The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Might contain spoilers.
A different approach to the story from the first film, and not perfect in the same way, but an unmistakable classic all the same, starring a believably altered Ian Malcolm. Many of my favourite lines are found here, often coming from his lips. To name just a few:
Careful… this suit cost more than your education.
Mommy’s very angry.
Now you’re John Hammond.
Speaking of which, Hammond’s smiling repetition of Life will find a way
at the end never
fails to make me emotional. David Attenborough was truly perfect in the role. Without meaning to
disparage the evergreen Jeff Goldblum in any way, I must say, that single scene outshines the rest
of the film.
Aside from the gymnastics sequence that I find ridiculous today, the action is memorable and excellent. Naturally, the trailer sequence with the T. rexes is the highlight. Eddie Carr was truly the best of us; we didn’t deserve him. Even with his last breath, a moment away from being devoured by the rexes, he keeps the accelerator pressed down to help his friends.
That sequence compresses time to an absurd extent, like when the T. rexes leave after retrieving the baby, or how the Ingen squad arrives to pull Malcolm up, apparently having completely avoided the departing rexes. The same thing happens when the T. rex snatches away the biologist at the waterfall and Ian returns a few short moments later.
There’s too much of an emphasis on the humans this time. Granted, the villains are enjoyably despicable, and the T. rex being unleashed on San Diego is handled quite well (except the horrible and unnecessary bit with the dog). Roland makes for a good replacement for Muldoon, too.[1]
Everyone in this film seems to be an imbecile, however. I understand that the dinosaurs aren’t real to those who haven’t been on the first island, but the soldiers behave idiotically even after seeing them. I suppose part of it is their not having interacted with the predators.
It does suffer thanks to the increased screen time of the computer-generated dinosaurs. Still, the technology is noticeably improved, so it’s not as bad as it could have been unless we’re looking at, say, crowds of Stegosauruses. I’ll never understand why they didn’t simply refer to the raptors as Utahraptors here, considering those had already been discovered by the time this screenplay was written.
- I’ve spent the past twenty-five or so years thinking his sidekick was named RJ and not Ajay.↩