BACK COVER SYNOPSIS: Adventure runs wild when renowned palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill) agrees to accompany a wealthy adventurer (William H Macy) and his wife (Tea Leoni) on an aerial tour of Isla Sorna, InGen's former breeding ground for prehistoric creatures. But when they're terrifyingly stranded, Dr Grant discovers that his hosts are not what they seem, and the island's native inhabitants are smarter, faster and fiercer than he ever imagined in this heart-stomping thriller.

FILM REVIEW: I wasn’t quite sure how much meat was on the bone of this franchise but this second sequel to “Jurassic Park” is actually quite refreshing. Rather than trying to be an A-level film trying to impart themes and story without doing much of either, “Jurassic Park III” doesn’t attempt to be anything other than a B-grade monster movie which delivers only on its monster sequences. The setup is extremely efficient and were in to the dino action within the first fifteen minutes. Director Steven Spielberg takes a back-seat this time, handing over the reins to special effects director Joe Johnston who does an amicable job of cutting the fat and delivering only on the dino action. By doing this, a sense of fun is finally instilled in to the franchise that was missing from the two previous instalments. Sam Neill returns as Alan Grant and does a better job this time around, although the characters again are not particularly well drawn out, as with the previous films. Part 3 is actually quite a reasonable monster movie, and one could argue a refreshing change especially in light of its more bloated predecessor, “The Lost World”.

I have to give kudos to the scriptwriters here; they successfully managed to create yet another excuse to return to Site B, this time in getting Alan Grant (Sam Neill) tricked in to taking an apparently wealth couple, the Kirbys (played by William H Macy and Tea Leoni) on a tour of the island from the air. En route, Grant discovers the Kirbys are actually looking for their son who went missing on the island eight weeks before, and that they’re not rich. After a devastating dinosaur attack which sees their plane trashed, Grant and co. are forced to find a way off the island, but as he pessimistically predicts, “none of us are likely to get off this island alive!”.

This entire scenario is more believable than “The Lost World” and provides more drama by actually turning the whole thing in to a rescue mission. But don’t be fooled; once they’re trapped on the island, we get sequence after sequence of dino action, just as promised, with character and any other sort of story development taking a back seat. This time the sequences are far more interesting; there’s a King Kong-esque sequence where a T-Rex and the new Spinosaurus battle each other in a gladiator-style fashion, there’s harrowing sequences with the raptors and finally we get an aviary sequence where we get to see flying dinosaurs in action.

Where the filmmakers deserve special credit is in making a film that doesn’t get bogged down by anything; this is a film about the dinosaurs and that’s all we really get and in this respect it works quite well, especially with its sub-90 minute run time, a full thirty minutes shorter than both of its predecessors in the series.

“Jurassic Park III” is an entertaining B-movie monster film and in many ways improves on its predecessor, if not totally capturing the more special and unique qualities inherent from the first film.

TECHNICAL REVIEW: Unlike the previous two Jurassic Park films, we get a close-as-you-can-get to perfect transfer of both video and audio for this film. The picture is crisp, clear and devoid of artefacts, and the soundtrack is pitch perfect, making full use of the surround sound environment. The smaller running time for the feature probably allowed more room to perfect the transfer and it really shows. An excellent transfer.

EXTRAS REVIEW: The Jurassic Park DVDs have been very good at giving a lot of extras despite only being single disc editions and this DVD is no exception, providing a wealth of extras which cover the making of the film. Most of the featurettes are based on the technical aspects of bringing dinosaurs to the screen, and that's not much of a surprise given that this is really what this franchise is all about. In addition to a behind the scenes documentary, featurettes on ILM, Stan Winston, going to Montana to find new dinosaurs, storyboards, trailers and web links, for the first time on a Jurassic Park DVD we get an audio commentary... but it's with the special effects team. They give a scene-specific, if somewhat dry account of what you're seeing on screen but it is insightful nonetheless. A solid collection of extras.

BOTTOM LINE: Rent it.