Franchises: Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park III (2001)

As it was for The Lost World, I began hearing rumors about a possible third Jurassic Park movie about a year before it was released. I'm not sure exactly when I found out for sure that it was coming but I remember that when I got the 25th anniversary edition of Jaws as an early Christmas present in 2000, an advertisement before the movie that promoted the DVD releases of the first two movies talked about Jurassic Park III and playing them in a DVD-ROM would give you access to behind the scenes material on it. So, now I knew that another dinosaur adventure was on the way but, that said, I didn't see this one in theaters because I honestly wasn't as enthused about it as I was with the first two. Part of that may have been because I was now 13, seven years removed from the wide-eyed six-year old who saw the original in the theater back in 1993, and while my love for the first two films hadn't wavered, I was at a point in my life where my tastes were changing and I was kind of indifferent to yet another Jurassic Park film. Another reason for my attitude may have been because, while others felt that The Lost World wasn't as genuine as the first movie, before I even saw this one, it was the one that didn't feel genuine to me. Granted, that second film was only made because the first one was a giant hit but, regardless of what your opinion of it may be, you still had Steven Spielberg directing and a couple of the original cast members returning, with their characters having been expanded upon, so it did feel like some effort and heart was put into it; the minute I heard that Spielberg wasn't directing this one, I started to suspect that this was meant to be nothing more than a way for the studio to see how many more bucks they could squeeze out of the franchise and my suspicions were confirmed when I finally did see it, which wasn't until Christmas of 2001 when Mom got it for me as a present. After I watched it the first time, my reaction was merely, "Meh." I didn't think it was horrible and I found to be at least watchable, but any wonder or enchantment that was held over from the first movie was completely gone to me and I was very much convinced that this was a hastily put together cash-in on the name.

Two things about the movie made me feel the way I did: the story and the actual running time. The plot of Jurassic Park III is as simplified as you can get: an accident causes a kid to become lost on Isla Sorna and his divorced parents trick Dr. Alan Grant, who in the years since the disaster at Isla Nublar has fallen on some hard times and desperately needs money to be able to continue his work, into coming with them to search for him. Of course, once they arrive, things don't go as planned and they become stranded. Now, they not only have to find the boy but try to survive in the process. It felt like no care was put into the writing of the story and the only thought behind it was, "Let's just find a way for people to become stranded on the island so we can have more chases involving dinosaurs." Granted, there probably wasn't an easy or original way to come up with a compelling story after the second film but this plot still felt lazy and uninspired to me. And like I said, the film's running time also struck me: just 93 minutes, whereas the other two were each a little over two hours long. Its being so short made it not only feel like this movie hastily put together but also that the creators also didn't want to spend much time with it. Again, let's just get them on the island as quick as possible so we can spend the rest of the running time with them being chased by dinosaurs. It all felt like a very rushed and uninspired sequel and, for a long time, it was my least favorite of the franchise. But, things tend to change over time and my opinion on Jurassic Park III has softened in recent years. I still don't think it's a great movie and the simplicity of the plot and how quick it is still make it feel like nothing more than a cash-in but, that said, I think I've grown to enjoy it more than The Lost World. I still like that movie but, as I said in my review, it has some major pacing problems and tends to drag a lot, which is something I can't say about this film. For all its faults, Jurassic Park III is certainly not boring. It's as lean and mean of a movie as you could ask for, with a pace that feels fast, fluid, and consistent from beginning to end, doesn't take any unnecessary detours (which The Lost World sometimes did) and is filled with a number of really exciting and well-shot action sequences. Like the second film, it's mainly just a monster/survival movie with a lot of likable, memorable characters but little of the first film's sense of wonder but, if I had a choice between a movie with that mentality that's as sluggish as The Lost World felt and one that feels as tight as this, I'd go with this one because it makes for a more enjoyable, summertime popcorn movie.

