Absolutely fantastic piece of moviemaking

Rating: 10/10 (12 September 2001)

Okay, after writing reviews on The Lost World and JP3, and ranting and raving about just how awfully bad these movies are, especially compared to the prequel, finally I'll tell you just WHAT's so great about this movie. It's got everything. Yes, it has the, at the time spectacular and totally new dinosaur effects- but it also has great dialogue (bits of Malcolm's chaos theory strewn in without getting too scientific for a mainstream cinema audience- if you want the hardcore stuff, read Crichton's book-, Malcolm's sarcastic remarks), an INTERESTING STORY (it's the general idea of man trying control nature which goes wrong, but there are those subplots of Grant and children, Grant and technology, some rivalry between Malcolm and Grant, Hammond's not the greedy, nasty guy from the book [which is why he gets eaten in the book] but just an idealist trying to make his dream come true, and so on...), great music- it's just perfect. I've watched this film over and over and I love it every time. Someone reviewing TLW cleverly remarked that Jurassic Park has its fair share of plot holes too, only nobody seems to criticize them. Jurassic Park does have a fair share of "flubs" (there's a whole website dedicated to listing them), starting with the cliff that appears where the Rex paddock should have been, but also equipment seen in the background, crew seen in the background, robotic arms just disappearing, towels that suddenly change color, the emergency bunker directly next to the raptor paddock and so on and so on and so on. But these are not "plot holes", they're continuity issues, and sometimes smaller flaws of logic. "The Lost World", while I don't know how many of these smaller mistakes it has, already shows how acting, character development, dialogue and especially story move into the background and emphasis is on more dinosaur effects, more intense action scenes and mroe spectacular shots of people getting eaten, accompanied by a hearty "CRUNCH" of course. The first time I watched it, just after having seen JP3 I actually liked it, the second time I was more sceptical. There's a lot copied from JP (or Godzilla, or Hatari), and just about everything else is pretty stupid. (Hammond wants to show people dinosaurs for money, so for safety reasons he does this on a remote island with all sorts of security measures. Still, the project fails and the creatures break out and eat people. Now they have the brilliant idea of TAKING DINOSAURS ON THE AMERICAN MAINLAND to show them for money!!) And JP3 is merely a waste of time and money. It's got dinosaur effects and it's got action scenes but it's, if I may quote a newspaper critic, "nothing but a slasher move, albeit with nonhuman villains". Some STILL like this, say things like "Gimme more dinos!" or "TLW didn't have enough blood and guts" but this is what was so great about the first movie. It's got the effects PLUS characters you can identify with (in the sequels you don't give a damn who gets eaten. They could have eaten Goldblum's daughter for all I would have cared) PLUS an exciting storyline PLUS good dialogues PLUS the best soundtrack I've ever heard! But with a franchise like this they just can't help but squeeze money out of it until it's dead...