Like any good aging film buff, I spend a lot of my time revisiting the blockbuster films of yesteryear, and doing this often leads to some major surprises. For example, I’ve discovered that critically reviled sequels can become regarded as some of the best films in a franchise over the course of a few decades. That’s exactly what happened with Jurassic Park III, a dino-sized delight of a film you can now stream on Netflix.
The premise of Jurassic Park III is that a wealthy couple hires Dr. Alan Grant to ostensibly provide a tour of Isla Nublar, the infamous island from the first Jurassic Park film. But it doesn’t take long before this archaeologist realizes that his employers have ulterior motives, ones that might get all of them killed. Moreover, every moment spent on this cursed island increases the risk of unleashing killer dinosaurs on a world that simply isn’t ready for all of their carnivorous chaos.
For fans of the original movie, the biggest draw of Jurassic Park III is that it stars Sam Neill, and he elevates his every scene in this sequel with his trademark careworn charisma. He is joined by William H. Macy (best known for Fargo and the TV show Shameless) and Téa Leoni (best known for The Family Man and Deep Impact), who play ex-spouses who have come to this dangerous island in search of their lost son. Rounding out this tight cast is Alessandro Nivola (best known for The Brutalist) as Neil’s apt pupil and Laura Dern (best known for Jurassic Park), reprising her fan-favorite role of Dr. Ellie Sattler.
When Jurassic Park 3 came out, it didn’t sink its claws into the critics: correspondingly, it has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 49 percent. Critics noted that the movie took some creative risks (like telling a darker story and focusing more on action than adventure) but that it paled in comparison to the original Jurassic Park. While I agree that few things can hold a talon to the perfection of that first Steven Spielberg film, Jurassic Park III was a welcome breath of fresh air, especially after Spielberg’s own lazy and derivative The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Moreover, Jurassic Park 3 has aged incredibly well when compared to the disappointing movies in the Jurassic World franchise. Those later movies just got worse over time: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is one of the stupidest movies ever made (this is a film where the most dangerous weapon ever created is a dinosaur that you control by pointing a gun at a target…at which point, you could just use the freaking gun!), and Jurassic World Rebirth is like a schlocky SyFy movie with a huge budget. Compared to these high-profile failures, Jurassic Park 3 feels like a return to form for this beleaguered franchise.
Even outside of comparing it to the failed Jurassic World films, I believe that Jurassic Park III stands the test of time as a solid sequel that improves upon The Lost World in every way. The movie is filled with great actors giving it their all, and their characters all have clearly drawn motivations and some surprisingly great chemistry. Plus, this movie’s action scenes were far more effective for me than either the empty, setpiece-driven sequences of The Lost World or the CGI slop of Jurassic World and its sequels.
Will you agree that Jurassic Park III is far better than the critics gave it credit for, or is this one sequel you’d rather see go extinct? You don’t have to clone the movie to find out; all you have to do is stream it on Netflix. If nothing else, you’re likely to enjoy an action-packed movie whose director took Jeff Goldblum’s famous line from the first film to heart: “Must go faster!”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