In place of Spielberg is former special effects artist Joe Johnston, who had worked on effects for films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark and had made his directorial debut in 1989 with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. In the following years, he directed The Rocketeer, The Pagemaster, and Jumangi with Robin Williams (the latter two I remember liking a lot when I was a kid but I haven't seen them in years). He had expressed interest in directing The Lost World but by that point, Spielberg had already decided to direct that movie himself. However, Spielberg promised him that, if they made a third one, he could direct it and sure enough, here he is, so at least Spielberg seems to be a man of his word. In the first version of this review, I had said that, like most effects artists who become directors, Johnston is great at directing action scenes and big effects extravaganzas but when it comes to scenes involving acting and character development, he really sucks. At the time, I had based that opinion mostly on the remake of The Wolf Man with Benicio del Toro and the fact that he mostly sticks to big-budget movies like this and those other movies I mentioned where strong acting usually isn't all that important but what I didn't know was that he'd directed the down-to-Earth, human story October Sky, which I saw back when I was in high school and remember liking and thinking that it had some good acting. In addition, after re-watching Jurassic Park III recently and enjoying the performances as well as warming up to it, thinking back to the performances in Jumangi, especially that of Williams, and learning about the difficulties he suffered on The Wolfman, I retract what I said before. Johnston may not be one of the greatest directors ever but I now think he's more talented than I and a lot of other people have given him credit for. And while his movies, save for October Sky, might not be anything groundbreaking or Oscar-worthy, he seems to know how to make fast-paced, entertaining flicks that the whole family can enjoy and there's nothing wrong with that, so from now on, I'll be a little easier on him.

As much as I love Sam Neill in the first Jurassic Park and as an actor in general, when I saw that he was back in this film, it initially came across as another uninspired aspect of the film's conception, as if their attitude was just, "Well, we brought Jeff Goldblum back in the previous movie, so let's bring the other star of the first film back here." While it was still nice to know that Neill was back after having been absent the second time around, it still felt like they were merely going through the motions in bringing back at least two of the leads from the first film for each sequel (I say two because Laura Dern returns here as well) and that, coupled with my feeling that his character was underwritten, prevented me from appreciating Neill's performance the first few times I watched the movie. But, like I said, things change and, while he doesn't have much time to get into it very deeply since it's like twenty minutes before he ends up on Isla Sorna, I can say that I now truly like how Neill approaches Dr. Alan Grant here. Even though he didn't suffer the same public ridicule that Ian Malcolm did, the years since the events of the first film have not been kind to him, particularly now that everyone knows about both Jurassic Park and Isla Sorna, the latter of which still has living dinosaurs roaming free. As a result, paleontology is now viewed as obsolete, which has left Grant both isolated and a bit embittered since he's running low on funds to continue his work. Jurassic Park is something that he doesn't want to be reminded of or associated with at all, which he makes very clear at a lecture he gives to attain more funds when someone asks him if he isn't the least bit curious to go to Isla Sorna and study real, living dinosaurs instead of concerning himself with fossils. He says that to him, real dinosaurs are long dead and that digging up their bones is real science, whereas what InGen created at Jurassic Park are nothing more than genetically-engineered monsters that were meant to make money for a theme park. He adds that there is nothing that could get him on that island, which, of course, turns out to be very wrong when he gets roped by Paul and Amanda Kirby into acting as a guide for the island while they look for their missing son, Erik, but I like that, despite what he says, he can't help but get excited and start acting like a tour guide when they first fly over the island and they spot a big herd of dinosaurs. It continues sporadically even after they get stranded, with him and his assistant Billy trying to come up with a suitable name for the Spinosaurus after they first encounter with it and another moment where he spies on two Velociraptors speaking to each other and he wonders what they're saying.

