THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK
A film review by David Landers
Copyright 1997 David Landers
RATING: ** out of **** - 5.5 out of 10.0 CAST: Jeff Goldblum (Dr. Ian Malcolm), Julianne Moore (Dr. Sarah Harding), Vince Vaughn (Nick Van Owen), Arliss Howard (Peter Ludlow), Vanessa Lee Chester (Kelly Malcolm), Richard Attenborough (John Hammond) DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg CERTIFICATION: PG-13 (USA) for excessive violence with little blood YEAR OF PRODUCTION: 1997
THE LOST WORLD is probably one of the most disappointing sequels in recent years. Based on the novel "The Lost World" by Michael Crichton, THE LOST WORLD is the, unfortunately, much anticipated sequel to the box office smash-hit, JURASSIC PARK. In a word, this movie is bad and is lacking many things, but most especially, a good script and a good cast. If you enjoyed JURASSIC PARK, you will not enjoy its sequel.
The story revolves around Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), one of the survivors of the incident on the first Jurassic Park island, Isla Nubular. He is approached by John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to visit the test island for Jurassic Park, a similar island 80 miles away from Isla Nubular. In the words of the trailer, "something has survived", and Ian, along with a few others, must visit the island to document what is still there. At first, of course, he is not interested. But when he learns that his girlfriend, Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already there, he must rescue her from the certain doom she is facing.
The problem with this, for me, is rather simple. Why would anyone go back to an island that is going to contain the same creatures that nearly had you for dinner four years earlier? Unfortunately, this movie is full of questionable situations like this one, and some of the later instances are even more unbelievable.
Still another unbelievable situation in this movie is the main plot. After what happened to the first park on his first island, John Hammond insists on creating another one, this time in San Diego. From his standpoint, it would seem unthinkable to create the possibility of another disaster. Yet, he seems to care nothing for what happened earlier. It also is quite unbelievable that the United States government would have no problem with such a situation, either.
Continuing on, many more situations like this are presented to the audience in a fashion that seems to be perfectly legitimate. Aside from the unreal and very unadmirable characters, the dinosaurs themselves, the main attraction for this movie, are hardly diverse and unique from the original film. This film concentrates again on the T-Rex especially, with second concentration on the Velociraptor. A small attempt is made to feature some other dinosaurs, but when it looks like they will be featured, the concentration shifts back to the two spotlight dinosaurs. The main reason for this is probably the intended audience: children. Although this film is not supposed to be intended for this audience, it is silently being advertised entirely towards them. The kids don't care for the plot and dialogue. All they care about and want to see is the "big" dinosaurs eating people, which this movie unfortunately capitalizes on in a large way.
In a nutshell, THE LOST WORLD is a large disappointment. If you come expecting a nicely formulated plot with admirable characters, you will be disappointed. If you come looking for lots of suspenseful situations, you will not be as disappointed but you will not be extremely satisfied. Arguably, the only audience that will really enjoy this movie are children around the ages of 7 to 13. THE LOST WORLD is pretty much a lost cause.
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