THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK
A film review by Terri Buchman
Copyright 1997 Terri Buchman
Geez, ya ever go to the movies with your kids and you just know that you ain't seeing the same flick they are? That was the case with THE LOST WORLD. I saw a fairly slow and poorly written film that had few thrills and uneven pacing. I thought it was a C+, at best. My kids saw a great movie with huge dinosaurs and great special effects and enough spills and chills to give them nightmares for a couple of days. They gave it an A and are telling all their friends about it. So, with respect to both viewpoints, a split review.
Parents: Geez Louise why do I always get stuck next to the guy who has to explain every damn scene to his apparently brain-dead girlfriend? How the hell hard can it be? Scientist escaped from Dinosaur Island the last time and doesn't want to go back and play 'hide the salami' with the T-Rexes any more. Wise old former Capitalist waives money, scientific curiosity and the threat of having the guy's girlfriend eaten by giant dinos and -- poof-- scientist goes back to the island. Nasty bad old capitalist idiots decide to also go to the island and "meddle where man was not meant to go." (This is bad. They are going to get eaten. We know this 'cuz we saw the last movie and nasty people like lawyers and greedy capitalists and gun-totting morons with slack-jaws always become lunch. Law of the jungle baby. I mean geez, what are they going to do, let the dinos eat the kids or the heroes? No way. That doesn't leave anyone for the next sequel.) Everybody screws around with scientific stuff that isn't very sturdy, wind up pissing off the dinosaurs and then just barely escape with their lives. Extremely stupid capitalists decide to bring dinos back to 'civilization' (well, California, but it counts in the movie.) Nobody in this movie ever saw KING KONG and doesn't know what any pre-schoolers knows; never bring giant killer animals into the city. The animals don't like the city, they can't get good take-out in the suburbs and they get pissed off and start stomping on cars. Everything turns out allright though because the dinos get back to nature, the bad and greedy capitalists are wiped out by liability suits and the scientists get to go home and watch TV. That's about it.
Ah, I've seen better. The movie is really, really slow. I liked the beginning, wherein a little kid is almost eaten by tiny dinosaurs. Hey, I'm a parent and there are times when you take your children to the movies with the expectation that something in the damn movie will scare them. If dinos only eat adults then how the hell are the kids supposed to get scared. "Hey, sit up and be good or I'll send you to Jurassic Park where you'll get eaten by giant T-Rexes with bad breath and humungo teeth." "Yeah right Ma, dinos only eat grown-ups. You're the only one who'd be in trouble." At least now we know that tiny dinosaurs do have a taste for small children. It's a start.
I was bored with the first hour of LOST WORLD. It was slow, filled with dull people with dull jobs and unintelligible dialogue. I liked Jeff Goldblum, but mostly because he's Jeff Goldblum and he has an interesting and unique way of delivering a line. (He has a sort of hushed and breathless delivery filled with accents on off words that I find slightly disorienting and enjoyable.) The woman who played his girlfriend wasn't interesting enough to remember though she did scream well. The hunky guy who was a photographer for at least part of the movie before he metaphorphisized into a Rambo clone was nice to look at. (What was that all about? Was he really a photographer or just one of your standard movie-issue hunky Rambo guys who only pretend to be a photographer? I have no idea.)
The guy who was in FARGO was good, although he was actually playing the same character. (Though he had more dialogue in this movie than in FARGO.) There was also an English guy playing a hunter in the picture who was evil because he wanted to hunt down a male T-Rex. (I am not sure why this guy was evil. The T-Rex wanted to hunt the English guy down and eat him, but the T-Rex wasn't considered evil, he was just doing his job as a devoted husband and father. But the hunter guy was evil. Really really evil. I mean, they even cast an English guy as the hunter, that's how evil he was.) And there was the cute kid who played Jeff Goldblum's daughter. She was, ahm, cute and read her lines well and screamed well. Unfortunately she also had to act in a scene that called for her to do a really ludicrous bit of gymnastic daring-do that was a truly dumb moment of film-making. Poor kid.
The best part of the picture was when a T-Rex got loose in San Diego. I felt bad for the dino because I've been in San Diego and it's really hard to get around that city as a tourist. The dino was angry and tired and scared that his kid was hanging out with a bad element. When he wound up in the suburbs, stuck without a map and unable to see the street signs because of the poor lighting and all, well, my heart bled for him. Fortunately the T-Rex was able to rescue his kid and beat a path back home before his old lady found out and kicked him out of the nest. Phewh! I'm really glad he made it.
Kids: Wow! What a great movie! The dinosaurs were like ten, no twenty, no fifty feet tall. They were so cool. And they, like, ate people and like dripped blood all over everything and it was so coo-ooo-l. I loved that movie. And, like, they only ate grown-ups which was really good because the kids didn't really want to hurt them but some of the adults did so that was good.
The guy who was in ID4 was in this only he was like he was when he was in the first JURASSIC PARK and not like he was when he was like saving the world and stuff. (He was cool when he was saving the world and got to fly in a spaceship and hang out with Will Smith and stuff only he wasn't doing that in this movie cuz he was different.) This movie was just like JURASSIC PARK only it was different. In JURASSIC PARK the dinosaurs were pretty good but in this movie they are even better. And they, like, drip blood when they eat people, you know. I don't think they dripped blood before, but my friend has the tape so I could check and find out. The T-Rex didn't eat anybody like a lawyer in this movie, but he was still like, eating people and stuff, so it was the same thing, only different.
Anyway, see this movie. It was GREAT! It was really scary and funny and good and it had giant dinosaurs kicking cars around and stuff and I really liked it. My Mom didn't like it, but she's old and so it wasn't really even a movie for her, so what difference does she make anyway. See it!
Terrib
Sigh! Maybe I am getting old.
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