For the most part, though, insight into his character takes a backseat to the action once they're on the island since his and everyone else's main concern is to find a way to escape but Neill more than holds his own during the action scenes and, in the midst of it, also manages to give Grant something of an arc to where his view of these creatures softens and he begins to see them as majestic, wondrous animals again (he himself admits when they arrive and first see some dinosaurs that he'd forgotten how amazing it really is). This, which was shown by those sporadic instances of scientific curiosity that I described up above, comes to a head in a very good scene near the end of the film where it seems like Billy has been killed and Grant regrets the cruel, last thing he said to him upon discovering that he took some raptor eggs in order to sell them on the mainland and use the profits to fund their research, telling him that he's no better than the people behind Jurassic Park. After having a chance to think about what he said, he realizes that Billy was just an eager, young man who wanted to experience something as amazing as dinosaurs rather than just observe them by digging up their bones as a paleontologist and as the river boat that they're traveling on passes by a clearing full of magnificent Brachiosaurs and Ankylosaurs, both he and young Eric Kirby realize that there was something to what Billy wanted. That's really the last bit of character we get with Grant in the film, aside from the climax where they're cornered by the raptors and he uses his knowledge of their behavior and a model of a raptor's resonating chamber that Billy had brought with them in order to save their lives, but it's nice to see Grant's original passion for dinosaurs that had been tainted somewhat by what happened before rekindled by the end, which is shown when he's not at all alarmed by the sight of Pterodactyls flying free in the sky but rather comments that they're probably looking for a home in this world that's completely new to them (granted, he and the others should be a bit more alarmed than they are given the circumstances but I'm able to let that go and get into the sense of wonder the film's trying to bring back).

Going by the tradition of having at least two people from the first film make an appearance in one of the sequels, Laura Dern  also makes a brief reappearance as Ellie Sattler (for a while, I didn't think it was her playing the role again, I guess because she's older and looks different, but it is indeed her), who's now married and has apparently retired from paleontology in order to take care of the two kids she now has with her husband. It's never explained why it didn't work out between her and Grant, which is something I was curious about and wanted to know since I didn't like the idea of them not being together, but, if nothing else, at least they're still on good terms and care about each other. A good example of this happens at the beginning of the film when Grant is leaving her house after a visit and he mentions a lecture he's about to participate in. She tells him that if he needs any help, all he has to do is call and he's still the best in her opinion. However, he solemnly adds, "I'm the last of my breed," and as she watches him leave, she has a rather sad look on her face, showing that she feels bad about how things in his life could be going better, with the addition of a soft, poignant version of the Jurassic Park theme making the scene all the more touching. Since she's not part of the team that goes to the island, Ellie isn't in the film all that much but it was still a nice touch to have her return and I especially like how, after she gets a frantic satellite phone-call from Grant, she realizes what must be having and ends up calling both the Coast Guard and the Navy to rescue them. I agree with what Erik says: after that display of devotion, he'd better let her know how much he appreciates her being in his life, which he says he doesn't think he's ever done before!

