The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Year: 1997
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Peter Ludlow, Julianne Moore, Roland Tembo &Vince Vaughn
Runtime: 129 mins
BBFC: PG
Published: 19/05/22
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Peter Ludlow, Julianne Moore, Roland Tembo &Vince Vaughn
Runtime: 129 mins
BBFC: PG
Published: 19/05/22
Both Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel, and Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Jurassic Park were runaway critical and commercial successes. Bringing dinosaurs back to life in an epic tale of overblown hubris being the downfall of man (as always). So when the film was such a monumental success Universal and Spielberg naturally wanted to make a sequel, but crucially they wanted Crichton to be on board with it is well. Undoubtedly seeing the opportunity for a bottomless money pit, Crichton agreed and wrote a sequel novel, 1995’s The Lost World, and so in 1997 Universal released the Spielberg helmed sequel film The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Writing a sequel novel for the sake of knowing there will be a sequel film is, in my opinion, kind of dumb, and I think audiences held that sentiment too because when The Lost World was published it was nowhere near as well received as Crichton’s original novel. Plus, despite Spielberg stating he wanted Crichton to be involved with the story, he and writer David Koepp had basically planned the whole film anyway. The resulting film is one that is constructed in part by Crichton’s novel, and in part by the bits left on the cutting room floor from the original film. So, journey back with me again to a time when dinosaurs ruled the earth (I mean 1997 btw, not sixty-five million years ago) and let’s take a look at The Lost World, twenty-five years later.
Four years after the events of the first film Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) has ruined his reputation by recounting the disaster on Isla Nublar to global new outlets. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) contacts Malcolm regarding a recent incident involving a family attacked by dinosaurs on Isla Sorna, an island roughly eighty miles away from Nublar. It is revealed that there was a dinosaur cloning facility on Isla Sorna but the site was abandoned and the dinosaurs left to run free. Hammond requests help from Malcolm in travelling to Isla Sorna and documenting the dinosaurs so that Hammond can make a public address calling for the island to be closed off for the safety of both the dinosaurs and the public. He’ll join a team comprising of engineer Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), photographer Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), and Ian’s palaeontologist girlfriend Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore).
Upon arriving at the island, Ian & co. discover InGen, the company that financed Jurassic Park, has also travelled to Isla Sorna in the hopes of capturing a number of the dinosaur species, transporting them to San Diego, and opening a mini Jurassic Park in the city. It doesn’t take long of course for things to go very, very wrong.
Four years after the events of the first film Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) has ruined his reputation by recounting the disaster on Isla Nublar to global new outlets. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) contacts Malcolm regarding a recent incident involving a family attacked by dinosaurs on Isla Sorna, an island roughly eighty miles away from Nublar. It is revealed that there was a dinosaur cloning facility on Isla Sorna but the site was abandoned and the dinosaurs left to run free. Hammond requests help from Malcolm in travelling to Isla Sorna and documenting the dinosaurs so that Hammond can make a public address calling for the island to be closed off for the safety of both the dinosaurs and the public. He’ll join a team comprising of engineer Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), photographer Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), and Ian’s palaeontologist girlfriend Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore).
Upon arriving at the island, Ian & co. discover InGen, the company that financed Jurassic Park, has also travelled to Isla Sorna in the hopes of capturing a number of the dinosaur species, transporting them to San Diego, and opening a mini Jurassic Park in the city. It doesn’t take long of course for things to go very, very wrong.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park is, to put it simply, a bit of a mess. It shares almost no similarities to the novel aside from the basic setup (two teams travel to a second Jurassic Park site, one for science and one for money) and it fails to ever hit the same highs as its predecessor despite upping the scale of the action set-pieces and being generally darker in tone. In fact, that’s arguably the biggest problem with The Lost World, it fails to recapture the same magic as the first film because it’s so focused on being bigger and meaner.
The setup seems extremely convoluted, a second island that also has dinosaurs on it. I mean this feels like fanfiction kind of territory here rather than a genuine official sequel. Then all the setup before getting to the island feels like a massive waste of the audience’s time because nothing particularly important happens. Once on the island things do start to get interesting as we get family drama between Ian, Sarah, and Ian’s stowaway daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), but it doesn’t take long for things to escalate into dino-attacks. The RV sequence is by far the best action sequence in the film (and possibly the whole franchise), which sees Ian, Sarah, and Nick inside the research tam’s RV which is attacked by two T-Rex’s and left dangling off a cliff. It’s real edge of your seat action but considering that this is the first major action set-piece of the film and it’s the best they had it then means the rest of the film feels somewhat underwhelming.
