tek's rating: ½

Jurassic Park III (PG-13)
Amblin; IMDb; Kennedy/Marshall; Rotten Tomatoes; TV Tropes; Universal; Wikia; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Movies Anywhere; Vudu; YouTube

This came out in 2001; it's the third movie in the Jurassic Park franchise, following The Lost World. I first saw it in 2015, and I was a bit biased going in, knowing that a lot of people thought it was a bad movie. But as always, I wanted to form my own opinion, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Still, it took awhile for me to warm up to it. And I never thought it was great, but ultimately, I didn't really think it was bad, either. I mean, I think it was less good than the second movie, and a lot less good than the first. Still, it ended up being reasonably fun.

It begins with a man named Ben and a boy named Eric parasailing near Isla Sorna, the island from the second movie. It's restricted airspace, on account of how dangerous it is, but... fools will be fools. Anyway, the boat their parasail is tethered to apparently gets attacked, though we don't actually see that. Ben and Eric detach, and land on the island. Meanwhile, we see doctors Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, from the first movie, and... well, there's an aspect to their relationship that has changed, and I don't want to spoil it, though it's not really important to the plot. Later, we see Dr. Grant giving a lecture about Velociraptors, which is rather more important. And then he returns to his latest dig site, where we meet one of his grad students, Billy Brennan. Dr. Grant's lecture was supposed to drum up some financial support for his current project, but apparently it failed. But now he's approached by a man named Paul Kirby (William H. Macy), who invites him to dinner with him and his wife, Amanda (Téa Leoni). Alan doesn't want to accept the invitation, but Billy does so on his behalf, and so... the four of them go to dinner together. The Kirbys claim to want to fly over Isla Sorna for their anniversary, and they want to hire Dr. Grant as their guide, in exchange for a donation that could keep his dig going for awhile. And he reluctantly agrees.

So, Dr. Grant, Billy, and the Kirbys fly to the island, along with a few mercenaries, including a guy named Udesky (Michael Jeter). Over Dr. Grant's objections, they don't just fly over the island, but actually land there. This is, needless to say, a horrible idea. And there are some more revelations once they get there, which I don't want to spoil. But I will say they eventually find Eric, who has survived alone on the island for eight weeks. (Ben is dead.) And they all spend the rest of the movie fleeing in terror from various dinosaurs (mostly Raptors, but also a Spinosaurus, and some Pteranodons). That's all I want to say about the plot. But there were a few things in the movie I found pretty amusing. And... well, that's all I can say.


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Jurassic Park * The Lost World * Jurassic Park III
Jurassic World * Fallen Kingdom