Film 3 - Philip Kerr says third time lucky for the makers of Jurassic Park
Costa Rica, once famous for coffee and bananas, is now, thanks to the author Michael Crichton, perhaps better known for the many dinosaurs that live there in Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. JP III, like the two previous films, was actually shot in Hawaii, which makes you wonder, when the island of Oahu is shown, and the on-screen caption tells you that this is supposed to be Isla Nubar, somewhere off the coast of Costa Rica, why anyone should think that Costa Rica is more probable a place than Hawaii to breed genetically engineered dinosaurs.
Of course, since 1950, Hawaii has been the 50th state of the USA, and I suspect that Americans are more inclined to believe that a Central American banana republic might be home to dinosaurs, rather than a state in the Union where they like to go on holiday. For this reason, I rather suspect the hotels are better in Hawaii than in Costa Rica - which might make shooting there a little more congenial.
Surprisingly, of the Hollywood dinofilms so far (surprisingly because JP III is the only one not to be directed by Steven Spielberg), this, the third, is the best. Which is not to say that it is a great film; it is merely the most realistic, and, as a result, there are some genuinely thrilling moments.
There are two reasons why this film is better than the previous two.
Since 1993, when Jurassic Park first appeared on our screens, there have been a number of significant technical advances, which mean that Stan Winston's dinosaurs now look even more convincing than they did eight years ago. Which, in the final analysis, is the only reason to go and see this picture. But it is also better because there are none of the long-winded explanations about DNA and chaos and wordy set-ups that marred the previous productions. If you don't know how to make a dinosaur yet, then you've got no business going to see JP III. From the very beginning, this film is all dinosaur action.
Sam Neill reprises the role from JP I of Dr Alan Grant, the world's leading palaeontologist. Quite why he is considered to be the world's leading palaeontologist is hard to fathom, as he is hardly the brightest fossil in the rock. How else could he be so easily tricked by Paul Kirby (William H Macy) and Kirby's wife, Amand (Tea Leoni), into returning to the island as their guide?
Let me explain.
Posing as a pair of money-no-object tourists in search of the ultimate vacation - a bit like Tony and Cherie, you might think - the Kirbys overcome Grant's understandable reluctance to return to the Isla Sorna (site of the second InGen dino-laboratory) by taking out their chequebook and asking Grant to name his own price. As in Hollywood, this is how things are done in all three Jurassic Park films: someone rich always gets out a chequebook and buys off someone poor. To European eyes, there is something almost offensive about such naked capitalism. But America is a foreign country, they do things differently there. In the US, money always talks, especially when it comes to dealing with such poorly paid, inadequately funded schmucks as academics and scientists.
It is only when, at last, Grant is on the island that he discovers Paul Kirby is not rich at all, but merely an anxious parent who has put all of his limited capital into searching for a son foolish enough to go paragliding near the island, and who has subsequently disappeared. Which makes one wonder, if Dr Grant is quite so clever, why he doesn't have the brain to make sure Kirby's cheque clears before he goes to Costa Rica.
Meanwhile, Grant and the Kirbys have crash-landed their plane on the island, and the dinosaurs have realised that there is something more interesting than reptile meat on the menu. Not long afterwards, the kid turns up looking like Ralph from Lord of the Flies, having managed somehow to survive for eight weeks against these predators. And it is about here that you realise the stupid hacks who knocked off the screenplay have simply borrowed the plot of Aliens, dusted it off and used it again here. For Kirby Jr, read Noot. For Grant, read Ripley. For 'Raptor, read Alien.
Not that it matters all that much. The plot, like the acting, is more or less perfunctory, although, to be kind, I imagine it is hard to act very well when you're performing to a blue screen, or when the dialogue is mostly of the "Oh, my God" variety.
All the same, given just how credible the dinosaurs were, I asked myself why the technical guys - from the Oscar- winning Stan Winston Studio - did not go all the way and create some animatronic actors, too. Certainly, they could hardly have come up with creatures less animated and more plastic-looking than Neill and Leoni. Even when she screams - which she does an awful lot - Leoni manages to do it in a bogus, manufactured way that makes you think someone has thrown a switch inside her pretty little head.
It goes almost without saying that the show is stolen by Winston's dinosaurs. Of these, perhaps, the most unnerving of all is the female pteranodon, which bears an uncanny resemblance to Lady Thatcher.
Jurassic Park III (PG) is on nationwide release
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