good movie, not great, but good, with wonderful effects

Rating: Null/10 (12 November 1998)

This movie contains a pretty tense flight from the raptors, starting with the kitchen and moving on, an evocative and frightening scene. But I like it more for some of the little bits, starting with the characters. Of course, Hammond has to be a nice old man, not an SOB as in the book, and of course the paleos have to be romantically involved (this is a movie), but the actors carry these cliches pretty well. Sam Neill is always reliable, and he has three of my favorite scenes: the sheer mindnumbing wonder of the first look at the apatosaurus; his raptures over the "flight" of the ornithopods; and my favorite line in the whole movie -- when Lexie cries out, completely betrayed, "He left us! He left us!" he responds, so sincerely that you really believe it would convince her, "But that's NOT what I'M gonna do." Great special effects, the dinosaurs seem to be real, and good action. The film is marred by the ending, which is, in fact, just that: an end. Not a resolution, just a stop. Clearly the door was being left open for the sequel, which is too bad on two levels -- not only does it cause JP to suffer, but the thing itself (The Lost World) was unwatchable.