Jurassic Park 3

Considering this dino-franchise has grossed in the region of $1.5billion to date, a third instalment was as inevitable as the eventual extinction of life on Earth. The first one was tolerable enough, but episode two (The Lost World) was without doubt the most boring film in world cinema history, despite being directed by the generally Midas-touched Mr. Steven Spielberg. Thankfully, despite understandably widespread fears, JP3 isn’t awful at all.

Plot: Dr. Alan Grant (Neill) has spent eight years trying to forget his traumatic experiences from the dino-themepark in the original Jurassic Park. However, his field of expertise has lost much credibility, and both public and private funding for dinosaur research has become as extinct as the beasts themselves. Thus, Grant’s new theory of Velociraptor intelligence looks set to go by the wayside. Hope is at hand, though, in the form of billionaire thrill-seekers the Kirbys (Leona and Macy) who promise Grant a blank cheque if he will accompany them on an aerial tour of Isla Sorna, a second site from the ill-fated would-be tourist attraction. It soon transpires that the Kirbys have lured Grant there on false pretences, and in fact need his assistance in a near-impossible search-and-rescue mission for their brattish son.

Within seconds of an unscheduled landing though, a Tyrannosaurus Rex is happily munching on one of the rescue party: cue potentially-fatal dino chases, moral pronouncements (“This is how you play God”), Lassie Come Home-style reunions and happy family values, as even the formerly estranged married couple are reconciled through their fear of being eaten by giant lizards, all accompanied by big Spielbergian violins (despite its being an in-house production rather than an actual Spielberg movie).

Given that nobody will be anything other than fully aware of what to expect from Jurassic Park 3, it’s a remarkably competent production, and more than delivers the required goods. The raptors are back, but in greater numbers, as are the pteradons promised in the closing scenes of JP2 - but the star of the show, we’re all agreed, is the Spinosauras (who even goes head-to-head with a T-Rex).

On all levels, this production is a vast improvement on the last Jurassic instalment, and is arguably superior to the first as well: there’s far more plot than in the lazy disaster extravaganzas which preceded them, and it’s all wisely condensed into a 90-minute duration. It’s hardly stunningly original stuff, and one can only hope that Sam Neill and William H. Macy got richly compensated for slumming it in such throwaway summer fare, but it’s miles better than Moviehouse had dared to hope.