Not perfect but you know what pretty damn good

Rating: 7/10 (12 November 2007)

The Lost World was a film which had to reach a very high standard. following the impressive Jurassic Park which pioneered the consistent use of CGI and arguably one of film's most symbolic creatures, T-Rex.
Because of this a pretty good film was slated. In one sense justifiably so as the Lost World could never compare to the first instalment in the franchise. It was always going to be an impossible task to improve on the first film which had so much going for it and unsurprisingly it is not the best film in the world.
In some respects this film does shoot itself in the foot. The end sequence is silly, there are numerous unexplored errors and for the raptor fans, they get a pretty raw deal. Furthermore the Lost World continued on the premise that children would be able to survive a dinosaur attack while mercenaries with guns could not...
If you leave these issues aside the Lost World is a respectable movie and no matter how many times I watch it does entertain.
What I liked was that unlike Jurassic Park 3, it continued the idea of the dinosaurs being animals rather than monsters. Apart from the Raptors which were just as scary and monstrous as in the first film, none of the animals attack for pleasure or financial gain (compared to the humans in the film). They hunt and kill for their basic needs and instincts. One could say that the film follows an ecological route, and criticises all corporate involvement in animal exploitation.
Plot wise, The Lost World is basically an add on to the first film. We find out that there is another island other than Isla Nublar with dinosaurs called Isla Sorna and the now bankrupt Ingen wants to harvest the island in order to ship the dinosaurs back to the mainland.
Hammond, who had recently lost control of the company, however disapproves of this and so decides to construct a team to document the animals in order to gain public support for their conservation. He tries to recruit first film survivor Ian Malcolm who initially refuses.
However when Malcolm finds out his girlfriend Dr.Harding has already gone to the island on her own he decides to rescue her. What transpires is a 2 hour survival movie full of dinosaur attacks, suspense, action and Jeff Goldblum (Malcolm) attempting sarcasm along the way.
While the sarcasm may grate after a while the movie does have some great one liners:
Nick:"Hammond's check cleared or I wouldn't be going on this wild goose chase".
Malcolm: "Well your going to the only place in the world where the geese chase you"
Similarily while the plot isn't that complicated the characters are enjoyable. Malcolm is definitely the funniest with his sarcastic one liners (see above). Roland played by Pete Posthelwaite (a surprising casting as I would not expect to see him in a Hollywood action movie) is especially good as the cold, yet human hunter character in the film.
The only annoying character is surprise, surprise Malcolm's daughter Kelly, who despite spending almost the entire film screaming and whining about the least bit thing (stereotype teenager), is brave enough to do a complicated gymnastic routine inside a derelict house on rusty bars to kick a Raptor through a window. It is an annoying trait in Jurassic Park that in every film there is always an annoying kid.
Interestingly when compared to the book the film is does a good job. Jurassic Park the film was nowhere near as good as the novel but there is a definite improvement over the Lost World Novel in this film. Not saying the book was bad (or for that matter the first film), it was just that I enjoyed the film a lot more. My advice is to watch the film before you read the book. While the book has its moments don't expect it to be a repeat of Crichton's classic first novel.
Additionaly the CGI and models come back with avengence!!! As you'd expect after 4 years of development the dinosaurs look better than ever, and still look pretty impressive. Certainly this film has aged pretty well.
The moving models have improved as well. Supposedly both T-Rex's in Lost World contained twice the equipment of the previous T-Rex from the first film. Lost World looks great and as you would expect from a Spielberg film, has great production values. Locations look sublime with the coniferous forests, tall grass and no fencing making the new island look and feel like a true lost world rather than a science experiment.
Finally I personally loved the look of the vehicles. Certainly this is not a film which will disappoint (or unlike the JP III will confuse you)with its look and feel and as stated before has great production values.
All in all, this is a severely underrated film which was always going to be slated if it was not 100% as good as its predecessor. It is not as good as Jurassic Park but the Lost World is definitely a film you can enjoy. Certainly it will entertain you for its 2 hour duration and has always been a personal favourite. So its unsurprising that I was overjoyed to see it move ahead of the disastrous Jurassic III in the IMDb polls. A well deserved result.