The rest of the cast is made up of some very respectable actors who, even if their individual characters don't have much meat to them, play their parts very well. William H. Macy is pretty good, as he always is, as Paul Kirby, the man who, along with his ex-wife, shanghai Dr. Grant into coming with them to Islan Sorna in order to help them look for their son, Eric. Despite his deception, which includes posing as a wealthy businessman and adventurer to lure Grant with the promise of money to fund his digs when he really only owns a paint and tile store, Kirby is actually a decent, likable guy who really cares about his son and wants to find him, even if he has to put himself in danger in order to do it. While it was still a rather shady thing to trick Grant into coming to Isla Sorna, you quickly understand why he did it since no one else would help them, which gave them no choice but to do it themselves and use their life-savings to hire a small group of mercenaries to help them. They also needed someone who had been on the island before to help them and they went for Grant, which they soon learn was a bad mistake since they had no idea that he was never on Isla Sorna before. As the film goes on, you see that, despite their separation, Kirby still cares about his ex-wife and he proves himself to be rather brave when he needs to be, using himself as bait to get the Spinosaurus' attention when he attacks them on the river and almost getting himself killed in an attempt to drive him away from everyone. I used to really dog on Tea Leoni as Amanda Kirby because of all the screaming she does in the film, sometimes rivaling Kate Capshaw in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in terms of sheer annoyance. Like the movie in general, I have lightened up on her a little bit, even though she still does some annoying things, like constantly yelling on that bullhorn while Grant and Kirby are talking when they first arrive and the aforementioned screaming, particularly during the moment when the corpse of the family friend Eric was with falls on her and she gets tangled up in the parachute still attached to him, and her acting is sometimes a little bit wooden. Still, as is the case with her ex-husband, I can't fault her for being a concerned mother who wants to find her son and will do whatever she can to do so and I do like some of her dialogue, like when she says that if Eric had been with Kirby, he would have been perfectly safe because of how cautious he is whereas she's totalled three cars in the past few years. Finally, there's Trevor Morgan as Eric Kirby, who a lot of people seem to find annoying, which I don't get at all. For one, he's not even in the film that much, and for another, he's not shrill or whiny at all and is actually pretty smart and resourceful, single-handedly saving Grant from the Velociraptors with some gas bombs he found at the abandoned complex, which is to say nothing of his surviving on Isla Sorna for eight weeks by using the supplies left behind. In fact, I would say he's probably the best kid character in the franchise since he doesn't have any annoying moments like Lex and Tim did and he's not as completely useless and helpless as Kelly Malcolm was, even though he does need to be saved a few times. And yes, it is so cheesy for the film's events to bring the Kirby family back together by the end but I'm able to easily overlook it and enjoy it for what it is.

I also used to say that Alessandro Nivola didn't have much to him either as Billy, a young graduate student who's been working as an assistant to Grant at his dig site, but I now think otherwise. Like Paul Kirby, Billy comes across as an overall decent guy who makes a very bad judgement call at one point. He and Grant have a real kinship between the two of them, coming across as lifelong friends despite the age difference, and you can also tell that Billy truly respects Grant as a scientist and what he stands for. However, unlike Grant, Billy has a desire to "experience" rather than "observe," which is why he's so eager to go to Isla Sorna when the chance comes up, roping Grant into the trip despite his protests. As I said earlier, even when they're stranded on the island and want to escape as badly as the others, both Grant and Billy can't help but contain their scientific curiosity, identifying the Spinosaurus, admiring the intelligence of the Velociraptors, and such. However, Billy's eagerness causes him to make a very stupid mistake when he steals a couple of raptor eggs in order to take them back home and sell them in order to get money to continue funding their work. He admits that he knows that what he did was not very smart and that it's put everyone in even more danger since it's the reason why the raptors have been trailing them for so long but he reasons that he did it with the best intentions. That doesn't mean much to Grant, though, who says that Billy's no better than the people who built Jurassic Park, which absolutely devastates the young man since it now seems like he's lost the respect of this man who's both his friend and someone he admires. Billy soon afterward pulls off a very risky rescue attempt when Eric gets attacked by some Pterodactyls and while he manages to save him, he's apparently killed when the Pterosaurs turn on him, leaving Grant feeling very bad about what he last said to him and making understand what Billy wanted. Fortunately, Billy turns maimed but alive at the end of the film and the two of them reconcile; like the Kirby family getting back together, it's a bit cheesy but, again, I really don't care.

The late Michael Jeter could have been a cool addition to the cast but he gets killed early on, which is a shame because I think it would have been nice to have him live for the duration of the film. There's not much depth to his character of Udesky, one of the three mercenaries (or at least "supposed" mercenaries, given what he says at one point once they're on the island) whom Paul and Amanda Kirby hire in order to help them find Eric, and he doesn't get a chance to do all that much but he was one of the actors who had that type of presence to him where you just liked seeing him in a movie. I like that he's a decent enough guy to where he doesn't like it that the couple basically got him to kidnap someone and I also smirk when, while Paul and Amanda are arguing, he says that if they do decide to split up, he's going with Grant and Billy just to get away from them. Plus, Jeter had a way of yelling that sounded like he was genuinely in agony and was suffering (watch his horribly botched execution in The Green Mile for an example) and that's how I feel when he gets pinned down by the claw of one of the Velociraptors, who then use him as bait to trap the others. When he's outlived his usefulness, one of the raptors kills him in a bloodless but still cringe-inducing way by snapping his neck with its jaws. Again, not much to him overall, but it would have been nice for Udesky to live for the entire movie.

