365 Films A Year!

Jurassic Park was a truly revolutionary film in its day. The first to use extensive CGI creatures alongside real-life actors, it helped immensely that it was a great story put together by an all-star creative team. Based on the book by Michael Crichton, directed by popcorn-movie icon Steven Spielberg, music by John Williams and with groundbreaking effects by Industrial Light and Magic, it not only broke new ground, it holds up perfectly well today. The thrills, action, comedy and even bits of the book’s original philosophy all coalesce into the perfect summer blockbuster. No surprise that neither sequel can come close to measuring up.

The sequel, however, (despite much of the same team returning) is surprisingly bad. Spielberg’s apparent need to make this one a “message film” gets in the way of the excitement and the fun that made the original so strong. It doesn’t help that Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm (so vibrant in support in the first picture) simply can’t carry the sequel. Ultimately, it’s just as blatant a “sequel-for-the-sake-of-it” as Jaws 2 (which Speiberg pulled out of because he couldn’t see it working).

This makes Jurassic Park III a surprising return to form for the series. JPIII never tries to be anything more than a formualic sequel and that works in its favor. Since the audience doesn’t have to pretend that there’s any depth here, it’s easy to just sit back and enjoy the ride. I wasn’t crazy about some of the storyline decisions and the film’s unwillingness to kill sympathetic characters hurts it, it’s still a lot more entertaining than The Lost World.

Original Jurassic Park review
Original Jurassic Park III review

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 2:17 pm and is filed under 1993, 1997, 2001, Based on Book, Drama, Fantasy, Giant Monster, Horror, Sci-Fi, Sequel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.