"Come on, let me in. I just want to talk, honest. "

In Jurassic Park III, paleontologist Alan Grant (Sam Neill) says, “They were smart. They were smarter than dolphins or whales. They were smarter than primates.”

Just so you know, he wasn’t talking about the screenwriters.

Except I know that at least two of the screenwriters, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor (Peter Buchman is also credited) are smart. They wrote Election and Citizen Ruth, two of the smartest, funniest movies of the last few years. So why is the dialogue in Jurassic Park III so uninspired, the characters so flat? Why is nearly every threatening situation the characters face gotten out of by simply running away from it? Why do they bring back Neill as everybody’s favorite dinosaur expert and not have him teach us anything new about dinosaurs? Why, oh why, is the ending so anticlimactic? Why does a subplot involving the talented actors William H. Macy and Tea Leoni play out like The Parent Trap with dinosaurs? Why is everything so damn easy for these characters? They’re facing some of the fiercest predators the world has ever known but they barely break a sweat.

Who will win the spinosaurus/Téa Leoni footrace?

The story this time lures Dr. Grant back to dinosaur central with, what else, the promise of funding for his research (wasn’t that how they got him there the first time? What this man goes through for science!) if he plays tour guide for a rich couple from the safety of an airplane. Except that’s not really what they have in mind. Their son is stranded on the island and they want Grant’s help in getting him back.

What follows are: scenes where people that we haven’t had a chance to get to know yet are eaten by dinosaurs so quickly that we don’t have time to worry about it (Note to aspiring screenwriters: this is not how suspense is supposed to work.); scenes where clunky, irrelevant dialogue fills in for character development; scenes where characters are facing life threatening situations that never really manage to feel all that dangerous; and an ending that left me saying, “Uh, is that it?”

"Oh look, there's a prize inside!"

This movie desperately misses Steven Spielberg in the director’s chair. (Of course, if you’ve read my review of AI, you know I’m biased.) Director Joe Johnston has made some good movies (October Sky, Jumanji) but he just never manages to create the tension that’s needed here.

All of the above makes the whole thing sound worse than it is. There are good moments, flashes of humor and suspense. The opening scene sets the story up well, and some of the action scenes manage to recreate those old Jurassic Park thrills. The sequences involving the pteranadons, for example, are truly scary. They have wings, they're hungry and creepy and more menacing than all the rest of the dinosaurs put together.

Gorilla Pants rating: 1.5 out of 4 bananas