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The Lost World: Jurassic Park
4 years after incidents of first movie, a crew of 4 is sent to site b of Jurassic Park to obtain photo record of dinosaurs in the wild. The plan is to use this data to rally support from various organisations to let dinosaurs live in the habitat without human interruption. But his board members have other ulterior corporate motives.
As entertaining as it is , this movie is no Jurassic Park. That's partly because it has lost the novelty of going to the Island for the first time and seeing Dinosaurs. First movie has lot of details it can chew on. Establishing the park and its rules. No sequel can capture that. Even Spielberg couldn't prevent parts of the movie from sounding dumb. But the interesting and unique thing about Spielberg that makes him stand out from other directors is that he knows he is making a popcorn blockbuster and he wants to make it good.
The reason to go back to the islands is a little silly. But its acceptable. The usual parent children relationship that has become a staple in Spielberg is present in this movie as well. The team dynamic between the science guy, the reporter , Jeff Goldblum and Julianne moore is very well crafted. Most of the time, Spielberg movies have these running gags between characters that are relatable to audience. In this movie it is the dialogue about how to treat electronic products. That's a clever element. Because the circumstances in this movie are so heightened that it is hard for audience to feel like the movie is taking place in real world. So this running gag helps audience relate to the characters in this movie. He casts actors that fit the part so well that very rarely do you need exposition to connect with audience. There are few characters like that. The science guy among goldblum's crew, the womanizing reporter played by Vince Vaughn, the head of the hunting crew(Pete Postlethwaite) , his arrogant deputy in charge and the evil corporate guy. One exposition dump kind of felt unnecessary for Postlethwaite's character.
The scope of these Jurassic Park movies is very contained. The whole movie takes place in a jungle. They were able to amplify the scope of the first one by showing the vastness of the Island. It felt big. In this movie, even though they do the same, the scope for the jungle part of it felt smaller than the first. The movie seems to have been divided into set pieces. The truck being pushed off cliff, the T-Rex attack on their base camp, the Velociraptor attack and the San Diego attack. The first movie felt way more fluid in its transition from place to place but in this movie, it doesn't feel so. It felt rather deliberate. One of the things that pissed me off in this movie is the dumbness of characters which is very unusual for a Spielberg movie. Most of the time characters in Spielberg movie have common sense. But in this movie the characters felt unusually dumb. The whole concept of animal rights is cute, but trying to save the creatures that could directly cause you mortal danger in a matter of minutes/hours/instantly is kinda stupid. That can really get under audiences' nerves.
In well crafted epic action adventures like this, movies are a series of gripping action set pieces. A whole movie can never be memorable. Its the sequences in the movie that are memorable and the more of those there are the more of a chance that the movie will be a masterpiece. Great directors can create that. Other directors most of the time will create a sequence that might be impressive visually but doesn't work. So,the directorial choice to have the whole San Diego sequence take place at night is brilliant. That helps distinguishing the lush,dense and dangerous island jungle from the city. Two things that stuck me that are brilliant in terms of film making are the death of deputy of Postlethwaite in the hands of pack of Compsognathus and the exploration of the concept of alpha predator in the movie. The movie deals with the term Alpha Predator much more extensively than the first one. We see glimpses of it in the first but in this movie it is much more dense. When in jungle if you come across a lion or a tiger most of the times it behaves like its the king of the jungle. The moment a lion is in a city or even in circus it knows its place. The bottom line is most wild animals don't behave like they are at the top of the food chain all the time. But a Dinosaur when resurrected is gonna behave like it is at the top of the food chain. The dialogue by the arrogant deputy of Postlethwaite alludes to that when he says " Its like it's not even scared..it gives me the creeps". That summarizes the kind of ideas this movie contains. It explains why T-Rex just walks into the streets because it knows that it has been the alpha predator last time it was on Earth. The death of Deputy by a pack of Compsognathus shows how dangerous packs of animals can be. Individually they can't do anything. It shows just how dangerous the jungles are and the massive costs of a small mishap. His mundane trip to go to toilet leads to his death. That's all it takes in a jungle as dangerous as the one in the movie.
This movie got a bad rap for following up the Jurassic Park. It ages well because Spielberg made the movie look authentic. It doesn't have any of those 90s cheese. That's mainly because of Spielberg.
