The Lost World: Jurassic Park is Perfectly Fine

With the third movie in the new Jurassic World trilogy soon to be released, I decided that I would re-watch the films to catch up a little bit. Not that I really needed too, I've been a fan my entire life of Jurassic Park, and these films scratched that dinosaur itch.

However, upon this re-watch, I found myself fascinated with the second feature, The Lost World due to its uniqueness in the trilogy, and because I feel as though this movie receives a lot more criticism than it deserves. It's not perfect, but neither is the first film. And that's fine.

Unlike the first film, Lost World instead spends it's time with a rag-tag team hired by Hammond to go explore a secondary island where the dinosaurs were actually being created. Now long abandoned after the crisis at the first park, Hammond calls upon Ian Malcom to lead this team, who turns out to not be dead. Oh, he also has a daughter.

A good retcon by Crichton.

Heading to this island, it turns out to be an island that is an ecosystem of dinosaurs, now able freely roam the island like they once did millions of years ago. Hence the name.

However, this film diverges quite a bit from the book of the same name. The book is more of a science-fiction thriller about how the ecosystem is dying due to an overabundance of carnivorous dinosaurs, specifically, the velociraptors. The movie deals instead with a little bit easier plot: another head of Ingen wants to steal the dinosaurs to open another Jurassic Park in San Diego and the group led by Malcom needs to stop this from happening.

Just a little bit campier and easier to grasp that Crichton's original concept.

However, I don't have a problem with this decision. I know that among those who have read both books there is a problem with the movies because they are so very different in tone and style from one another. I think this benefits Lost World though. If the film was as dark and gritty as the book, it wouldn't be as fun to watch, and would take away from the spectacle. I get what Spielberg was trying to do, but at points I feel like the heralded director was phoning it in.

And this lies my biggest problem with the movie. It feels like a phone in. It has all the hallmarks of a Spielberg flick. Great camerawork. Top the line special effects. Interesting and unique characters. However, it just feels like a movie with no ambition. It may have well been too, as I do not know much about the production of the film.

Other faults for this movie include the disaster of the third act, and the absolute slog of a first act. Once the group hits the island the film flies due to the dynamics between the groups led by an aging big-game hunter, who arguably, is the smartest one on the island, and the conservationism's of Malcom's group.

These two different ideologies erupt when Vince Vaughn's (still a weird casting to me) sabotages the gates and lets the captured dinosaurs run wild, causing disorder in the camp, and a lot of people to be killed.

This event culminates in the eventual capture of the Momma T-Rex and the baby, and their eventual escort to the great city of San Diego. This is where the film falls apart in my opinion. There was a good concept and decent execution, but it becomes too much of a monster movie at the end, compared to the science fiction thriller that it is supposed to be.

Don't get me wrong, there are great set pieces in this flick. The "Don't go into the tall grass!" is awesome, as well as the whole sequence with the trailer on the cliffside, as well as the opening sequence of the dinosaurs being captured.

It may have one of the worst set ups in film history with Malcolm's daughters gymnastics stunt that pays off with her kicking a Velociraptor, but at least it fits tonally? I don't really know in all honesty, but it's there.

Where do all these roads lead? They lead to a tonally different film that the previous entry, and one that kind of kicks off the tonal future of the movies becoming the monster movies that they are now, instead of the science fiction thrillers that the first movie was, and what this one wanted to be.

Ultimately I can recommend this, perhaps with some bias because a) dinosaurs, and b) I grew up with these films. In the end Jurassic Park: Lost World is an inherently flawed, but fun *action* movie that has dinosaurs in it.

3/5