"Jurassic Park III" (2001) Saturday Monster Movies

Jurassic Park III is the smallest of the original trilogy, but its message hits just as hard. This time, the dinosaurs are not the result of a corporate project or a scientific expedition. They are the backdrop to something far more human: the foolishness of money, pride, and manipulation. A wealthy couple tricks Dr. Alan Grant into flying to Isla Sorna under false pretenses. They say it’s a sightseeing trip, but really they are searching for their lost son. The story, and even the money, is a lie. Grant, weary and cynical, gets pulled back into a world he never wanted to revisit, all because people with money thought their desires mattered more than the truth.

From the very beginning, the film makes clear that wealth cannot protect you. Privilege does not guarantee wisdom. The people who cause the most damage in this film are not villains in the traditional sense. They are just selfish. They use money and charm to get what they want. They believe, like many in our world, that consequences are for other people. But on Isla Sorna, there are no special passes. The dinosaurs do not care about status. The island levels everyone. Fear, danger, and survival make no distinction between the powerful and the poor.

What stands out in Jurassic Park III is the way the characters are forced to grow through their failures. The parents, flawed and frantic, learn that love costs more than money. Grant, gruff and brilliant, discovers that he still cares, that he cannot ignore people just because he is tired of their foolishness. In the end, it is not the most equipped who survive, but the most willing to learn, to change, and to let go of their illusions of control. That is the real theological undercurrent: truth matters more than privilege, and redemption begins when lies are exposed and people stop pretending they are in charge.

The Bible speaks often of the rich and powerful being brought low, and of how God values truth in the inward parts. Jurassic Park III reminds us that even in a silly monster movie, the real threat is not the beast. It is the belief that we can bend the world to our will and not be broken by it.