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

From: [email-masked] (Chuck Dowling)
Date: 3 Jun 1997 12:17:27 GMT

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
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