After the T-Rex had dominated the first two movies, the filmmakers decided it was time to introduce a new antagonistic dinosaur to terrorize the humans this time around: a hulking monstrosity called the Spinosaurus. He's basically the T-Rex, only more massive, with a longer, narrower, crocodile-like snout, and a huge, Dimetrodon-like sail on his back. Although he is a well-designed creature and a very threatening antagonist (you're not even safe from him in the water), he's never been all that popular with Jurassic Park fans, myself included for a while, because of a scene where he battles a T-Rex and ultimately kills him. When I first saw the movie, that scene made me more than a little mad because of how much I loved the T-Rex and in the original version of this review when I still didn't care much for this movie, I made that abundantly clear in a rather whiny way. Nowadays, I've made my peace with it because, one, I understand that the T-Rex had gotten enough screentime in the previous films and it was time to bring a new one in, two, that battle probably would have had the same outcome in real life as it did in the film considering how much bigger and stronger the Spinosaurus really was and I should be glad that the T-Rex put up as good of a fight as he did, three, I know full well that this is not the same T-Rex that ruled the first movie and probably not the two in The Lost World (although, the idea of this being the baby now grown up is a bit disturbing), and four, it was necessary to show how much of a lethal creature this new dinosaur is and that he's going to be to be a major threat to the characters. All that said, though, I'd be lying if I didn't say that it's still cringe-inducing to watch the Spinosaurus snap the T-Rex's neck with his jaws and then fling his body down to the ground. As the Nostalgia Critic described, it's like watching your favorite toy from childhood get butchered and then have someone try to force a new one onto you. Again, I understand why they did what they did and the movie, for better or worse, might not have had the same impact if this scene didn't exist at all, but it still stings to see the dinosaur that was undeniably the "star" of the series get killed like this.

While we're on the subject of the Spinosaurus, even though I've warmed up to him over the years, one thing about him that still bugs me is his origin. When Billy mentions that he doesn't remember the Spinosaurus being on InGen's list of cloned dinosaurs, Grant remarks that he wasn't, indicating that he was some sort of a secret experiment. Well, if that's the case, then here's my question: where was the Spinosaurus in The Lost World? You might say that he hatched after the events of that movie but the thing is that, according to what Hammond said there, Isla Sorna was abandoned shortly after the events of the first movie and he had been trying to keep the island and the dinosaurs therein hidden from the public for the four years between the two movies. If InGen had been developing the Spinosaurus before the place was abandoned, why didn't Malcolm and Ludlow's teams ever run into him instead of just the two Tyrannosaurs? You could argue that he wasn't grown enough yet but, given how quickly animals like dinosaurs grow compared to humans, I would think that after having been around for four years, the Spinosaurus would have already been big enough to be a major threat to anything that ran into it. One of the taglines for this film was, "Something Unexpected Has Evolved," possibly meaning that the Spinosaurus is something other than simply the end result of an experiment but, whatever the case, his presence isn't very easily explained and could be considered something of a plothole.