The T-Rex’s are in pursuit of the research group and the InGen hunters for the majority of the film, but the island’s finale is capped off with a Velociraptor section. It takes until the actual final action sequence of the film for The Lost World to become interesting again when a T-Rex is brought to San Diego and wreaks havoc Godzilla style. But this particular sequence feels like it’s a different film entirely, or a last-minute add-on at the very least. In reality it kind of was because a dinosaur coming to populated land was the plan for Jurassic Park 3, but Spielberg elected to bump it forward into The Lost World because he didn’t want to return for the third film as director.
Many of the action sequences that do populate The Lost World are ones that were cut from the original film, and so being cast off’s they never match the quality that the first film’s sequences had. In fact, all of these sequences are needlessly cruel and generally nasty which is probably why they were cut in the first place.
The Lost World does improve the quality of the CGI dinosaurs, and the animatronics are given much greater range of movement this time to appear even more realistic than ever before. But no matter how good the dinosaurs look for 1997, the fact that the film in general doesn’t look anywhere near as polished as the original film honestly had me questioning whether Spielberg actually directed it. It feels like an imitation through and through, and it doesn’t feel like it has Spielberg’s signature style in it at all.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park can be fun if you want some mindless dino action. But I don’t see why you would choose to watch this film over the first. It surprised me when I felt like this too as I remember this film being my favourite of the three growing up, but times change and so did I because I could barely make it through The Lost World without my attention turning to other things. A messy and overall extremely disappointing sequel, save a couple of great action sequences (the RV and San Diego) the film is practically a total write off. I wonder how Jurassic Park III will fare upon re-analysis?
The setup seems extremely convoluted, a second island that also has dinosaurs on it. I mean this feels like fanfiction kind of territory here rather than a genuine official sequel. Then all the setup before getting to the island feels like a massive waste of the audience’s time because nothing particularly important happens. Once on the island things do start to get interesting as we get family drama between Ian, Sarah, and Ian’s stowaway daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), but it doesn’t take long for things to escalate into dino-attacks. The RV sequence is by far the best action sequence in the film (and possibly the whole franchise), which sees Ian, Sarah, and Nick inside the research tam’s RV which is attacked by two T-Rex’s and left dangling off a cliff. It’s real edge of your seat action but considering that this is the first major action set-piece of the film and it’s the best they had it then means the rest of the film feels somewhat underwhelming.
The T-Rex’s are in pursuit of the research group and the InGen hunters for the majority of the film, but the island’s finale is capped off with a Velociraptor section. It takes until the actual final action sequence of the film for The Lost World to become interesting again when a T-Rex is brought to San Diego and wreaks havoc Godzilla style. But this particular sequence feels like it’s a different film entirely, or a last-minute add-on at the very least. In reality it kind of was because a dinosaur coming to populated land was the plan for Jurassic Park 3, but Spielberg elected to bump it forward into The Lost World because he didn’t want to return for the third film as director.
Many of the action sequences that do populate The Lost World are ones that were cut from the original film, and so being cast off’s they never match the quality that the first film’s sequences had. In fact, all of these sequences are needlessly cruel and generally nasty which is probably why they were cut in the first place.
The Lost World does improve the quality of the CGI dinosaurs, and the animatronics are given much greater range of movement this time to appear even more realistic than ever before. But no matter how good the dinosaurs look for 1997, the fact that the film in general doesn’t look anywhere near as polished as the original film honestly had me questioning whether Spielberg actually directed it. It feels like an imitation through and through, and it doesn’t feel like it has Spielberg’s signature style in it at all.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park can be fun if you want some mindless dino action. But I don’t see why you would choose to watch this film over the first. It surprised me when I felt like this too as I remember this film being my favourite of the three growing up, but times change and so did I because I could barely make it through The Lost World without my attention turning to other things. A messy and overall extremely disappointing sequel, save a couple of great action sequences (the RV and San Diego) the film is practically a total write off. I wonder how Jurassic Park III will fare upon re-analysis?