“This movie has some really cool moments, but again... the logic of the film is severely flawed.”
In the 1997 sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum returns as Dr. Ian Malcolm, who is pulled back into danger when John Hammond reveals the existence of “Site B”... Isla Sorna, the secret island where the dinosaurs were actually bred and raised before being transported to the park. Though initially unwilling to go, Malcolm rushes to the island upon learning that his girlfriend, paleontologist Sarah Harding, is already there documenting the animals. His rescue mission is instantly upended by the arrival of a heavily armed corporate InGen team sent to capture the free-roaming creatures for a new safari zoo in San Diego. Stranded together, both teams must quickly put aside their conflicting goals and fight to survive the island’s apex predators.
This is the next film I’m watching and covering as a part of my Spielberg watch-a-thon, and it’s one I generally think fondly on as a kid, because it came out when I was 9, which honestly... was a perfect age for something like this. Lots of dino action, lots of tension all around, and an ending straight out of Godzilla. This movie was so fun as a kid, but later in life, I realize the imperfections of the film as a whole. What should be noted is how this is the only sequel Steven Spielberg has ever made outside of the Indiana Jones franchise.
The success of the film really comes down to the audience not really questioning the logic of the narrative and just accepting a few things. Freaking Jeff Goldblum is back. John Hammond makes an appearance, so do the kids from the first film, and of course... dinosaurs, y’all... and more of them. You remember the T-Rex from the first one being this impossible to avoid, impossible to survive monster... and so in this one, you got two T-Rexes. It also had a range of other dinosaurs that I was hoping to see the first time around but didn’t in the first movie, like the Stegosaurus. I would also argue there’s something really strong about the message of the film being about animal cruelty, how that’s bad, and how a big part of the movie is more about a dinosaur protecting its young versus what happened in the first movie, which was humans protecting their young... and of course, the big thing about this film is the end 15 minutes or so that mimics Godzilla as a T-Rex is let loose in San Diego, California. Very cool stuff. That’s just the thing. This movie has some really cool moments, but again... the logic of the film is severely flawed.
The foundation of a secondary island on its own... is a stretch. It feels very much like an excuse to make a movie, since the first island was abandoned. So, instead of explaining what they do now... they just simply say, well... see... there’s a second island. I’m sure audience members were saying to themselves, okay, so what’s Jurassic Park 3? There’s... a THIRD ISLAND!? It’s not great writing. And even though I understand Ian Malcolm’s drive to go there and protect his girlfriend, John Hammond is the one that sends everyone there in the first place. After his character development in the first movie where he learns just how bad of an idea Jurassic Park was, and where he realized the whole thing was a mistake... four years later he’s prepared to do it all over again. It’s weak. It’s also kind of muddled because you have your main team there, the heroes of the story, and then you have the poachers of the story trying to do their thing, and then the final few minutes of the movie where everything comes to a head. A lot of this is cool, and a lot of this has some cool-looking shots, but logically, a lot of what happens in this movie is a little bit of a mess.
Let’s talk about the cast for a moment, because unlike when Spielberg struck gold with his cast of the first film, you have a hodgepodge of strange casting choices. Jeff Goldblum is fine. Without him, it would be hard to even call this a sequel. But then you have Julianne Moore as his girlfriend. I think she does an okay job in the film in terms of the job she’s hired to do, but as a girlfriend of Jeff Goldblum? I don’t buy it. Then you have freaking Vince Vaughn, and look... I like Vince Vaughn, but the role he plays is pretty important. I could see him playing the same type of role as Wayne Knight played in the first film. What about Ian Malcolm’s daughter? Well, she’s well over four in this film so... where was she in the first movie? Funny enough, his character says he has three different kids from three different wives. I always took that to mean he’s a playboy and has absolutely no relationship with his kids. But I guess whatever. I used to think towards the end of the film, when this girl does a gymnastic sequence to kick a Velociraptor out a window was super awesome as a kid, but today, all I can think of is it was ridiculous, and a precursor to Shia LaBeouf swinging on vines in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Visually, I think the film is ok. I think the visuals for the most part are on par with the first film, but slightly, ever-so-worse. Just because the first movie felt more like it was balancing its CGI work with practical effects 50/50. This movie felt like there was significantly more CGI than practical effects... so maybe 70/30 or something, and the CGI is a bit more noticeably fake in this movie in comparison to the first.
People like to call Jurassic Park III the worst of the original trilogy, but I’d be hard-pressed not to say The Lost World is. Don’t get me wrong, I like every one of these movies. A bad Spielberg movie is almost always a good movie anyway... I say almost always because 1941 was a thing. The Lost World is definitely a lot of fun at the end of the day with significantly more dino action than in the first movie. If you remember, most of the dino action in the first film didn’t even really begin until it was halfway done. This, it pretty much starts right away.
Final Score Breakdown
Technical/Unbiased Score: 35/50 (70%)
Biased/Entertainment Score: 36/50 (72%)
Total Overall Score: 71/100 (71% or 3.5/5 on Letterboxd)