Overblown action orientated sequel

Rating: 2/10 (31 January 2010)

Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) ventures to a dinosaur inhabited island to rescue his girlfriend only for him and his crew to be caught by money minded gang of opportunists.
When Jurassic Park was released in 1993 it showcased a whole new meaning to the Blockbuster term, encoding extinct animals and generating a spellbinding adventure that no one could predict and everyone would enjoy and directed by the man who brought us Jaws and Indiana Jones, what more could we ask for? As money is everything these days, asking more inevitably left a heartbreaking backlash.
Selling out and endorsing the Jurassic Park into a franchise ultimately left us with a trilogy that the two sequels never replicated the original and we are left with conventional action and little personal to say. This, a film I thoroughly enjoyed when viewing it in the cinema when first released has lost its way over the years to me as what was once a scary adventure has now appeared as formulaic action with no cutting edge.
This is evident in the first sequence where the story opens on a beautiful beach and a young girl is attacked by an apparently harmless dinosaur, and there ensues our adventure where a fleetingly Richard Attenborough emotionally blackmails Jeff Goldblum into going to the island to inspect the dinosaur's current living habits, only to discover his girlfriend is there. And the moment when we hear the dramatic music after Jeff's storm out signals the demise of the film. The use of the strings here is terrible. How can you use such a strong song as a voyage to the island in the first film and use it as a impersonal defiant stance in the second? Things go from bad to worse when we learn Jeff's character has a big backdrop of personal baggage. A kid, a bad relationship agenda, the inability to make tough decisions etc. The reason we loved Malcolm in the first film because he was a mystery, a suave back character to insert spurts of comedy. Here the character is just a joke, too impersonal with nothing unique, a bog standard unlikely hero determined to resolve a personal problem whilst looking to save the day.
Perhaps the most notable defect of this picture is the dinosaurs. The reason they worked so well in the 1993 release is because they were kept quiet, out of the way and inserted as a surprise, the build up was certainly powerful. Here we see them a few minutes in attacking the young girl, an anonymous young girl with no personal attachment to the island unlike Sam Neill's protagonist. Then before Jeff and mates can get off the boat there they are and we see nothing but dinosaurs from there till finish. Even the T-rex action sequences feel old and unsurprising, especially one of the most unrealistic cliff hangers you will ever see. The inclusion of dinosaurs in the real world adds a little excitement, but ultimately a ridiculous last gasp saviour that never justifies its purpose.
Here we have a failed fantasy adventure that is a true shame considering the power and surprise of the previous hit.