4 years after incidents of first movie, a crew of 4 is sent to site b of Jurassic Park to obtain photo record of dinosaurs in the wild. The plan is to use this data to rally support from various organisations to let dinosaurs live in the habitat without human interruption. But his board members have other ulterior corporate motives.
As entertaining as it is , this movie is no Jurassic Park. That's partly because it has lost the novelty of going to the Island for the first time and seeing Dinosaurs. First movie has lot of details it can chew on. Establishing the park and its rules. No sequel can capture that. Even Spielberg couldn't prevent parts of the movie from sounding dumb. But the interesting and unique thing about Spielberg that makes him stand out from other directors is that he knows he is making a popcorn blockbuster and he wants to make it good.
The reason to go back to the islands is a little silly. But its acceptable. The usual parent children relationship that has become a staple in Spielberg is present in this movie as well. The team dynamic between the science guy, the reporter , Jeff Goldblum and Julianne moore is very well crafted. Most of the time, Spielberg movies have these running gags between characters that are relatable to audience. In this movie it is the dialogue about how to treat electronic products. That's a clever element. Because the circumstances in this movie are so heightened that it is hard for audience to feel like the movie is taking place in real world. So this running gag helps audience relate to the characters in this movie. He casts actors that fit the part so well that very rarely do you need exposition to connect with audience. There are few characters like that. The science guy among goldblum's crew, the womanizing reporter played by Vince Vaughn, the head of the hunting crew(Pete Postlethwaite) , his arrogant deputy in charge and the evil corporate guy. One exposition dump kind of felt unnecessary for Postlethwaite's character.
The scope of these Jurassic Park movies is very contained. The whole movie takes place in a jungle. They were able to amplify the scope of the first one by showing the vastness of the Island. It felt big. In this movie, even though they do the same, the scope for the jungle part of it felt smaller than the first. The movie seems to have been divided into set pieces. The truck being pushed off cliff, the T-Rex attack on their base camp, the Velociraptor attack and the San Diego attack. The first movie felt way more fluid in its transition from place to place but in this movie, it doesn't feel so. It felt rather deliberate. One of the things that pissed me off in this movie is the dumbness of characters which is very unusual for a Spielberg movie. Most of the time characters in Spielberg movie have common sense. But in this movie the characters felt unusually dumb. The whole concept of animal rights is cute, but trying to save the creatures that could directly cause you mortal danger in a matter of minutes/hours/instantly is kinda stupid. That can really get under audiences' nerves.
In well crafted epic action adventures like this, movies are a series of gripping action set pieces. A whole movie can never be memorable. Its the sequences in the movie that are memorable and the more of those there are the more of a chance that the movie will be a masterpiece. Great directors can create that. Other directors most of the time will create a sequence that might be impressive visually but doesn't work. So,the directorial choice to have the whole San Diego sequence take place at night is brilliant. That helps distinguishing the lush,dense and dangerous island jungle from the city. Two things that stuck me that are brilliant in terms of film making are the death of deputy of Postlethwaite in the hands of pack of Compsognathus and the exploration of the concept of alpha predator in the movie. The movie deals with the term Alpha Predator much more extensively than the first one. We see glimpses of it in the first but in this movie it is much more dense. When in jungle if you come across a lion or a tiger most of the times it behaves like its the king of the jungle. The moment a lion is in a city or even in circus it knows its place. The bottom line is most wild animals don't behave like they are at the top of the food chain all the time. But a Dinosaur when resurrected is gonna behave like it is at the top of the food chain. The dialogue by the arrogant deputy of Postlethwaite alludes to that when he says " Its like it's not even scared..it gives me the creeps". That summarizes the kind of ideas this movie contains. It explains why T-Rex just walks into the streets because it knows that it has been the alpha predator last time it was on Earth. The death of Deputy by a pack of Compsognathus shows how dangerous packs of animals can be. Individually they can't do anything. It shows just how dangerous the jungles are and the massive costs of a small mishap. His mundane trip to go to toilet leads to his death. That's all it takes in a jungle as dangerous as the one in the movie.
This movie got a bad rap for following up the Jurassic Park. It ages well because Spielberg made the movie look authentic. It doesn't have any of those 90s cheese. That's mainly because of Spielberg.