The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Classic movie. We enjoyed watching it in our home theater!

This movie grew on me over time. When I saw the release in theater, it was good, but didn't carry the awe of the first. Yet, when I rewatch this, there are a few comical moment that make it worth the watch. Five stars because it's the necessary second in a series that began over two decades ago, and is releasing another this year. Looking forward to it.

great movie!

It's a classic

"The Lost World: Jurassic Park" is based on the novel by Michael Crichton, but that would only be part of the novel "The Lost World" because most of it ends up in "Jurassic Park III." In a lot of ways this film is actually closer to Arthur Conan Doyle's version of "The Lost World," where humans enter a prehistoric world, whilce Crichton's purpose was to look at the dark side of Walt Disney. But all this really means is that neither movie is the original "Jurassic Park," and given that standard any sequel is going to be disappointing.The story is that Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), the chaos mathematician and Cassandra of the first film, is back amongst the dinosaurs even though he does not want to be. But his girlfriend, Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already on Island B and so Ian is off to the rescue. The idea is that in addition to the island with Jurassic Park on it John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) had a second island, Isla Sorna, where dinosaurs were also being bred and allowed to run around with even more liberty (to wit, no electrical fences or any other barriers). So Ian joins Sarah, nature photographer Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), gadget expert Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), and to everyone's surprise, Ian's daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester).The group has enough problems when they make the mistake of rescuing a baby T-Rex with a broken leg, but then Hammond's nephew, Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) shows up with legendary big game hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlehwaite) and his merry men. Ludlow wants to round up some dinosaurs to take back to the San Diego Zoo while Tembo wants the chance of a lifetime to hunt and bag a T-Rex buck. Malcolm keeps warning everybody that death and screaming is the inevitable result of fooling around with Mother Nature when it comes to bio-genetically engineered dinosaurs, but if anybody listened to him where would the fun be?For me the reference point is the T-Rex attack sequence in "Jurassic Park," which I think is, from a cinematic standpoint, the best in director Stephen Spielberg's career. Anything that happens in a dinosaur movie, whether it is by Spielberg or anybody else, gets judged against the standard of that sequence. I still have a vivid memory of sitting in the theater at the first midnight showing of the film watching that sequence and thinking it would terrify my son, who was still in grade school, and how would I ever explain to him that he could not see this movie? (He saw the movie, I got him a neon bedspread that we still have, and he wants to be a military historian, so it turned out okay). The bottom line with "The Lost World" is that there is nothing like that here.The best sequence in the film is actually somewhat tangential to the dinosaurs, having to do with a vehicle on the side of a cliff. There is also a very effective shot of a group of velociraptors moving through the high grass to start picking off the harried survivors. But if we are talking about anything as terrifying as that original T-Rex attack sequences, then there is nothing close. For that matter we are, for the most part, missing the sense of shock and awe over the presence of real, living, and breathing, dinosaurs that you can see and touch. The first time we see dinosaurs in this film, a family of stegosaurs, is not even close to that same moment in the first film. But then most of the characters in the film treat the dinosaurs like commodities or special effects. The only two characters who really seem like they are interacting with real dinosaurs are Sarah and Tembo, although their positions on the beasties are polar opposites. It could simply be because Moore and Postlehwaite are the two best actors in the film, each working to make potentially stereotypical characters (damsel in distress, big game hunter) into something more realistic. Goldblum is still too much of the anti-hero to be an action star, but fortunately the film does not try to make him into one."The Lost World" is still enjoyable because it is still Spielberg on the other side of the camera running the show and even while there are comic moments he does not back off from the fact that these animals are more than willing to gobble up people (sometimes he combines the comedy and eating as with the dog in the backyard who has to guard the house against a T-Rex). Spielberg made the movie because of the final sequence, which gets a dinosaur off the island and back to California for some mayhem in the streets and if the film was going to bump up to the next level that was where it gets to happen, but the end result is pretty pedestrian (actually, lots of pedestrians, as well as people in cars and buses). Still, it is a Stephen Spielberg dinosaur movie, which is not a bad way to spend an evening in the safety of your own home.

I just got back into the JP films pretty recently and came to the conclusion that this is the only one I'll own because it's by far my number 1 favorite out of the three. So to sum it up, my reasons for liking this film a lot is because I feel that it has a great story, special effects of course, and the cast members are great for this film. I really have no complaints about this movie compared to the other two (JP 1 and 3). I felt that this film has more thrills, action scenes, and good dialogue. I can go on and on about why I feel that this film is great, but I have to keep these reviews short. In short, the story is about a research team sent to the JP Site B island while another team approaches with another agenda, which is to capture live dinosaurs and build a zoo for them in San Diego. Jeff Goldblum, (who is the main star of this film which I'm glad about) and his team stop them basically wanting to keep the dinosaurs on their island. That's basically the main point of the film with a ton of action happening in the meantime. That's the best summery I can give. Most of the surviving characters from the first film return except, Dr. Alan Grant, and Dr. Ellie Sattler. There's of course some new good characters. Now the main parts I like about the film is that the T-Rex has more screen time, (even though there's two of them), still I like that, and at the climax of the film, a male T-Rex who is captured and brought to San Diego escapes and rampages through the city causing a great amount of destruction and killing. It's a lot like what you would see in a Godzilla film. In fact, there are Japanese tourists running from the T-Rex in the San Diego scene saying in Japanese, "I left Japan to get away from this?!" I love it considering I'm a huge Japanese Godzilla fan. Also since I brought up Godzilla, this movie and that scene by far is WAY better than the American New York "Godzilla" film, (since they both came out in the late 90's). I've always got my American giant monster/dinosaur movie fix with JP 2. However, the Japanese Godzilla beats all in my opinion. Also there's good special features, trailers, deleted scenes, and etc. In my opinion, the first JP movie was alright, but nothing I would buy. Too much talking and minimal action. Even though it had great effects and the story had meaning, it just wasn't my cup of tea. JP 3 was pointless and I felt it was just made for marquee value. This tops all in my opinion. This is what makes me like Jurassic Park and glad I got this film. It's pure goodness.

GREAT

Always loved this movie. Makes you wonder if there's an island out there somewhere with dinosaurs on it. *shivers*