Buy it... if you're a casual fan of the franchise for whom the smaller technical details of the adaptation of old ideas with new ones aren't a scientific affair.

Avoid it... if you could be bothered by some of the liberties in tempo and structural rearrangement that Don Davis applies to John Williams' famous original ideas for the franchise.

Jurassic Park III: (Don Davis) Universal Pictures hit a new low in franchise milking with Jurassic Park III, a concept that had, by its first two scripts, already come to an end in terms of viability. The entire previous crew stepped aside, despite Steven Spielberg's continuing role as executive producer, and the haphazard script, which did not involve any new input from author Michael Chrichton, was reportedly not even finished by the time shooting began. The concept had devolved into the most basic of its monster flick roots, leaving only two-dimensional formula interactions between humans and dinosaurs as enticement for audiences. Two characters from the original film return to mount a rescue mission to one of the islands of the concept's past, with predictable results. Everything about Jurassic Park III was disappointing, from the poorly chosen cast to the pointless storyline that has no sense of style or purpose. Even the special effects of the dinosaurs themselves had become substandard. It's no surprise, therefore, that composer John Williams graciously removed himself from the franchise at this juncture to work on A.I. Artificial Intelligence instead. Eight years after the maestro's dynamic and memorably thematic score for the original Jurassic Park stunned audiences with its sweeping majesty, even this musical identity was beginning to show its age. Unfortunately, the film presented an opportunity for Universal to do what had occurred with the later Superman sequels: simply rehashing the original themes with inadequate new material thrown in for just a pinch of originality. That same process was followed for the music for Jurassic Park III. Despite an abundance of rumors that James Horner would take the job because of his previous association with the new director, Williams specifically recommended Don Davis for the job, and Davis received the assignment. With the Superman sequel process well in mind, it was figured that subsequent Jurassic Park productions would not function without the themes of the original film, so Williams stepped in as a consultant for Davis, providing detailed notation on how to adapt his original themes into new situations.

For Davis, meanwhile, Jurassic Park III represented his second major break in three years, still riding the success of his postmodern score for The Matrix. Unlike that score, however, Davis turns to a more traditional and predictable orchestral mode of composition for Jurassic Park III. If Davis were to be sure of one thing, it would be that nobody could complain about the lack of thematic integration in this sequel score. He recognized early on that his music would be very heavily scrutinized by both film and score fans who, inevitably, would compare his work to that of the beloved maestro. When Williams visited the studio to consult with Davis about how to tackle certain scenes, the younger composer took a look at Williams' original manuscripts and realized that he was dealing with an incredibly complex task. The first two Jurassic Park scores had included some of the most complex orchestral integration of Williams' career, and even a mere interpretation of that material would constitute an enormous challenge. In the end, though, the most impressive aspect of Davis' work is exactly that careful interpolation of the two main Jurassic Park themes into Jurassic Park III, not to mention the statement of three or so subthemes of Williams' in addition to an entirely new, wholesome pair of themes to represent the new family of characters. The only theme left out in the cold, aside from one quick and clever allusion in the film version of "Raptor Repartee," is Williams' main identity for Jurassic Park: The Lost World, which is somewhat strange given the location connections between the sequel stories. In the late 1990's, fans of Davis had already compared his larger, tonally accessible orchestral style to that of Williams, and so loyal is Davis to Williams' general concepts in Jurassic Park III that even a measure of Williams' theme for The Towering Inferno makes a brief appearance near the start of "Tiny Pecking Pteranodons." The only problem with this equation, awkwardly, is that Davis spends so much time either emulating Williams outright in this score or inserting the previous themes into his own material that he neglects the opportunity to provide the work with a personality of its own, some of the best moments coming when pieces of The Matrix managed to work their way into the action.

In an age when sequels to blockbusters rarely include the classic themes of the original film (take the dissatisfaction over the Batman or Harry Potter series, for instance), it is a great blessing to hear Williams' work stated in a significant portion of Jurassic Park III. But still, like Ken Thorne's Superman sequel scores, there's a nagging feeling that there is no new life in this music with which to refresh the series, several of the performances repeated wholesale. Like the other elements of the production, it sounds tired despite expert execution. Davis' primary new family theme for Jurassic Park III is a two-parter, one half addressing the parents while the secondary portion representing their boy. The parent phrasing dabbles in "Kirby Paint and Tile Plus" and "Bone Man Ben" on troubled, worried strings, but it's the secondary, pleasant and optimistic string phrasing for the boy that evokes hints of Horner sensibilities (especially in the plucking bass accompaniment to the melodic line and its eventual solo horn rendition in the credits) from "Eric to the Rescue" onward as the character is involved. This material is extended in "Tree People" and really flourishes in "Nash Calling," where the latter half of the cue absolutely shines. This material mingles with Williams' fantasy theme in both "Brachiosaurus on the Bank" and "River Reminiscence," its tender woodwind and piano explorations offering a nice break from the otherwise rampaging action. Both the primary and secondary phrasing for the family theme occupy comfortable positions for full ensemble performances in "The Hat Returns/End Credits." It's certainly an adequate identity as a whole, though when surrounded by Williams' ideas, as it often is, it seems somewhat artificially forced into the equation. Davis also offers a secondary theme for the Spinosaurus dinosaur, which displaces the T-Rex as the main adversary after a horrifying battle between the two beasts midway through the film. It's a reharmonized, minor mode variant of the first four ascending notes of Williams' adventure theme, and it becomes increasingly dominant in the trio of "Cooper's Last Stand," "Frenzy Fuselage," and "Clash of Extinction" before alternating with the returning raptor material throughout the rest of the picture and threatening near the conclusion of "End Credits."

Both of the two primary themes from the original film receive significant, full treatment, even more than what was heard in Williams' own The Lost World. The rousing brass fanfare of the adventure theme most commonly associated with the franchise is heard extensively in "The Dinosaur Fly-By" and is integrated into a plethora of situations throughout the score, serving once again as a faint reminder of the glory of the original theme park concept. Davis especially adapts the first two pairs of notes of this idea into numerous action sequences, starting right away in "Isla Sorna Sailing Situation." An explosively exuberant, militaristic rendition at the height of "Raptor Harassment" and briefly in "The Hat Returns" takes this idea to silly parody by the end, though. The romantic secondary theme of fantasy for strings, mostly representing the friendlier dinosaurs and their human interactions, is less frequently heard, but compared to its short-changing in The Lost World, Davis gives it plenty of clear air time in "Dinosaur Man," "Raptor in the Cabin," "Brachiosaurus on the Bank," "River Reminiscence," and "The Hat Returns/End Credits." The fantasy theme is accompanied by a choir in a few of these performances as well, a welcome nod to the format of the original film's treatment of the idea. Williams' rising four-note theme of mystery at the very start, the churning raptor theme, and other snippets of Williams' chomping action music are littered throughout the score. The raptor theme in particular receives much more sensible treatment in this work as compared to The Lost World. Even more intellectually appreciable is Davis' revisiting of a variant of the rolling panic motif from Jurassic Park at 0:46 into "Raptor Eggs" and in the middle of "Raptor Repartee." He even resurrects Williams' militaristic motif of dtermination for the mercenaries in "Udesky, Nash and Cooper" and a few subsequent cues. Several individual moments from the Jurassic Park score are reprised wholesale for scenes of similar intent as well, ranging from the deep choral suspense of the breeding concept through the highest ensemble crescendos and solo horn interludes of dread and loss. One has to appreciate the care with which Davis handled all of these interpolations, because they are indeed everywhere, and sometimes buried as secondary lines in the action.