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Writer's pictureStephen Miller

The Lost World: Jurassic Park Review



The Japanese tourists seen running away from the T-Rex in the San Diego scene shout in Japanese: "I left Japan to get away from this!" This was a small spoof on the Godzilla franchise.


The ship that transfers the T-Rex is the S.S. Venture. The S.S. Venture is a homage to another S.S. Venture that carried King Kong to New York City in the 1933 version.


The man eaten by the T-Rex next to the video store was the movie's screen writer, David Koepp. He was credited as "The Unlucky Bastard."


This would be Richard Attenborough's last appearance in a Jurassic Park film.


Review:


Four years after the fall of Jurassic Park on Isla Nublar, Ian Malcolm must face his fears as he travels to Isla Sorna/Site B to rescue Sarah Harding and prevent InGen from bringing the dinosaurs back to San Diego.


With the success of Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg went straight into directing the sequel. Michael Crichton's book, The Lost World, was just published and was written for Spielberg to adapt the movie sequel from. When I saw it in theaters I was happy that I got to see another dinosaur movie. Watching it now, The Lost World: Jurassic Park just did not have that same spark as it once did when it was first released.


The cast of The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Left - Right: Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Jeff Goldblum, Vanessa Chester, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, Peter Storemare

Starting with the positives, there are plenty of action scenes and dinosaurs causing havoc. A lot more action than Jurassic Park. Jeff Goldblum reprises his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm, but this time he isn't as sarcastic as he was in the first one. He is more serious this time after his experience in the first movie. Malcolm was discredited by John Hammond's nephew, Peter Ludlow, for breaking the contract in keeping what he saw a secret. Hammond learned of Malcolm's dilemma and offers Malcolm to go to Isla Sorna to make a record of the dinosaurs to discredit Ludlow and his former company, Ingen. Malcolm refuses the offer based on his experience in the first movie, but when he learned that Hammond had sent his girlfriend to another island full of dinosaurs he sets out to look for her. It really shows how much change the character goes through from Jurassic Park to The Lost World in his personality and his actions. Another character that I liked was Roland Tembo, which was played by Pete Postlethwaite. Roland is a poacher that was hired by Peter Ludlow to hunt and capture the dinosaurs on Isla Sorna. The only fee that Roland wanted was a T-Rex to claim as a trophy. This guy does not fool around when it comes to hunting. Despite Ludlow being the one that organized the expedition, Roland is the true leader and he even made it clear to Ludlow when they first arrived on the island after overhearing Ludlow's poorly made decision over an area to set up their base camp. The scene of the T-Rex rampaging through San Diego was the biggest highlight of the whole movie. When the movie finally gets to the scene with the T-Rex rampaging through San Diego my thought goes back to GODZILLA. There were even a couple of Japanese tourists that were shown running away. They were shouting in Japanese, "I left Japan to get away from this!" I thought that was a cool nod towards. This There were a couple scenes that were adapted from the first book. Such as the very beginning of the movie, there was a family on the beach and the girl was attacked by the tiny dinosaurs called, Compsognathus or Compies for short. This scene was also in the beginning of the first book, but instead of a group of Compies it was only one and it had a sort of venomous, foamy saliva that infected the girl. Through out the series, I do find that many scenes from the first book do get adapted in other movies.


Rexie takes on San Diego

I hate to be a negative nancy, but I find the movie was only barely watchable. To start off, I did not like the pacing of the movie very much. I find that it does not take time to develop the characters to at least connect with them. Also, there is this sub-plot between Sarah Harding's and Ian Malcolm's relationship that seem to not be going anywhere for them and were hinting at breaking up. That whole sub-plot does not even go anywhere either since it was only mentioned once the whole movie. Moving on, there were a lot of times where the scenes just did not look good at all. At times, the scenes would be too bright or too dark to see or too quiet to hear what they're saying or the music was too loud. Also, would complaining about too many scenes with dinosaurs be considered a complaint? I really need to know because this movie really has no chill for most of the movie. In almost every shot there is a dinosaur in the scene. I know that they are on an island full of dinosaurs and that the characters are being hunted left and right and while some scenes are okay other scenes just looked forced in. Not even Jurassic Park had so many scenes with dinosaurs in them because it was so focused on the story. Sadly, The Lost World: Jurassic Park is less story-driven and is more fan-service driven just by showing more dinosaurs. I will be honest, I am being a hypocrite since I love giant monster movies and I can watch monsters fight each other all day long. Here is the reason why though. With other monster films, I basically know what to expect. Giant monsters destroys cities and fight each other to the death. That is the basic cookie cutter formula. You can't do much with a monster film. For the Jurassic Park series, however, there is so much that the series can do with the story that can go beyond the first movie. The Lost World: Jurassic Park tries to do something new, but it just falls short.


Final Thoughts:


While it is not as great as the first, The Lost World: Jurassic Park has some good action scenes. Sadly, the story and the quality of the effects and the shots did not age very well. I only liked a couple characters, but the rest of the cast were hardly memorable. I still say give it a watch for the nostalgia, but don't expect much out of it.

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