THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
The Lost World:Jurassic Park (1997) **** out of ***** - Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Arliss Howard, Richard Attenborough. Written by: David Koepp. Directed by: Steven Spielberg. Running Time: 130 minutes.
"The Lost World" perfectly embodies the qualities of a "summer movie". It's immensely entertaining, yet it's hardly intelligent in a creative sense. It is one great ride of a movie though.
"The Lost World" (and really guys, either call it "The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2" or lose the subtitle altogether) is the sequel to the biggest movie of all time, "Jurassic Park". Taking place four years after the events of the first film, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) finds himself to be an outcast both publically and professionally for trying to expose the events which occurred four years earlier. One day he is called to the home of John Hammond (Richard Attenborough, briefly reprising his role from the first film) who informs him that Jurassic Park was not the only place where the dinosaurs existed. The dinosaurs were created and allowed to thrive on a seperate island before being shipped to the park. Now he wants to send a team of researchers and photographers to the lost world (get it?) in order to document the life which lives there. And he wants Malcolm to go along as well.
Malcolm of course wants no part of it, until he learns that his current girlfriend (Moore) is one of the scientists on the expedition. He reluctantly agrees to go, but only to convince the team to return with him as soon as possible. Once arriving on the island, they are soon joined by "the bad guys", a group from Hammond's company who still believe that the Jurassic Park concept is a good one. Of course, the two groups clash.
"The Lost World" is a hit and miss effort. It had much more potential than it capitalized on, but luckily when it does hit, it hits big. It takes forever to get the film going, and the biggest flaw against the film is the introduction of Ian Malcolm's daughter, who sneaks her way onto the island. "The Lost World" could have succeeded where "Jurassic Park" almost went astray by leaving out the kids. Her character being in the film produces a scene late in the film which, for lack of a better phrase, is nothing short of being retarded. When you see it you'll know exactly which scene I mean. Also, I didn't buy that there was a relationship between Goldblum and Moore's characters. I don't believe they ever touched each other romantically. Knowing how Spielberg really likes to develop his characters makes that even more puzzling.
Now once the film gets going, it REALLY goes. About an hour into the film is when it starts. At that point there's a 20 minute sequence where the T. Rex makes it's first appearance, which is just about one of the greatest action/suspense sequences ever put to film. Those 20 minutes alone rank right up there with the best work Speilberg has ever done.
After the sequence was over, I felt that it was so good that I seriously doubted that whatever could be dreamt up for the finale could be better. And for the most part, I was wrong about that. Now I'm not going to reveal what happens in the film's final scenes, even though I'm sure a week or so after the film's release there will be clips of it in every commercial for the film. But going into the theater, I had absolutely no idea that it was going to go in the direction it did. It's not as well-crafted as the sequence I mentioned earlier, but just in it's concept it's brilliant "summer movie" hijinks.
So how does this one compare to the original? In actuality, I enjoyed them each about the same. While "The Lost World" does have its moments which I enjoyed much more than any scene in the original, "Jurassic Park" was paced better. "Jurassic Park" seemed to flow along, evenly paced, while "The Lost World" takes a while to flow, then crashes, then starts again, etc. Also, "The Lost World" doesn't seem like a big commercial for itself. We don't have to see the Jurassic Park logo every ten seconds as we did in the original. We hardly see it at all.
"The Lost World" is just a great time at the movies. It sometimes slips too far into silliness, but makes up for it with fantastic special effects, a good score by John Williams, an entertaining performance from Goldblum, a couple of moments which will genuinely make you jump, and two outstanding sequences of action and suspense. Suspend all your critical thinking and just enjoy the perfect example of a no-brainer summer movie. The master storyteller Spielberg has done it again. [PG-13]
-- Chuck Dowling Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, film related links, and reader's reviews.
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