Jurassic Park III: Press views

Jurassic Park III receives a mixed reception from the press

Press reviews of Jurassic Park III

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The Guardian

This great dinosaur of a movie is shambling towards well-merited extinction. Not even the intelligent presence of William H Macy and, indeed Sam Neill - a veteran of JP1 - can prevent it winding up in the brontosaurus graveyard.

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The Observer

Along for the ride is some obvious dinosaur fodder, and as Johnston has dispensed almost entirely with lyrical wonder and concentrated on horror and violence, the result is a dark, almost morbid picture that is unsuitable for younger children and squeamish adults.

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The Times

Even without Spielberg, there's a sheen, a splinter of darkness, to the third Jurassic that sets it apart from most fantastical blockbusters. Yes it's formulaic, but some thought has gone into getting it right. The dinosaurs really do look like killers as they skulk in jungles, sidle out of soupy mists, and rear up screeching into the sky. Human beings are swiped like credit cards across windscreens. Rotting corpses dangle from trees.

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The Independent

Jurassic Park III may be hack work, but it's hack work carried out with precision and performed with a heart. Sam Neill's anchoring presence is always reassuring, and the smart character acting of Téa Leoni and William H Macy (the latter playing a mouse who finds his roar) is of an order you don't often find in genre work-outs. Truly, I never imagined that Parklife could be such fun.

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The Sunday Times

There's just not enough dramatic tension and visual excitement to get your heart pumping. Johnston claims his creatures are far more lifelike than Spielberg's because the technology of special effects has changed since then. But realism was never a problem with the creatures in the first two films - there's just nothing left to say or show.

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The Daily Telegraph

At its best, it whips itself up into a nice, scary lather, but it shrivels to nothing between the set pieces, in an excess of fog, token bits of talk, and an absence of genuine, elemental awe.

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London Evening Standard

Much as I was enjoyably shaken by the experience, I'd be failing in my duty if I didn't say I'd feel uneasy at letting very young children watch this film without their parents or guardians first seeing it for themselves.