A very cool movie that just happens to be poorly written drivel

Rating: Null/10 (20 July 2001)

Okay, it need not be said that the Jurrasic Park movies rest firmly on the shoulders of the dinosaurs. The human characters are the merest of ciphers, which was fine in the original when the technology was relatively new. By now however, Hollywood-in it's infinite wisdom*cough*stupidity*- has beat this old horse to death. And then gave it a few extra licks. Flashy CGI effects are cool, I concede to that much, but unsupported by a solid storyline and interesting characters they simply fall flat on their face. This is the main problem with Spielberg's follow up to box-office champ Jurrasic Park. In a word, the screenplay sucks. Suck major a***. It's little more than a series of attack scenes strung together by the flimiest of narrative threads. Not only this but plot holes too many to count abound, diminishing what little credibility the premise had to begin with leaving the audience with not much else to do but wonder "how do they do that?" for the majority of the running time. Don't get me wrong, I knew full well walking in that this was a leave-your-brain-at home type picture, but really guys, a little more competence on the film makers part would have been appreciated(you can, for example, see the kid in the "t-rex attacks suburbia scene" look off screen for direction a second before he pulls back the sheets on his parents bed. The scene, in addition to not being necessary, also makes no sense. According to Dr. Harding aka Dr. Dipsh*t, the T-Rex was in need of a water source to quench his mammoth thirst. Well he needn't have left the dock for that, which-duh!-was completely surrounded by water. Salt water maybe, but that's hardly less tasty than chlorinated water, as appears to be the Tryant Lizard's preference in the movie). As all summer blockbusters tend to do, this flick does have it's ups, along with the downs. The Godzilla-esque finale is cheesy fun, and the finale is totally spielbergian in a good way. Some funny lines abound(all of which are obvious, but nevermind). That however is it.
Oh and the music sucks. The original JP theme was dignified yet stirring. The new anthem is a dumb elephant march.BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-LA-LA-BOOM-BOOM...you get the idea.