The film opens with an outlandishly wealthy English family enjoying a white-linen picnic on a jungle isle. As the parents are bickering over whether to allow their daughter to roam the beach, she scampers off and encounters a wilding gang of Procompsognathus triassicus , leaping birdlike critters with claws like Freddy Krueger. In another scene of family disarray, a mom and dad blame each other for their son's delusional streak when he rousts them from their suburban slumber to report a dinosaur in the backyard. No figment of the boy's imagination, this wayward creature is rampaging across San Diego in search of its baby, of course, which was ki dnapped for a theme park. When they're reunited, big dino instructs baby dino in the carnivore's art.
Justice is juicy.
If you set aside the movie's science bashing and corporate scolding, its agenda is child care. That same day, radio talk-show host Oliver North interviewed a Field Museum paleontologist on the issue of dinosaur family values. Those escorting their kids to The Lost World may be negligent, but single dad Malcolm is arguably worse. Besides forgetting that Kelly was cut from her junior high gymnastics team, a big deal for her, he fails to notice she's a stowaway on his hyperdangerous mission until it's too late to send her back. Campfire smoke is the first clue that she's on board, as she fixes a home-cooked meal for dad and his crew.