No Dinosaur Pun, it's Just Bad

Rating: Null/10 (25 December 2002)

Where Jurassic Park succeeded by showing us a world that had been limited to our imagination, "The Lost World" fails due to the lack of imagination of the screenwriter, hack extraordinaire David Koepp.
I can't imagine anyone reads these things without expecting to hear plot points; however I will warn you that there are spoilers in this review.
It was pretty obvious that this movie was in trouble when Sam Neill refused to come back. This is nothing against Jeff Goldblum - he is a great actor, and certainly has the presence to carry a movie. But here he is saddled with quite a few problems. First, the screenplay is terrible. There is only one sympathetic character - Richard Schiff's Eddie Carr - and he is killed off rather early. You are left to pick your hero from among these likeable characters:

Julianne Moore - an actress of whom I am not fond - playing a know-it-all paleontologist who cannot act in a coherent, logical manner. At the beginning of the movie, she actually pets a dinosaur, then admonishes the others for getting near them. "We musn't disturb them!" she states. Then, against all scientific wisdom, she takes a wounded baby T-Rex, whining and howling, into the camp. The results, like the movie, are predictable

Vince Vaughn as Nick Van Owen, a Greenpeace hippie so stupid he actually takes bullets out of peoples' guns, resulting in a lot of "he's going to save that guy by shooting the dinosaur ... no, wait, the hippie got to his gun! Horray for nature!" And then another character gets eaten.

Jeff Goldblum, mugging for the camera at every opportunity. Again, a funny, capable actor, but with nothing to work with here

Malcolm's daughter, who is for some reason black (never explained, and apparently only part of the script so someone can make the "no family resemblance" joke). She mainly screams and chastises daddy for not keeping his promises

All of this is the product of Mr. Hack, David "Panic Room" Koepp. The screenplay is all over the place. First there are the errors in scientific reasoning and basic character behavior listed above. Some might think, "who cares?" Well, I do, dammit. If you're going to write a dinosaur movie, is it so rough to write a good one? This trash isn't even camp - camp is winking at the audience. This script is just junk. Let me list a few plotholes:

How did the daughter manage to stay aboard the trailer during its entire time of transit and nobody noticed her? - Why did the daughter build a fire outside, when the trailer has all the comforts of a modern home inside? - Why are all of the large weapons discarded after the first dinosaur attack? - Why are none of the soldiers aware of what they are facing, so they can do stupid things like run from T-Rexes, wear headphones during life-or-death situations, and generally act like a bunch of redshirts?

How, exactly, did the dinosaurs on the ship kill the entire crew, keep the ship steered perfectly towards the harbor, then seal themselves back into the cargo hold? - How did the dinosaurs on the friggin' ship escape? They were all in containers! Are we supposed to believe all of the containment failed, or that one dinosaurs got out and selflessly released all the other ones?

Why didn't the "world's most deadly neurotoxin" have ANY effect on the T-Rex?

The answer to all of these questions: the screenwriter is terrible. David Koepp seems to completely forget the sci-fi surrounding in which his characters are immersed, glossing over HUGE areas of potential interest to get to: family conflict. That's right! See the daughter chastise daddy for not being around! See mom talk about how she "needs her space". Isn't that why you go to see a dinosaur movie - to hear people working out their personal issues?
There really isn't anything to recommend this movie. The scenes in San Diego are particularly ridiculous. Koepp tries to go for some form of light comedy - "Mommy, there's a dinosaur in the backyard!" - instead of the true carnage we all wanted to see.
Even Jurassic Park III - with Tea Leoni stinking up the screen and screaming at the drop of a hat, and that annoying little kid - was better than this at providing sheer thrills and excitement.