Disclaimer: (for this and every future Jurassic Park movie)
All of these are rated: PG-13
If you’re 8 and your parents let you watch this stuff, that’s their prerogative.
I’m just not gonna be held responsible for it.
Okay, I’ll give this movie some credit. Since Michael Crichton originally wrote two novels (“Jurassic Park” and “The Lost World”) this could’ve worked. The setups are there with more material that the original film didn’t address. While I haven’t read those books, what I do know is that what we got was far from ideal. Sure, there’s still dinosaurs roaming around gobbling people up, but the substance from the last film is completely missing.
Instead of thought-provoking commentary on how much humans are allowed to discover, we have a generic survival film. I suppose it’s not bad, there are several movies like this, but coming off the heels of a real game-changer? It’s a total slap in the face. We didn’t want a by-the-numbers action movie, we wanted Jurassic Park. I hate that I’m doing this, but this movie reflects one of Haircut’s lines from the last one perfectly.
You know the best part? He’s the main character now. Yay, if you had a hard time with his character in the last movie, prepare for 2 hours of it.
Either way, I know y’all probably don’t want to sit here and listen to me complain. Or maybe you do, that’s what I’m gonna be doing for the rest of this post after all. I’ll just get straight to the complaining y’all wanted to hear.
Let’s see why we can’t have good franchises with The Lost World.
We start off this Jurassic Park movie on –
Is that a new record? I don’t think so, but it’s too close for comfort. Why not just call it Isla Sequel to make it more obvious? Not only is this not Isla Nublar, not only does it have people we don’t care about, but it also doesn’t tie into anything. Yeah, we start here just so this rich couple’s daughter can die.
Then we cut to this –
Then it takes a whole 16 minutes for us to get back on the island. What are we doing in the meantime? Essentially nothing. Haircut (played again by Jeff-uh-Gold-uh-blum-uh) rides a subway to see John Hammond (played again by Richard Attenborough) all for John to tell him his girlfriend is already on Isla Sequel. I said that in one sentence, why does it take the movie 16 minutes?! Well, that leads me to my biggest issue with this movie.
A lot of these scenes are excessively drawn out to make it seem like the movie is saying something. In reality it isn’t saying anything, it’s just copying and pasting the pacing from the first movie. However, that’s the biggest difference between them as well. In Jurassic Park, it at least feels like things are moving forward or being explored. Even when there’s not a T-Rex or Velociraptor on screen, you feel the deeper meaning of the film.
With The Lost World, it’s literally just padding the run-time.
That was our first jumpscare of the movie, folks.
Yes, we’re in for a treat.
Wait, you’re telling me the only one who blabbed about the park was the craziest person there?
The one that people would be least likely to believe?
Ain’t that convenient.
Also, how did the kids not say anything?
Do you even “kid,” movie?
They may not have told the press, but you know they told their closest homeroom friends.
Okay, even if you don’t count the worker from the opening, that’s still four corpses from the last movie. (Gennaro, Nedry, Arnold, and Muldoon)
You’d think scientists would be better at math than this.
We clearly saw you breeding and nurturing dinosaurs on Isla Nublar in the last movie, but sure.
If we’re spewing bull crap for sequels, why not just say the T-Rex was created by The Joker or something?
No wonder she’s always smiling…
They do this for a while. They fill in the gaps to justify this movie’s existence (poorly, I might add). They throw in some half-assed character development to make the material seem deeper –
By the way, this is Haircut’s kid, Kelly (played by Vanessa Chester).
Wait, kid?
As in singular?
Didn’t Haircut say this in the last movie?
Me? Oh, oh, hell yeah, three. I love kids!
What is up with this guy’s counting skills?
Unless he’s already sacrificed those kids to the dinosaurs.
Then they slap some dinos on screen and call it entertainment.
Not amazing like in the last one, but definitely good for its time.
Since I just mentioned dinosaurs, you know what that means, right? More lengthy discussions with characters we don’t care about.
I…what?
Great idea!
Bring the kid along with you to the island full of killer animals.
Another thing you’ll notice pretty quickly is that all of these characters are huge idiots. What makes it worse is that a not insignificant amount of them are scientists. Speaking of dumb scientists, let me introduce you to Haircut’s girlfriend, Sarah (played by Julianne Moore).
While she might look cool, she’s one of this movie’s biggest idiots. First, how about the fact that she jumped at the opportunity to throw herself into mortal danger before anyone else? Also, when she’s faced with dinosaurs she reacts by giggling and running towards them. Then there’s this scene with a baby Stegosaurus.
Did I mention that she kidnaps an injured baby T-Rex and brings it back to their camp? Yeah. She does that.
Honestly, picking apart this movie’s flaws feels kinda pointless for two reasons. One, it’s not going to change anything, and two, they’re so blatantly obvious they’re almost not worth mentioning. Remember how I said before that the difference between this movie and Jurassic Park was the meaning behind them? Since The Lost World‘s only goal was making money, it represents several issues that will become concurrent throughout the series.
Instead of adding to the thought-provoking questions from the original, they bank on repeating the same formulas over and over. From The Lost World onward, each of these movies are just watered down versions of the original. Need an obvious bad-guy? Here’s Peter Ludlow (played by Arliss Howard [last seen on this blog leading the platoon in Full Metal Jacket])!
You wanna know something? He’s John Hammond.
Wow.
You just said it.
It’s like you found a new level of not caring.
At least act like you give a shit about your audience.
Need a guy with a gun in a safari outfit? Here’s Roland Tembo (played by Pete Postlethwaite)!
Sure he’s the least interesting character in a sea of uninteresting characters, but I gotta give it to him. He does the smartest thing anyone’s ever done in these movies. He leaves.
I could keep going. Believe me. However, if I did, this review would be essay-length. Also, I’m sure y’all probably don’t want to read that. For that reason, let me sum up this movie as best I can.
To be as clear as possible: this movie sets the bar for the rest of the Jurassic Park movies. It aspires to very little, repeats practically everything ad nauseam, and somehow still makes money. The last one is the reason we have a franchise. Even if we as an audience love dinosaurs, we should demand better than this. Unfortunately, it’s because we can’t say no to them that there are another five movies for me to look at.
In future Jurassic Park reviews, I’ll do my best to centralize my criticisms. This review was very all-over-the-place and I want to avoid repeating that if I can. If nothing else, I want to aspire to something better even if these movies clearly don’t. Also, if you only take one thing away from this review, let it be this:
Get ready for a lot more of this.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Although, if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t enjoy change, this franchise is right up your alley.
In fairness, I think I’ll rate this a 2/5 Jeff Goldblums. My frustration over how quickly this series turned sour originally told me to rate it lower. Although, to be honest, there are some cool things in this movie. There’s this tense moment of the RV lab hanging over a cliff and Sarah falling onto the rear windshield.
Would be tenser if I actually cared about Sarah’s well-being, but I digress.
And, while it is kinda dumb, the T-Rex rampaging through San Diego at the end is still pretty cool.
Like I mentioned before, the CG and animatronic effects in this movie are also good. Does it make up for everything else? I think y’all know my answer to that question. Despite brief moments of cool, you still have to sit through 2 hours of dumb. If you ask me, it’s not worth it.
Hmm, give it 20 years, then we’ll talk.
(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)
(Each of them are owned entirely by their respective copyright holders, which are not me)
(I’m just a humble blogger who talks about movies, I do not make them)
(Believe me, we all know who’s to blame for this abomination)
TGIMovies 
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