THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK
A film review by Christopher Null
Copyright 1997 Christopher Null
Well, it ain't SCHINDLER'S LIST.
With his highly anticipated JURASSIC PARK sequel, Steven Spielberg grubs through the filmmaking archives for every plot device, camera trick, and cliched scene you can think of, and rolls it into one big mess. Only with dinosaurs. Lots of 'em!
With the low-angle, out-of-focus, washed-out photography, it looks like Spielberg slapped this thing together on his weekends away from DreamWorks. The result is a film that's mostly painful to watch save for a few big action sequences (admittedly impressive) and a finale that other critics are certain to ruin for you.
THE LOST WORLD (plot: more dinosaurs) follows the "Action! -- s-l-o-w exposition -- Action! -- s-l-o-w exposition" sequence of events, an exercise which really bogs down the beginning of the film, and combined with just plain goofy plot development (hunters on motorcycles? patching a baby T. Rex's broken leg?) robs the movie of any real terror. Not even Julianne Moore -- probably best known for being my favorite actress -- can help much. So to compensate, Spielberg calls for many, many automobiles to be toppled over.
Throw in your sequel-begging ending (don't do it!) and you've got the makings of a franchise headed the way of Spielberg's first big monster movie -- Jaws. JURASSIC PARK 3-D, anyone? I didn't think so.
RATING: ***
|------------------------------|
\ ***** Perfection \
\ **** Good, memorable film \
\ *** Average, hits and misses \
\ ** Sub-par on many levels \
\ * Unquestionably awful \
|------------------------------|
-Christopher Null / null@poboxes.com / Writer-Producer -Visit the Movie Emporium at http://www.filmcritic.com -and Null Set Productions at http://www.filmcritic.com/nullset.htm
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