Jurassic Park III DVD Review

The third time is the charm when you return to Jurassic Park once again.

I admit that I'm a fan of the Jurassic Park movies.I love the first one for the sense of wonder there was the first time that you saw a living, breathing, Dinosaur thanks to ILM's effects, and the second movie had its moments but didn't quite live up to the original.

When Joe Johnston was announced to be directing the third installment, I knew the series was in good hands. You see, the JP movies are basically effects films and they need someone who knows how to handle special effects. Johnston is exactly that due to his time at ILM and his previous films that were effects heavy.

By throwing out the moral debate that bogged down the last two movies, audiences got a tight 93-minute Dinosaur chase that turned out to be one of the better action flicks in 2001.

The Movie

It's been quite a while since the incidents on Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna, and the survivors have gone their separate ways for the most part. Dr. Grant has gone back to being your normal "old fashioned" paleontologist and spends his time giving lectures to attempt to drum up funds to keep his digs going.

When a wealthy adventurer couple comes and asks him to be their guide on an aerial tour of Isla Sorna, grand and his young assistant reluctantly agree. Little do they know that they are being deceived by the couple that wishes to land on the island to seek out their son who was sanded there after a parasailing accident.

Thus starts a ninety-minute chase movie through the lost world where the group of humans is picked off one by one by various forms of Dinosaurs including the new and vicious Spinosaur and the popular Pterodactyls.

The reason JP3 works and is worth seeing is because it's quick and it gives you exactly what you want to see in a Jurassic Park movie. Stupid people get on island. Dinosaurs see stupid people. Stupid people run screaming before they get munched on.

He didn't even have time to crap his pants.

Without the moral debate that bogged down the pacing in The Lost World, you get a quick and satisfying outing to Dinosaur island filled with great special effects and action sequences.

Grab some popcorn and put aside an hour and a half for this one.

8 out of 10

The Video

Universal has been faring pretty well with their anamorphic transfers lately, and this 1.85:1 picture fares decently. There are occasional compression artifacts, but don't worry, they never get too bad and only pop up for a second or two. Edge enhancement isn't noticeable, and the image detail is pretty good.

8 out of 10

The Audio

Unlike the first two Jurassic Park DVDs (that had some problems with the DTS versions), JP3's DTS track is exactly what you'd expect to hear from a Jurassic Park soundtrack.

Flying the unfriendly skies.

Full of excellent low-end, the DTS track impresses. It features clearer separation than the Dolby Digital track and is the best way to listen to Jurassic Park. The DD mix is fine for what it is, but if you have the equipment skip that for the excellent DTS sound on this DVD.

9 out of 10

The Extras

Something the first two DVDs were sorely missing was a commentary track. Here you get a very interesting (if you are a SFX fan, that is) track featuring Stan Winston, Michael Lanteri, John Rosengrant, and Dan Taylor. For effects buffs, Stan Winston is a god and his insightes on the JP series and this film are great to hear and the others chime in from time to time on the track.

When you get done with the commentary, there are plenty of extras for you to spend quite a bit of time with.

The first one is "The Making of Jurassic Park III". This featurette runs nearly a half an hour and covers all aspects of the film, including a little bit of information about Johnston wanting to direct The Lost World. The special isn't as overly promotional as you may fear and leads into the other extras on the disc well.

"The New Dinosuars of Jurassic Park III" is a short extra that just covers what dinos were added to this sequel as well as what modifications or changes that were made to the returning dinosaurs.

The

"Tour Stan Winston Studio" is a quick montage of footage that shows the artisans at work on creating the anamatronic Dinosaurs for the movie.

"A Visit to ILM" takes you into another menu where you can choose from four different subjects: "Concepts", "The Process", "Muscle Simulation", and "Compositing". Each one of those will once again take you into another menu with a couple very short videos on each subject. Having these broken up is nice as an option, but I would have liked to be able to view them all in sequence in one long featurette.

"Dinosaur Turntables" simply suck. These are very short videos where an untextured dino CG model will spin and eventually appear textured. Quite boring.

"Behind-the-Scenes" takes you to a submenu where you can watch behind the scenes footage of three scenes: "Spinosaurus Attacks the Plane", "Raptors Attack Udesky", and "The Lake".

"Storyboard to Final Feature Comparison" is a split screen comparison between the early storyboards and the final scenes for three different sequences.

"Jurassic Park III Archives" holds the still galleries, and then you get the trailers for all three JP films, a featurette on digging up dinosaurs in Montana, and the usual cast and filmmaker trimmings.

An excellent collection of supplements.

10 out of 10

Overall Score: 8 out of 10