"Let's get this movable feast underway." Decent enough sequel.

Rating: 7/10 (28 December 2006)

The Lost World: Jurassic Park starts as Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) visits eccentric billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) for the first time in four years since the events of the original Jurassic Park (1993) which were covered up, John tells Ian that besides the island in the original there was a 'site B' where the Dinosaurs were born. He is organising an expedition to the island to document the Dinosaurs there & to try to save them from his money grabbing nephew who now controls the company InGen. At first Ian refuses but once he learns his girlfriend Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is involved he's in, along with photographer Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) & filmmaker Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) they all travel to the island. However they are soon joined by Hammond's nephew, a big game hunter named Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) & a load of heavily armed men who are there to collect some Dinosaurs in an attempt to resurrect the idea of a Dinosaur zoo this time in San Diego...
Directed by Steven Spielberg The Lost World: Jurassic Park is the follow up to Spielberg's phenomenal monster box-office hit Jurassic Park & isn't as good as the original but is still a decent & perfectly entertaining effort. The script by David Koepp & was based on the novel 'The Lost World' by Michael Crichton which I haven't read but the two apparently share little in the way of similarity. The thing that hurts The Lost World: Jurassic Park in my opinion is that the script is so loose, it has little focus & relies on nothing more than another group of scientists & people who want to exploit the Dinosaurs having lots of coincidence's conspire against them which leaves them all trapped on an island with loads of killer Dinosaurs for company. It feels very similar to the original but somehow even less, there's nothing of any substance, there's nothing that drives the story forward & Spielberg gives us yet another highly annoying kid, the scene where she kills the Raptor was easily the worst part of the film for me. I hate annoying kids! The character's are OK but Postlethwaite's hunter character is all tough to start with but by the time the film finishes he's repented! He should have been the main villain, instead they turned him into a bleeding heart liberal who gets dumped from the film totally about 20 minutes before the end never to be seen again. I sill thought it was decent, it moves along at a nice pace & the climax where the T-Rex stomps it's way through San Diego is cool even though it feels like it's been edited in from a completely different film.
Director Spielberg does a good job, the special effects are top-drawer as one would expect & there's some great moments. Whenever the T-Rex's are on screen the films pretty cool, the climax in San Diego is a great sequence as is the part where the truck gets pushed over the cliff & everyone is left dangling inside. There's a few effective scare moments & the set-pieces are very good. There's a touch of gore with people being eaten, there's a severed hand, someone is bitten in two & a couple more scenes which may not be suitable for the youngest of viewers.
With a supposed budget of about $73,000,000 & it made nearly $93,000,000 on it's opening weekend, technically it's top-notch & is as well made as anything out there with plenty of big budget Hollywood polish. The acting was OK with Goldblum standing out, I won't mention the annoying kid. Oh sorry, I just did.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a decent sequel, I liked it & think it makes for good entertainment. It's well worth a watch but maybe it's not the film it could have been.