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

From: [email-masked] (Michael Redman)
Date: 29 May 1997 21:23:10 GMT

THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK
                       A film review by Michael Redman
                        Copyright 1997 Michael Redman

** (out of ****)

Steven Spielberg's sequel to "Jurassic Park" signals the beginning of
the big bang summer films. Unfortunately it also begins the season of
major disappointments.

It turns out that the dinosaurs n the original were breed elsewhere and
shipped to the theme park. Now there is a battle for control of the
island where the beasts have roamed free for the past four years. The
grandfatherly corporate big wig John Hammond (Richard Attenborough),
having had a change of heart, wants to let the lizards roam free. His
greedy capitalist pig nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) has taken over
the company and decides to bring them to San Diego for a mainland
Dinoland.

Hammond calls in the expert in chaos theory from the first film Ian
Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to head up a four-person team to document life
on the island to sway public opinion so that the prehistoric creatures
can stay where they are. Malcolm, no fool he, declines the offer, but
heads for terrorville anyhow to convince his current significant other,
paleontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) that she is in the wrong
place at the wrong time.

Once in the land of the very large predators, bad turns to worse as
Malcolm discovers that his teenage daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester),
who was never mentioned in the first film and just happens to be black,
has stowed away. Continuing the trend towards disaster, the evil company
has sent a team to round up dinosaurs in rodeo style.

That's about as much of a plot as we get. There's a lot of destruction,
human-eating and loud screams on the island. A T-Rex is shipped back to
the mainland and then there's even more destruction, human-eating and
loud screams.

As you might expect, the effects are stupendous. The stegosauri and tiny
piranha-raptors are awesome (in the pre-eighties meaning of the word).
Everything looks even better than it did in "Jurassic Park".

One of the problems with the original was that the dinosaurs were more
real and interesting than the human cardboard cut-outs with the
exception of Jeff Goldburg. The same is true here, but even Goldblum
succumbs to the blandness.

After an amusing scene where a yacht accidentally discovers the island,
the first clue that we're in for trouble comes in a brief but seemingly
eternal scene with Malcolm and Ludlow. Goldblum hems and haws through
the conversation leaving the audience to wonder whether Malcolm had a
lobotomy or Goldblum just slept late and forgot to memorize his lines.
Where is the cocky Ian who was the only redeeming person in the
original?

The plot is full of holes and the people, remarkably stupid. 

Harding, who has studied dinosaurs for years, hangs out petting a baby
stegosaurus while its parents are heading towards them. She is oblivious
to any danger. Then she hijacks a baby T-Rex to set its broken leg,
little suspecting that mom will come looking for her kid. And <I>then<I>
she wears her dinosaur blood-soaked jacket as they try to make their way
through a land of critters with the best sniffing ability in the world.
She must have gotten her degree from the Institute Of Really Dumb Things
To Do.

Even the velociraptors are out of character. In the first movie, they
were the perfect killing machines: intelligent and hunting in organized
packs. Here they eat backpacks and fight with one another as their prey
saunters off.

If someone can explain to me exactly what happened on the ship carrying
the T-Rex to San Diego, the film might make a little more sense, but I
don't have much hope.

If you want to catch some extraordinarily realistic dinosaurs, see this
at the matinee, but be prepared to be unamazed at the rest of the film.
During the first movie, the audience screams were in terror. Here
they're also in terror, but aimed at the script. I suppose it should be
expected since it's a sequel. I can only think of a couple of things
that are better the second time.

[This appeared in the 5/29/97 "Bloomington Voice", Bloomington, Indiana.
Michael Redman can be reached at [email-masked] ]