Aren't they dead yet?

>> Thrills, spills and flying dinos in Jurassic Park 3

by MATTHEW HAYS

There's really no such thing as extinction in Hollywood. So long as stuff makes money for someone somewhere, why let it die?

Such is the spirit behind this third entry in a movie franchise that--let's not mince words about this--should have been aborted in its first trimester. The fine Aussie actor Sam Neill anchors Jurassic Park 3, returning as the scientist from the first movie. Here, he's essentially kidnapped by a couple (William H. Macy and Téa Leoni) desperate to find their son, who was lost on the island after a parachuting mishap.

Predictably, things go terribly wrong. Also predictably, the armed troop who accompanies Macy and co. have terribly underestimated what the dinosaurs on the island can do. Though Spielberg isn't directing, there is also the obligatory family-values crappola.

What isn't so predictable was my reaction to the movie. Having not liked the first two much at all (the original seemed so sad, in light of Spielberg's Jaws, surely one of the greatest monster movies ever made), this one actually provided some slightly better than mediocre entertainment. There are some rather silly twists (Neill discovers that a certain breed of dinos are in fact highly intelligent), but there is one brilliant addition to the cast of critters. Joe Johnston (a director with lots of computer-generated experience, having previously helmed Jumanji) brings pterodactyls on board. This provides the film's best sequences, in which humans are gathered up by the mama bird and placed in a nest, where they are then picked at by hungry young'uns. This is the movie's best scare tactic, by a long shot.

This film does purport to have something to say, believe it or not. Neill makes a number of references to the mammon types from the first film, who, despite warnings and better judgment, brought the dinos back to life for profit's sake. Which really stinks of hypocrisy, considering Hollywood profiteers have unleashed all sorts of crap for the sake of a cash grab.

A mindset that will undoubtedly spawn a Jurassic Park 4. Next time I'll opt for the Julia Roberts vehicle premiere instead. In the meantime, I vote that they send all those dinosaurs off to the nearest SPCA.

Jurassic Park 3 is now playing