10. Jurassic Park 3 Had A Plot
With the return of Sam Neil's Alan Grant and Laura Dern's Ellie Sadler, this could have sent the trilogy out on a high. Instead it was...a little meh. Which is a terrible shame. While the second film didn't have the depth of the first, it was terribly exciting. The double T-Rex attack on the trailer on the cliff edge is the most tense, thrilling action sequence the series has done to date, and the final act, with the T-Rex running amok through the city was fun. Julianne Moore's Sarah Harding and the late Pete Postlethwaite's Roland Tembo were great additions to the franchise. I would have quite liked to have seen more of Sarah, perhaps working with Alan and Ellie in the third film? And that's the trouble with Jurassic Park 3. There are a lot of 'could have beens' which never panned out. Ellie and Alan's chemistry is pretty much wiped out by the fact that a) they married her off to someone else and b) she doesn't even go the island. I would have liked Sarah and Ian Malcolm to make an appearance, Jeff Goldblum played well off the main characters in the first film, I can see why he was given the lead in the second. So his absence in the third is noted. But more than that, the new cast are a bit flat. A separated couple looking for their son. Really? That's the best you can come up with? While I'm fine with a kid or two appearing in these films - it's a staple of Speilberg which is honoured in this film - this time the plot seems driven around the child. The only added extra is the intelligent raptors hunting our heroes after Alan's assistant Billy Brennan steals an egg. Sure the film makes an attempt at adding something new with the gargantuan Spinosaurus and finally seeing some decent flying dinosaurs, but that too adds two big issues for the film for me. 1) It makes the always exciting T-Rexes non-players in this film, and 2) The Pteranodons themselves. They fly off...Alan notes during their escape from the island...to new nesting grounds. WHERE? THE MAINLAND? Okay, here we're finally going to get a brilliant action sequence, topping the 'T-Rex in the city' from the last film by having flying dinosaurs terrorising people as they swoop down from roof tops to feed on animals and small children...but no. It's the credits. That's my main gripe. Not only is the film a bit soulless but it FORGETS TO HAVE AN ENDING!!!!! So how could it have been better? Well, you now have an established cast in Alan, Ellie, Ian and Sarah. Use them. Have them caught up in something terrible, re-living their experiences. Can you imagine if one of them had died? It would have been traumatic and also awesome. Secondly, they should have returned to the first island. That's what audiences wanted to see...the aftermath of the first film. (Apparently Jurassic Park IV will address this). I think the whole creation of the second island was bizarre, giving the potential of the first, easily making it the weakest element of Jurassic Park: The Lost World. Also, the third film could have tied up some of the open sub plots. The fight for control of InGen. The stolen cannister full of dino DNA. The world reacting to the events of the second film. But no, it went for straight up action with unexciting characters and no depth of plot. Even Sam Neil as Alan Grant couldn't elevate this one. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed it (it does have flying dinosaurs) but compared to the other two, it was a waste of a film.