Since you can't have a Jurassic Park movie without them, back for another round are the Velociraptors, who have a much more prominent role this time around as opposed to the previous film. Their portrayals here are quite interesting because, due to recent discoveries in paleontology, the effects artists tweaked their design and made it easier to differentiate them. Since it's now theorized that Velociraptors had feathers, they decided to give the males, one of whom appears to be the leader of the pack, a crest of bird-like quills on the back of their heads and necks while the females have the same general look as the raptors in the previous films. In addition, they're portrayed here as even more intelligent than they were before, maybe because they kind of seemed like dumbasses in the second movie for falling for Kelly Malcolm's trick and such and the filmmakers decided that they needed to correct that. I applaud them for doing so because the raptors are just about as awesome here as they were in the original film. When the aforementioned "leader" raptor with the spines gets temporarily trapped, he lets out a distress call, and after he gets loose, he barks for his comrades to join the chase. This is expanded upon throughout the film as you can see they talking to each other to the degree where it comes across like they're having simple conversations. As I said earlier, the raptors manage to get Udesky at one point and injure him but don't immediately kill him in order to use him as bait for the others. While that's nice enough as it is, I like how the one raptor just kills him by snapping his neck after he's outlived his usefulness. I also like the last scene with them where they corner the characters and one particular female seems to demand that they return the eggs that Billy stole, thinking that Amanda is the one who actually took them (probably because she can sense that she's only female in the group). She doesn't attack Amanda but just comes up to her and sniffs, trying to see if she has her eggs. They more than likely would have killed everyone after Amanda revealed the eggs to them but Grant uses the model resonating chamber that Billy brought to try to communicate with the raptors, able to stave off an attack until the raptors retreat upon hearing what turns out to be a rescue team approaching. That's the one thing about the raptors here: this is probably their most balanced portrayal in terms of their intelligence and their still being animals at the end of the day. In the first film, they were intelligent but also had a feeling of malevolence about them when they were stalking their prey; in the second film, they were little more than typical animals with little signs of that intelligence; here, their intelligence is evident but the reason they're after the characters, after it probably being for food initially, is because they want their eggs back and they're smart enough to where they won't stop until they do get them back.

After having been completely ignored in the previous movies save for an appearance at the very end of the second one (although toys of them had been made to promote the other films), Pterodactyls finally make a substantial appearance here, living in an enormous birdcage and kidnapping Eric in order to feed him to their babies. (Would Pterodactyls have done something like that in real life, though? I assumed they just ate fish.) I've learned that this scene was intended to be in the other films but never made it both times due to time constraints, so it's nice that they finally got their due here. Although there isn't much to say about them in terms of "characterization" since they're portrayed simply as animals doing what they do (although that one sure did look at Grant and Kirby in a menacing, evil way) and only have a major role in this one scene, like all of the other dinosaurs they're very well-designed and look absolutely real and are also a pretty legitimate threat since they can fly and are very swift and agile while doing so as well as about as relentless as they raptors can be. Even their small babies are pretty ferocious and deadly how they attack Eric as well as the bones you see near their nest, although,  because those bones are most certainly human, I do wonder who those people were since no one is supposed to have been on the island since the events of the second movie. The entire scene is a pretty exciting sequence overall and the ending shot of them flying off to find a new place to nest is actually very wondrous and awe-inspiring, even if it doesn't make much sense that the characters aren't as concerned about it as they should be.

Those are the main dinosaurs that appear in the film, with other types like the Brachiosaurs, the Ankylosaurs, and the Compies popping only in one or two scenes and staying in the background or merely as minor obstacles the characters have to get around. There is one particularly funny moment involving a new type of dinosaur where the characters have to find Kirby's satellite phone the Spinosaurus, who ate it, has crapped it out. They have to dig through steaming mounds of its dung in order to get to it and just when they find it, a Ceratosaurus, which looks like a red-colored T-Rex with horns on its snout, appears and walks up to them in a threatening manner but when he smells them, he backs away and just walks away groaning, as if  he said, "The hell with this." However, my favorite moment in the entire movie is that scene I mentioned earlier where Grant has realized that what Billy wanted was a chance to touch and feel actual dinosaurs and, right then, their boat passes by a group of dinosaurs in a clearing and a curious Brachiosaurus watches them and follows them for a short distance. The Jurassic Park theme comes in full swing there and it's just a marvelous scene, briefly harkening back to the awe and wonder of the original movie and making everyone realize that there was something to what Billy wanted.

