THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997)
Tagline: Something has survived
(Action, Adventure, Dinosaurs) [PG-13]
So go ahead, set up base camp right here, or in a swamp, or in the middle of a Rex nest for all I care. But I've been on too many safaris with rich dentists to listen to any more suicidal ideas, OK?
In this follow-up to the mind-blowing original, we get Hammond who started JURASSIC PARK now on a crusade to save the dinosaurs they genetically engineered on a second island 87 miles from the first one. He ends up hiring Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum who is awesome in this), to go photography the dinosaurs and prove to the world how awesome they. That way everyone will leave them alone? Ian says “heckno-techno” but then is told that this woman named Sarah Harding (played by Julianne Moore most famous for THE HUNGER GAMES and a bunch of artsy-fartsy stuff), who Ian loves isn’t responding to Hammonds attempts to contact her. So now Ian’s gotta go on a rescue mission. Meanwhile, InGen who Hammond used to own has split from him and has their own plans for the island. Really stupid plans… of course all heck breaks loose and that is pretty much what’s happening here.
Out of the 3 original films in this series, I think this one is the second-best. Jeff Goldblum is extremely likable in this as is his daughter (played by Vanessa Chester who has done a ton of TV work over the years) reminds me of some of the spunky kids I grew up with. The dynamic between these two does a lot for the movie on a human level. I really didn’t relate to Sarah Harding as a character however, and most of the other filler characters fell flat. Even Roland Tembo (played by the late Pete Postlethwaite) was a bit of a stock character, mirroring Muldoon (the “clever girl” guy) from the first film. I would almost rather Muldoon lived and been in this movie. Another character that doesn’t fall flat however is Nick Van Owen (played by Vince Vaughn), he ends up being more than meets the eye. Yes, he’s a Transformer, it’s fine, don’t worry about it (just kidding).
The dinosaurs are as good as in the first film, but I didn’t get the sense of awe I did from this movie as I did in the original. To the effects crew’s credit, we did get a ton more dinosaur shots and they did introduce a bunch of stuff we hadn’t seen. The action sequences are good, but outside of one cliff-hanging event, there isn’t a lot that stands out until the last 20 minutes where things get a bit more interesting. In this case, the “interesting” ending we get is both good and bad. It’s good in that we haven’t seen the setting it’s in before in this series. It’s bad in the sense that it’s not good storytelling. It feels disjointed and it doesn’t make a ton of sense. What I also don’t love about this movie is the award title. It’s the only movie in the Jurassic series that doesn’t start with the word “Jurassic”.
What we do get is a pretty entertaining continuation of this world and for that, I give the movie credit. 3 of the characters save this movie for me, and the effects are pretty fantastic all around.
I give THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK a 4 out of 7. This isn’t one I go back to a lot, but when watching the series as a whole, it’s a pretty solid effort.
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