The Lost World: Jurassic Park

"Ooh...Ahh...that's how it always starts. But later there's running...and screaming."

If there is a list out there of impossible tasks, I have to imagine crafting a sequel to a blockbuster on the level of Jurassic Park has to rank on the upper portion of said list. Still, Steven Spielberg and crew returned four years later and gave it a solid go. Was it as good as the first? No, of course not but then again I'm not sure a sequel could ever match the first film. Still, The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a solid effort of a film with some breathtaking action sequences of it's own. 

It's four years later when Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum) is summoned by an ailing John Hammond (played by Richard Attenborough) to visit him at his home. There it is revealed that there was a second island, Isla Sorna, where the dinosaurs that populated Jurassic Park were created and bred. Hammond reveals that the dinosaurs on the island have flourished since being left to die after both islands were evacuated after the events of the first film. He also reveals that the people who have taken control of his company from him want to pillage the island's resources and open a new park to get the company out of Chapter 11. To try and counter this, Hammond wants Malcolm to head up a new team to go to the island and document the dinosaurs in their natural habitat. He's a curious choice from Hammond's perspective since he hated Malcolm so much in the first film. So, this choice came about in one of two ways. 1. His opinion of Malcolm softened over the years after he realized Malcolm was right all along about not being able to contain life and was trying to warn him or 2. Picked the person with dinosaur experience that he would be least sad to see get eaten. Malcolm initially turns him down but changes his mind when he finds out his girlfriend, paleontologist Sarah Harding (played by Julianne Moore), is already on the island. 

Malcolm then meets the remaining members of the research team, tech expert Eddie Carr (played by Richard Schiff) and photographer Nick Van Owen (played by Vince Vaughn). We also meet Malcolm's daughter, Kelly (played by Vanessa Lee Chester). Upset that her father is ditching her with a babysitter (after already apparently being dumped with Malcolm by her mother), Kelly decides to stow away on the research trailer and tag along on the expedition as well (because we need a kid character in these films apparently). Soon enough, the research team arrives at Isla Sorna with their massive Research Trailer and SUVs in tow. Not long after Malcolm and company arrive do they manage to locate Sarah (and a family of Stegosauruses) in a sequence that only marginally manages to recapture some of the magic of the first film. 

Also arriving at the same time is another, larger team from Hammond's company captained by company exec Peter Ludlow (played by Arliss Howard) to capture as many of the island dinosaurs as possible to populate a new Jurassic Park. The team is made of a group of big game hunters led by Roland Tembo (played by Pete Postlethwaite) and assorted grunts that are basically cannon fodder for the assured forthcoming dinosaur mayhem. The team is reasonably successful in capturing and caging up several dinosaurs and are celebrating their good fortune when Malcolm, Nick, Eddie and Sarah come across their camp and see what they are up to. This leads Nick and Sarah to do a couple bone headed things, release all the caged dinosaurs who rampage through the camp and destroy all the company's equipment and second take an injured infant T Rex back to the research trailer to get patched up. This leads the infant's infuriated parents right to the trailer. The two parents are reunited with their infant and then proceed to attack the trailer and try to push it off a cliff. This is easily one of the most intense sequences in the series as Nick, Sarah and Malcolm are trapped in the trailer as it is slowly pushed over the cliff. The tension continues to ratchet up and up until it's almost unbearable including a memorable sequence where all that's between Sarah and a long plunge is a cracking piece of glass that she can only watch as it slowly cracks underneath her, hoping Malcolm and Nick can get to her before it shatters. 

After that, the remaining members of both teams regroup and begrudgingly team up to try and find a way to collectively get off the island as quickly as possible. Of course, this leads to some friction as differing ideologies between the two groups, especially between animal loving Nick and big game hunter Roland as well as between Malcolm and Ludlow. These interactions help keep things mildly lively between dino attacks. 

Michael Crichton wrote the sequel novel to his Jurassic Park which Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp then...ignored. Seriously, aside from the general plot outlines the two are very, very different. Instead the two crafted a certainly entertaining film, with some priceless dialogue I might add, using only the vaguest framework of the source novel. Both the novel and the movie brought back Malcolm because everyone can agree he was Jurassic Park's MVP, taking a more central role this time around. Thankfully Goldblum is up to the task, being just as charming and eccentric as ever. It helps that he has some decent chemistry as Julianne Moore, who also acquits herself nicely. 

In the end, The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a curious entry in the series. It's certainly a relatively solid film and has some great action sequences but at the same time there are times when it feels like it's just going through the motions and that Spielberg's heart just wasn't in it like the first time (and years later he would admit as much), at least until we get to the third act T Rex rampage through San Diego and then the movie comes gleefully to life almost as if it were a separate film. There are also some questionable choices in the film as well, like Kelly (easily the most annoying character in the film) drop kicking a Raptor out a window or portraying Nick as a heroic character when most of his actions only lead to more people getting killed. 

Still, I can't help but admit I do enjoy this movie, flaws and all. It's not the first film but at the same time it doesn't try to be, which is probably the film's biggest strength. It's not as great as the original, but it's also not the train wreck some people make it out to be.