This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Matisse van Rossum’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
I haven't seen any of the Jurassic Park movies in years, and this one happened to be on AMC this afternoon and because of laziness and lack of motivation to change the channel, I watched it. I remember liking it as a kid, but I think that's just because kids love dinosaurs, and as long as dinosaurs are present, it doesn't really matter what else is going on. There are certainly dinosaurs present in Jurassic Park III, but there really isn't much else going on. Weak story, weaker script, passable cast. Not much more to say.
I will give it one thing: the dinosaurs look great. But then again, they have since the first one. There's a lot more CGI in this one than the previous ones, but it's done really well and the dinosaurs look believable. They live and breathe and just look damn good. But this doesn't excuse a sloppy film. The problem with this movie is that Steven Spielberg didn't direct it. I'm not always a fan of Spielberg movies, but the fact of the matter is that he knows what he's doing and he makes technically good movies. Joe Johnston tries real hard to be Steven Spielberg but just doesn't quite succeed.
My biggest problem with Jurassic Park III is the ending. It is absolutely asinine. You know what, I'm just going to go ahead and spoil it, because if you haven't seen Jurassic Park III and you care that much about the ending that you'll be upset if it's spoiled you need to get your priorities straight. At one point Sam Neill's character manages to make a call to his blonde lady friend from Jurassic Park one on a satellite phone asking for help off the island. And how does she help? She calls the Navy and the Marines (because apparently there's a 1-800 number for that) to go in and extract like 4 people off the island with tanks, helicopters and two (not one but TWO) aircraft carriers. Because it takes the combined forces of the Navy and the Marines, who apparently have nothing better to do anyway, to save a small handful of people from some dinosaurs.
Fuck that. That is all.