Fun Movie with Clichéd Story Line

Rating: 6/10 (12 April 2013)

I hadn't saw The Lost World: Jurassic Park in theaters as I did the 1st installment JP. I still enjoyed the sequel, but maybe it was just as well I saw it on video.
The storyline is a fuse of Aliens meets Godzilla. It's similarities to Aliens is pretty pronounced -- same "monster/alien versus man", with corporate profit-focused greedy entities and egos skewing decision-making to make innocent protagonist's lives even more miserable. And the ensuing drama plays out for our entertainment. Throw in the "we-are-surrounded, all-systems-are-down, and-we-must-survive-another-2-days before-the-rescue-team-arrives" cliché for good measure. The only thing missing is a face-hugger or chest-burst scene.
I will give credit for some exciting nail-biter scenes. Some scenes however, are drawn out way too long, almost to a tortured length for suspense. It's never good when the scenes are so long you want to swear at the characters for being so klutzy, stupid or incompetent, and just get on with it already.
The Jurassic Park series of movies are based on Michael Crichton's book, which is quite dark. I had a feeling Spielberg didn't know how to approach JP, in terms of the level of violence. It just seemed Spielberg wanted to make a kid-friendly movie with dinosaurs, with a little entertainment thrown in for fun.
I'm sure it's a dilemma every director/studio must contend with: Do we have gratuitous violence in the movie, get an R-rating and make less box-office money? Or do we bastardize and water-down the book, leave out scenes entirely, and play up the kid-friendly nature of the violent story-line? It would seem Spielberg went with the latter. JP had a PG rating, which for many parents was an inappropriate rating for kids. Could you imagine Aliens with a PG rating?
I won't open this can of worms here, but there is something to be said for how movies are rated, and whether there is politics and, of course, money involved. Me thinks this was the case for JP. Even the name of the movie was misleading to maximize movie goer attendance. How many times have you heard a mother ask her kids "Who wants to go to the park?!" Going to see "Jurassic Park" seemed so natural to take your kids, right??
TLW goes a little darker than JP. And appropriately, is designated a PG-13 rating. It would seem they were still struggling to make this dark story palatable for the widest audience possible. But let's face it, many scenes you will witness water running red with blood. Or human limbs being torn apart with big teeth. Not very far off from Aliensjust minus the chest-burster.
I wasn't going to mention this, but it would be a shame NOT to mention it: In the movie, Jeff Goldblum (Dr. Ian Malcolm) has a black daughter. I think that statement is almost an internet meme now. There is no explanation for it, but casting like that does trigger some head-scratching. If there was a black couple that had an Asian daughter, it would be equally as curious -- you would want to know the background story. And judging from the amount of chatter about this topic, I would say casting like that does a disservice to the story line -- It only serves to distract.
Case in point: I recall watching "The Matrix Reloaded" with an Asian friend. After the movie she mentioned there weren't enough Asians in the film. Let's be honest -- there were many Asians cast in TMR, but she argued there "weren't enough". Did she notice anything else about the movie? How about the lighting? The cinematography? The dialog and script writing? The editing? Character development? Nope. She was focused on counting the ratio of Asians, Indians, blacks and whites cast in each role. Oy.
Near the end of TLW, Spielberg pays homage to Godzilla, replete with Japanese men running for their lives down a city street. My Asian friend would approve. As would VelociRaptors who were well represented throughout the film. The only group I could see complaining about the movie are the T-Rex, as I'm sure they are fed up being stereotyped and judged as blood-thirsty killers.
Over and out.