Jurassic Park: The Lost World Review

Warning Major spoilers

Click here for my review of Jurassic Park

So continuing my break from the top 1000 films of all time, I'll be reviewing Steven Spielberg's 1997 review to Jurassic Park.

Four years after the events of the original film, eccentric billionaire and creator of Jurassic Park, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is reporting problems on Isla Sorna.  Isla Sorna served as the breeding/hatching ground for the dinosaurs before they were moved to the main island.  To investigate, he sends chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum,) behavioural paleontologist and Malcom's girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore,) environmentalist Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) and field equipment expert Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff.)  Things start going wrong when Hammond's greedy nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) brings his own team led by game hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) to capture some dinosaurs and bring them back to Ludlow's own "Jurassic Park" in San Diego.

So originally I wanted to see how this film compared to Michael Crichton's novel, but as the film was very different from the book, this was pointless.  Instead I'll go into what was wrong about the film, to which there was much.

My main problem was Peter Ludlow who despite being the villain was pretty bland.  His main motivation was greed, which was understandable.  However, he didn't feature enough in the film to make any proper impact on the narrative.

The big game hunter Roland Tembo was a far more impressive character and would have made a better villain.  It can be argued that he was the secondary antagonist of the film, as he is motivated, not by money, but by the glory of killing the greatest predator in the world: the T-rex.  Yet by the end of the film, he experiences a change of heart, after his entire team, including closest friends were killed by dinosaurs.  However, I don't buy his transformation due to the absence of scenes where Tembo expresses any affection for his team or even interacting with his team.

For example, after Tembo's second in command, Dieter Stark is eaten by Compies, Tembo goes looking for him and callously says that he only found "the parts of him they didn't like." But did anyone else find it funny how Dieter dies in the exact same way as Hammond dies in the book?

Secondly, it is specifically the death of Ajay, Tembo's partner, that prompts his change of heart.  Yet I am struggling to remember any scene between the two that showed the depth of their relationship.

Also, can I just mention how crap hunters Dieter and Ajay are? Dieter wanders off alone without properly ensuring that anybody knew where he had gone and Ajay warns the other hunters not to go into the long grass, but then goes in after them and is subsequently eaten by Velociraptors.

So as not to be entirely negative, can we just praise the versatility of Pete Poselthwaite.  I've seen him in the the Usual Suspects and in the Sharpe series, in completely different roles, thus demonstrating his range.

I also didn't like the character of Malcolm's daughter from a failed marriage, Kelly.  She is pretty pointless to the plot.  I get that she was there to assist in Malcolm's development but she doesn't really do anything in the film.  Although as plus, at least she wasn't as annoying as Tim and Lex.

Speaking of not doing anything, after the events on the island, where Nick Van Owen is a key player, he is not seen or mentioned again when the T-Rex goes on a rampage in San Diego.  Instead, it is Malcolm and Harding who save the day, but I think that Nick could and should have been there as well.

As a last nit pick, there were a couple of scenes where Spielberg employed parallel dialogue and characters speaking over another which was annoying and confusing.

One thing I did like though was Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm.  In the novel, Malcolm is cynical and sarcastic, which Goldblum, plays perfectly.  When Hammond says "I'm not making the same mistakes again," Malcolm replies "no, you're making all new ones." I thought this was hilarious and brilliantly captures Malcolm's personality.

So maybe I've been a bit of a grumpy, miserable critic.  As a summer blockbuster, this is a fine film.  The visuals are good, the suspense is there and it is entertaining.  Oh and if you're wondering why I didn't discuss the San Diego section in detail, that's because I'm trying to forget that it ever happened.