Jurassic Park 2. Review on The Lost World - Jurassic Park Movie

Jurassic Park : Lost World

The Cast:

• Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcom

• Julianne Moore as Dr. Sarah Harding

• Pete Postlethwaite as Rex Tembo

• Arliss Howard as Peter Ludlow

Introduction

Directed by Steven Spielberg this film was inevitable. Due to the success of the first film, it was obvious a second was due. Upon reading a newspaper article, I was already dubious as it mentioned the book was being written so it could be turned into a film. Later that year the book was released and my friend bought it. I, in time borrowed the book and was very disappointed. The book can be best described as loading Jurassic Park novel into a word processor and changing the names of the characters and reprinting it. There were no improvements at all. It even included similar situations.

I was somewhat relieved when about half a year before the films release, an interview with Spielberg announced that he was filming his own version of the book. Well after two and a half years of pre-production and a few months of filming was it worth it? Well, the answer is yes and no. Once again Industrial Light and Magic prove to us that dinosaurs can exist alongside some excellent animatronics created by the brilliant Stan Winston Studios.

The Plot:

(If you can call it that) is simple. Harding goes out to study the dinosaurs on site B. Site B is the Factory Island where as Jurassic Park was just for tourists. John Hammond tries to get Malcolm to go as well but when he discovers his girlfriend Harding is already there, he goes on a rescue mission to get her. Then what follows is a set of action pieces which start when the InGen corporation who run Jurassic Park (John Hammond let his nephew Peter Ludlow take over) arrive to capture some of the dinosaurs and take them back to a site in San Diego.

Some of the action is very entertaining. The cliff top trailer set piece is good until the last moment. The water ripple in a water when a T-Rex is approaching is done again even though we've already seen two T-Rex's by this point and the same effect used in Jurassic Park 1, so there was no originality there. Some obvious set-ups are made early on. Unfortunately one turns out so stupidly I was just groaning with my head in my hands at this point. So you know what point, I'll give you one clue. Gymnastics. That's all I'm saying.

The action moves to San Diego when Rex captures a T-Rex and they place it in a very secure cargo hold and ship it back. The boat crashes into the docks at San Diego, the film and included a scene of, wait for it, that's right, a ship crashing into some docks and the crew were dead (major plot hole - who killed them?) The T-Rex gets loose and runs around the streets. This whole section was basically entertaining action and didn't have to be in the film at all. The only reason it’s there was so a T-Rex could run around a city instead of a jungle, which I consider pointless and time consuming. Another point is that we see this secretly built zoo in San Diego, which will be used to show off the dinosaurs. Secretly built. It’s the size of a volcano and has Jurassic Park written all over it!

Cast performance and Conclusion

I would consider the acting skills of the cast members to be great, but I think they are wasted in this movie because it doesn’t enable them to perform to their full potential.

In conclusion the film is an entertaining two or so hours but just be prepared to ignore the many plot holes that there is. I also thought after the first time of watching this movie that they had taken things too far and that there wasn’t room for another sequel, but they proved me wrong and have produced the third of the trilogy, and to my dissapointment it wasn’t as good as it was hyped to be, so I think it is worth watching if you have nothing better to do, but if you love dinosaurs or cheesy movies like the jurassic park series then go ahead.