Uncle Don’s Views of Nil Repute

They’re evil, bad tempered, hunt in packs, care little for others and

continually attempt to exercise an intellect that really is beyond their

limited capacities. Though they should have been extinct some time ago,

they’re back from the dead, starring in yet another installment.

What are they? Editors? Liberals? Democrats? Nope, a more advanced

form of life. Not E. coli, but the dinosaurs of “Jurassic Park III.” They

walk, they talk, they slobber, they fly, they crawl and really do a bad

job of acting.

Unlike previous editions of “Jurassic Park,” these dinosaurs waste no

time in showing up. It’s the opening sketch and a couple of meatballs are

para-sailing near the accursed island of Isla Deadmeata. A grizzled sea

captain with a Don Johnson “Miami Vice” shave and some vague accent is

towing these clowns around the island when a fog appears, the music

crescendos, the ship’s crew disappears and, faster than you can say “want

fries with that,” we’ve got ourselves a ridiculously contrived beginning

to the third rendition of the reptiles’ repast.

We then are taken to some dinosaur dig where college students attempt

to excavate fossils with toothbrushes. Can you say, “jackhammer”? Up pops

that priest of the Pleistocene, our master of the Mesozoic, the captain

of the Cretaceous, Sam Neill. Back as the squinty eyed, terminally

constipated, Indiana Jones-attired sage of the sandstone; he’s broke,

tired, and willing to sell his soul to whatever devil writes enough

integers on a check to continue his research.

The devil of “Jurassic Park III” is William Macy, a tile and hardware

store owner (probably from Jersey), whose kid was one of those lost

para-sailing around the island. Macy, a real goofy looking tomato in the

most improbable part of the script, is married to the tasty Tea Leoni.

This broad can howl. Put her in the Memorex commercial and see if the

tape can take it.

Macy cons Neill into returning to one of them islands, where the

dinosaurs roam and the T-rexes and the raptors prey, where seldom is

heard an intelligent word and the skies are filled with pterodactyls all

day.

They land on an airfield more littered than a teenager’s room and are

immediately chased by dinosaurs, especially the newest one. Larger and

tougher than a tyrannosaurus, he’s got the face of a platypus and fins

that a ’59 Coupe de Ville would die for. This bighonkinosaurus manages to

force down the plane in which our yahoos are attempting to escape, and

causes a crash scene that lasts longer than the car chase in “Bullitt.”

Without a single drop of gas spilling or catching fire, this twin engine

rolls like a fleet of Ford Explorers, whereupon it’s stomped by the

bighonkinosaurus.

Everyone escapes, but like the old “Star Trek” episodes, one eyeballs

the survivors and then assumes that survivability of any particular actor

is directly related to his star power. You know Macy, Leoni and Neill

ain’t going down, but there’s some chump change due to bite the dust in

short order.

The problem with the dinos is that they’ve evidently gotten smart.

According to Neill, these bad boys had something called a resonating

chamber. A resonating chamber is a large empty area in the skull.

Dinosaurs had very large empty chambers.

From this, you and I would probably assume this was indicative of

liberalism. Neill assumed this to be indicative of intelligence.

According to him, dinos were smarter than dolphins, whales or humans.

Well, if they’re so smart, and they even have opposing claws, and

they’ve been around for millions of years, how come they couldn’t come up

with napalm, machine guns or tactical nukes to defend their sorry scaly

butts when the soft and tasty Homo sapiens come calling on their turf?

Meanwhile, Leoni, Macy, et al, stroll around, finally rescuing the

lost son, take a quick Berlitz course in “raptor,” are chased by every

conceivable dino larger than a trilobite, attempt to turn the

bighonkinosaurus into a crispycritterosaurus and are eventually rescued

by some military force of indeterminate origin. As they fly off in a

helicopter convoy to the insipid theme of “Jurassic Park,”the only

thought coming to mind is “midair collision.”

* UNCLE DON reviews b-movies and cheesy musical acts for the Daily

Pilot. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected]