Subject: REVIEW: THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997)

From: [email-masked] (David Landers)
Date: 29 May 1997 18:23:47 GMT

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.

*--------------------------------------------------------------------*
*      David Landers - [email-masked] - http://www.gwis.com/~dml/      *
*--------------------------------------------------------------------*