Makes JP3 look like Oscar winning stuff.

Rating: 5/10 (28 March 2010)

After the massive success of Jurassic Park, it was pretty clear that a sequel wouldn't be 65 million years in the making; but just because it had less time to evolve doesn't excuse the fact that The Lost World is an inexcusably sloppy piece of movie-making.
Jeff Goldblum returns as eccentric mathematician Ian Malcolm, who travels to dinosaur infested island 'site B' to rescue his researcher girlfriend Sarah Harding (no, not the one from Girls Aloud, but rather the lovely Julianne Moore) who has gone to study the scientifically engineered prehistoric creatures not quite appreciating the dangers she will face.
What follows is often spectacular, and sometimes downright brilliant (best bit: Moore falling on to the slowly cracking windshield of a truck suspended hundreds of feet above jagged rocks), but any flashes of genius from director Steven Spielberg are easily negated by some of the dumbest plot developments and unintentionally funny bits it has been my displeasure to witness in a big-budget blockbuster.
For starters, there is Malcolm's (African-American?!?!) daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), who stows on board her father's high tech truck in order to lend the film some kiddy appeal. She provides the film with its most ridiculous moment when she puts her gymnastic skills (conveniently mentioned early on in the film to set up this particular scene) into practise by swinging on some makeshift uneven bars and dismounting with enough force to kick a velociraptor to its death.
And she's almost as dreadful in the part where good old T-Rex sticks its huge head into her tent, and she wakes up to ask 'What is that?'. Take a wild guess, sweetie!
Then there's the gob-smackingly silly scene where one character is so scared of the snake that slithers into his shirt that he'd rather leave the safety of a cave and be eaten by the dinosaur that has been waiting outside. And let's not forget the fact that a captured T-Rex manages to escape from its cage on a boat, eat everyone on board, and then get trapped back in the hold. Or the daft ending, which has Malcolm and Harding lure the king of the tyrant lizards, fresh from a Godzilla style rampage, back into captivity by using its baby as bait.
With all this unintentional hilarity, The Lost World can only be seen as a major disappointment, but I suppose we should at least be grateful that there wasn't a nuclear-blast proof fridge in the film, 'cos that would be really stupid!