Jurassic Park III

Why is it so hard for Hollywood to make a decent No. 3 film in a series? Joe Johnston (Jumanji) takes over the dino series from Steven Spielberg and screws it up. His dinosaur film lacks scares and a sense of dread, replacing Spielberg’s virtuoso approach with the equivalent of a marginal thrill ride at an amusement park. The dinosaurs don’t look as good as the first two films, and the T-Rex is killed off in favor of a less interesting, just bigger dinosaur. It’s nice to have Sam Neill back, reprising his role from the first film, and it’s always good to have William H. Macy in your cast. Unfortunately—except for a decent birdcage scene involving flying lizards—this movie offers nothing that is better than anything in the first two installments.