The Lost World: A Middling Jurassic Park Sequel

Thank God for Site B.

What in the lazy excuse to make a sequel is that supposed to mean? Again, Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park is just as much an adaptation of existing material as the first movie, but that doesn't make me hate the concept of a never-before-mentioned Site B any less. It's less another story to tell and more the weakest of reasons to make another movie, another book, whatever you want me to call it. And what's more, writer David Koepp was given nine rounds of rewrites to cut it from the screenplay and find a better excuse to make a movie. Nine. Somehow, Site B made it through. But I digress.

Being a story about a hunting trip to Isla Sorna rather than an exclusive vacation to a theme park, the edge of The Lost World is naturally harder than the first Jurassic Park, if not necessarily sharper. This sequel tries to function less as a fantasy and more as a survival flick, and its relative edginess admittedly drains it of much of the wonder present in the first film. Nevertheless, despite being as graceful as a duck and occasionally as impressive as one, The Lost World isn't a total loss, even if its groundwork is a creative misstep off a cliff and its fantasy decidedly less fantastic. It definitely has a lot of different dinosaurs in it, and they definitely eat a lot of different people. What can I say? That's the type of thing we go to the movies to see. In some ways, I appreciate The Lost World for trying to avoid being a direct tonal copycat of its predecessor, and in others, I recognize that it still can't escape living in its shadow.

Regardless, I like this movie's focus on Ian Malcolm, the tritagonist of the first Jurassic Park, as well as its most interesting character. It was refreshing to see him get his own story, and even more so to see that being a dad-yes, a dad-has actually matured Ian quite a bit. Some of the dialogue in this movie is also attractively witty, and the conversational shots traded back and forth by some of the ideologically clashing characters in The Lost World find their mark more often than not. But despite having some bright patches, The Lost World suffers from an oversaturation of characters, some of whom have a better screen presence than others. Roland, a big game hunter who seems to have more of a respect for the dinosaurs than even some of the more antagonistic scientists, is a standout, but that's not saying as much as you think it is when most of the cannon fodder on this island lack a basic personality they could have charmed the dinosaurs trying to eat them with.

There are good things to say about this movie as well as bad ones, but I think it's ultimately a shame that this movie feels so soulless. Even if it objectively does some things better than others, The Lost World couldn't make me look at its dinosaurs and go wow like the first film did, nor does it seem to try. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the first Jurassic Park was revolutionary as far as fantasy goes, but The Lost World doesn't necessarily do anything new for action or suspense. Its characters are flatter, and its imagination is decidedly less imaginative, even if it maintains the occasionally visceral nature of the first movie while bumping it up to eleven.

The Lost World is a somewhat more cynical movie than the first Jurassic Park, a darker and harder story of a questionably legal and dubiously ethical exotic hunting trip that goes way south at the hands (claws?) of a species that's not supposed to exist anymore. I admire Spielberg and writers Koepp and Crichton for their attempt to do something fresh with this sequel, but in more ways than one, The Lost World lacks the magic of the first movie. It's not helped by a cast that's way too large, a fine example of the fact that bigger doesn't always mean better. Still, the scares of this sequel are on-point and its core cast is largely likable, even if it often insists on watering down the things about it that do work.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park - 6/10

Proverbs 12:27