many but fairly brief: a quick "Visit to ILM" (earnest men with beards and/or baseball caps sitting in front of computers) shows us the CGI dinosaurs whereas the even shorter "Tour of Stan Winston's Studio" reveals the animatronics--both of which are also explored in the fairly routine "making of" documentary (22 minutes). Behind-the-scenes montages show how three key sequences were created, and the commentary has key members of the FX team (including Stan Winston) revealing all the digital and animatronic secrets. Best of all is the disc's laudable attempt at providing added educational value with in-depth guides to each new dinosaur (plus "turntable" views of them all), and palaeontologist Jack Horner on location at his dinosaur digs in Montana. --Mark Walker
The Making of Jurassic Park III
Feature Commentary with the Special Effects Team
The New Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park III
A Visit to ILM
Behind-the-Scenes
Photograph Gallery
Trailers
Tour of the Stan Winston Studio
Storyboards to Final Feature Comparison
ILM's Computer-Generated Dinosaurs
Montana--Finding New Dinosaurs
DVD-ROM Features: Screen Saver, Browser and Theatrical Website
16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Soundtrack: English Dolby 5.1; English 5.1 DTS
Subtitles: English for Deaf and Hard of Hearing
This film sees two of the original stars return, Sam Neill, as paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant, and Laura Dern, in a cameo reprising her original role. Add William Macy and Tea Leoni, as a divorced couple who kidnap Dr. Grant and take him to Isla Sorna, site of Jurassic Park II, on a search and rescue mission for their twelve year old son, who disappeared while parasailing over Isla Sorna with his mother's boyfriend eight weeks earlier.
After the initial, breathtaking, opening scene of the boy and his mother's friend parasailing, the movie starts going south almost immediately. Which is not to say that it is not enjoyable. It is, but not as enjoyable as it could have been, had it been filmed with an intelligent script.
The movie is only an hour and a half long. In the process of making it a succinct film, the actors race through the plot, leaving certain questions unanswered or certain issues unexplained, in the almost indecent haste to get the film over with.
The actions of some of the characters are often unbelievable. Clearly terrorized, the characters do not, however, hesitate to run off by themselves. They also do not hesitate to make as much noise as possible. Obviously, they do this in order to put themselves into a situation where they will be injured, chased, or eaten by a dinosaur.
As I said, little thought appears to have been given to formulating an intelligent script. Still, if the viewer is willing to suspend all rational thought, one should relatively enjoy this moderately entertaining film
The pace of the movie is startling when compared to its prequels. JP took about an hour before the T-Rex finally terrorised the cars. JP3 on the other hand has an air crash, a spinosaurus (more on him later) attack and a titanic dino duel in the first half hour. The entire movie sprints along at this pace and really engages the viewer at all times. The new additions to the dino cast (spinosaurus and pteradactyls) actually add to the film, with spinosaurus replacing T-Rex at the head of the food chain. This is more than a cosmetic enhancement as there is a clear distintion between the intelligence these creatures possess. The raptors communicate in the way we saw briefly in the kitchen scene of JP and now have feathers, proving that even CGI characters can evolve.
The DVD offers a lot of interesting features including a look at how ILM does the CGI dinosaurs, storyboard to film comparisons and a look behind the scenes on some pivotal scenes. There is a 20 minute 'Making Of' documentary which is neither here nor there and nowhere near the quality of the 50 minute ones from the first 2 DVDs in the series. The menus are a pleasure to navigate with a good ambient score.
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