For the most part, the special effects here live up to the lofty standards of the first two movies. I say, "for the most part," because there are some instances of wonky-looking CGI here, such as during the fight between the T-Rex and the Spinosaurus, some of the shots of the raptors, and in some close-ups of the computer-generated dinosaurs like that Ceratosaurus, but, for the most part, they're still as convincing and photo-realistic as they have been before. Once again, though, the really amazing effects are the animatronics courtesy of Stan Winston's studio and it's sad that this is the last Jurassic Park film to use a real blend of practical and digital effects since Jurassic World was 99.9% CGI. The enormous animatronics for the T-Rex and the Spinosaurus are just as jaw-dropping as those that were in the previous films and they look especially good during the fight (they actually manage to pull off a practical dinosaur biting a CG one in a very convincing way) and during the climax on the river and the same goes for the Velociraptors (I really like their blue-gray paint schemes here) and the Pterodactyls. Once again, Winston and his team will have you totally convinced that these are real, breathing, thinking creatures, especially the raptors in the scenes where they use Udesky as bait, talk to each other, and corner the characters near the end of the movie and the one female goes up to Amanda, trying to see if she's the one who took the eggs. It's also nice that you can distinguish the male raptors from the females, giving them a little bit character and individuality this time around. There's not much more I can say about the effects without repeating myself so I'll just end it here by saying that Industrial Light & Magic and Stan Winston once again knocked it out of the park in creating truly believable dinosaurs.

Since John Williams was busy doing the score to A.I.: Artificial Intelligence for Steven Spielberg, the studio brought in Don Davis to do the music for the film, although I don't remember much of the new material he composed for it since he used a lot of Williams' themes from the first movie (which makes this feel closer to it than The Lost World did). He makes good use of those original themes, re-orchestrating them in different ways to fit the mood, be it the soft, sad piano version of the theme during that moment when Grant is leaving Ellie's home, that shortened version when they spot the dinosaurs on the river bank, and the full-blown version of it at the very end when the Pterosaurs are flying through the clouds, as well as the classic adventurous "island" theme that you hear different times throughout the movie, including the first part of the ending credits, and such but I can't, for the life of me, go into detail about the original music he composed since it's rather generic, to be honest. The film opens with a menacing piece that is Jurassic Park-like in nature but doesn't give me chills like the atmospheric, foreboding music that Williams composed before and the music that Davis creates to characterize the relationship between Eric and his parents is okay and is touching enough but it's hardly memorable. The same goes for the music that he creates for the action sequences: it helps make them tense and exciting enough but it's not memorable like the similar themes in the first two movies. I've read that he tried to create a theme for the Spinosaurus that was big and brassy, akin to Max Steiner's score for the original King Kong, but in the final mix the brass was mostly played down so it doesn't sound all that distinctive. I've also read that the fight between the Spinosaurus and the T-Rex was supposed to have a mix of this theme and Williams' original one for the latter but I didn't hear any music during that scene so I don't what happened there (maybe the sounds of the dinosaurs were so loud that I couldn't hear the music).

To close, my opinion on Jurassic Park III has most definitely changed over time. It may not be high art or anything but it certainly isn't, nor has it ever been, a horrible movie in my opinion. Since I've found out that plans for it were conceived back in 1998, a full three years before its release, I can't continue to say that it was meant to be nothing more than a cash-in that was thrown together very quickly (although its short running time still makes it feel less epic than the first two), and I can now say that it does have some things going for it. For the most part, it keeps the same quality of special effects that the series is known for, it has some good, likable characters once again, especially Sam Neill in his return performance as Dr. Alan Grant, there are plenty of exciting, well-constructed action scenes to keep your attention, and the film does not drag its feet at all, which, in many ways, makes it a much easier movie to sit down and watch than The Lost World. It may not have the heart and sense of awe that the first film did but, at this point, it's unlikely any other film will, and with that in mind, if I had a choice between this or a movie like The Lost World that feels a little too long and plodding, I'll go with this. In short: not a classic by any means but there are much worse ways for you to kill an hour and a half.