The Lost World.
Steven Spielberg's second visit to the land of claws and teeth isn't nearly as good as the original but it does have some scenes that will go down in cinema history. But unfortunately for every great scene there's an equally dumb one.
Set on the second island of Isla Sorna, an island that was suspiciously never mentioned in the original film. Apparently this is where the dinos are bred before being taken over to Isla Nubla where the park is situated. Anyway Dr Ian Malcolm's girlfriend, Sarah played by Julianne Moore is on this island taking snaps of the dinos and obviously she needs to be rescued. Why a woman is alone on an Island with man eating dinosaurs is beyond me? Perhaps that's it right there. They're man eating dinosaurs! (A subtle nod to the original movie). So off Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) goes to rescue her. He tags along with a research team and they soon encounter a second team who are there with a totally different agenda. Before you know it, there's the running and the screaming and secondary cast members being munched in all sorts of gruesome ways.
The Lost World isn't completely devoid of the magic that made the first film great, however it does seem that the people involved in making this film have tried to suck out as much magic as possible. Only Spielberg's fantastic direction and the superb cast try to deliver. This time around there's no Dr Grant or Ellie. Lex and Tim get only a brief appearance and John Hammond is bed ridden. Never the less, there is a good cast here. Goldblum seems to be the go to man to help save a franchise. Anyone who has seen the abysmal Independence Day sequel will know what I'm talking about. Vince Vaughn and Julianne Moore are strong support. Pete Postlethwaite is the show stealer and why he wasn't utilised more is quite the mystery. Regardless of this it was the original cast that helped conjure up the magic in the first film and sadly they're absent here.
TLW is a much darker affair. Admittedly I agree getting chased by carnivorous dinosaurs is never going to be light hearted but there's just something missing. I think it maybe the large number of bad choices made by the script writers. Like I mentioned before, for every great moment there's a really stupid one! A great scene of the splintering glass window is masterfully directed by Spielberg, it is then quashed by a stupid scene when the young girl kicks a Velociraptor by performing a gymnastics routine!
Another example is when the Velociraptors enter the long grass and we see their trails closing in on the victims. This is classic Spielberg. Only to be quashed by the T Rex arriving in San Diego. What did Rexy do? Did he kill everyone on board of the ship and then steer the vessel to port by himself? I think he'd struggle with those tiny little arms of his. Also he must have escaped containment, killed everyone then got back into containment and closed the lid! Eh?!!
The First half of TLW is a decent movie then it seems that all creative control was taken away from the director and given to a bunch of morons that have never watched Jurassic Park. Rather than concentrating on making a plausible sequel, what we have is a very long commercial for a certain German car company. Taking the movie out of its correct environment and putting it into the city was perhaps one of the worst ideas in movie history. This is a 6/10 movie mainly due to the first half of the film. Still it's better than Jurassic Park III.
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