Synopsis
The second site was left to its own devices when Jurassic Park fell. InGen want to take control, but Hammond wants to leave the dinosaurs to roam freely there. He sends a team to document the dinosaurs before the company can interfere.
Review
I don't think The Lost World ever really stood a chance of living up to Jurassic Park, but it does at least try to do something different. JP was on InGen's turf, LW is on the dinosaur's turf, it's a much more rugged experience.
Isla Sorna, Site B, was left untouched by everything when Jurassic Park was overrun. A family stop at the island for an idyllic waterside lunch they happen across a pack of Compy that decide to have a little snack of their own in the shape of the couple's daughter. Using this incident to their advantage InGen is seized from Hammond and they plan to use the dinosaurs to make back some of the company loses.
Hammond recruits four experts to go and document the island so he can fight the plan. Dr Ian Malcolm says no and is set on convincing the others to do the same, that is until he learns that his girlfriend Sarah has already said yes and is on the island. He goes to bring her back but things get complicated when InGen's team arrive and start capturing dinosaurs for their project. The plans of the two teams are at odds and their actions soon get them noticed by a larger foe.
Jeff Goldblum is back as Dr Ian Malcolm, no scenes quite as good as that one in Jurassic Park but we can't get lucky every time. Julianne Moore plays Sarah Harding, Malcolm's intrepid girlfriend. The two are very good together on screen and it's a dynamic very different from the Grant/Sattler relationship in the first film. They're backed up by Vince Vaughn as Nick Van Owen who is very much a blueprint for the type of roles that Vaughn does, and Richard Schiff as Eddie Carr the slightly nervous (and rightly so) tech and recon guy. Heading up the InGen team is Roland Tembo played by Pete Postlethwaite. Postlethwaite gave a great performance in this and I loved that while he was the bad guy he had a certain something about him that didn't scream baddie.
The general look of the film is a lot darker. It's more in keeping with the fact everything is wild in this incarnation rather than in a glossy park. There's always just the right amount of light to show the scenes without being unnatural and it really adds to the atmosphere, particularly in the T-Rex attack.
Rex really has his moment of glory in this film. I love the T-Rex at the best of times but watching him interact with the modern world is great fun. This whole sequence has a lot of humour in it, from barging past the docks' quarantine signs to the kid's parents grumbling about the nightlight. Although it's slightly tainted by the dog incident but somehow in this context it's not so bad.
I love the trivia that's listed on IMDb, one piece in particular that's in relation to the sequence above. There's a group of Japanese tourists running from the T-Rex that fans of the original Godzilla movies would recognise with glee, but it lists that one of them says "I left Japan to get away from this!" in Japanese. On the rewatch I couldn't hear anything but screaming, but I really hope it's true because it's kind of fun.
While I don't think it's better than the first film there's no denying that they created another great Jurassic Park film. More amazing effects and the classic John Williams music. There are a few nice nods back to the first film, they really like their rippling water and it also honours the sense of karma in a big way.
What you should do
If you're watching the first one then you might as well watch this one too!
Movie thing you wish you could take home
The baby Rex is kind of cute, if a little lethal, maybe I'll just get a Funko Pop version to go with my Ian Malcolm instead.
Comments
Post a Comment