A Worthy Sequel

Rating: 6/10 (28 April 2013)

Michael Crichton wrote a sequel to his bestselling book Jurassic Park with The Lost World Jurassic Park. Once again Crichton worked with Spielberg to put The Lost World on the big screen. Jeff Goldblum returns with a cast of interesting characters as he goes to a second island where the dinosaurs live free. There are no fences and you can only imagine what happens before you actually see it. I hate to compare the first to the second move but everybody knows I loved the first but not so much the second. Like Anaconda I lived it as a kid because the site of dinosaurs eating people was awesome, but now that I'm older I appreciate characters and relationships etc. What Jurassic Park had in story and characters lacked in The Lost World but The Lost World had the action and excitement that lacked in Jurassic Park. You may ask why Ian Malcolm would revisit the world of dinosaurs and the answer is quite simple. Hammond's company, InGen wants to go to the island and take an animal back to San Diego and put it in a zoo. Hammond sent Malcolm's girlfriend, who happens to be a paleontologist, to the island alone so Malcolm goes to rescue her. The characters and story could have been terrific. Eddie Carr was a great character, Vince Vaughn is in the movie and he gives a really good performance early in his career, and I especially loved the character of Roland.
Roland is a hunter who is looking for the ultimate bounty. He is an important character that is underrated. His character could have been so much more and every time he was starting to be built up they cut to a dinosaur eating a smaller character. He was a character I wanted to know about. The movie should have focused on characters like him and the guy with the beard and long hair. He is a dinosaur genius and he has such little screen time. That is the huge flaw in the movie, it is focused too much on the dinosaurs eating people and not enough in the story and its characters. Ian Malcolm was one of the best characters in the 90s and in The Lost World he lost his edge. The snarky comments and brilliance he once had was nowhere to be seen. He had moments of brilliance but he was rewritten as a different character in a way. That was really the only thing that hurt the movie and made it worse than the original.
Sequels aren't supposed to be better than the original but the actual dinosaurs and the action scenes were amazing. I could watch the trailer on the cliff scene with the T-Rex over and over again. The CGI and special effects put into the dinosaurs, along with the life size robots were astounding. What lacked in real character development was made up for in the work in the animals themselves. Each dinosaur had its scene to shine and there were a lot more different species. I love the stegosaurus and the Compys. They each had their scenes and some were better than the others but all great. The Compys were a big part of the first book and were not in the movie but I'm glad they found their way into the second one. They are real scavengers and make an impact in the movie.
Spielberg and Crichton nail the raptors once again, possibly even better this time. It focused less on the intelligence and more on the ferocity of the animals this time. That could be better because if they focused on intelligence again it could be a little redundant. They appear a little late in the film but they really change it. They look a little different and I'm glad they weren't used simply for killing off all the extras. Then there is the final few scenes, and boy did they not disappoint. It was awesome but at the same time it kind of ruined the lore of Jurassic Park. A major part of the second island is that it is kept secret and nobody knows about it. Without spoiling the ending I'll just say the secret is out, and that's a shame.
The book was a great read but after the first movie and how it played out, it only made sense that the book and movie were nothing alike. The really only similarity was the characters themselves and the animals in them. In my other reviews I mentioned the character Dogson and how hia character was ruined in the movies. In the second book he goes to the island and it wouldn't of made sense in this movie. There was only lost potential and another thing that hurt this movie.
Overall, The Lost World Jurassic Park was one of my favorite movies when I was little. It still holds up today but still lacks in characters. The action and dinosaurs were fun to look at and were top notch for its time but it wasn't enough to be memorable. I went into this movie wanting more then what I got. I wish they sacrificed some of the action scenes for more character interactions, especially with Roland. There were few glimpses of brilliance but the lack of time spent on characters is the reason I give The Lost World Jurassic Park the WillyT Recommendation. It is a great movie that should be seen at least once. I can watch it every now and then but it isn't as memorable as I'd hoped. It is still a solid film and is a worthy sequel to the classic that was released a few years earlier.