By ALEX FUNG
June 3rd, 1997

I'm not much of a fan of cinema as sheer spectacle, and consequently Jurassic Park was not exactly among my favourite films of 1993; while everyone else was wowed by the spectacular recreations of the dinosaurs, roaring and stomping their way across the screen, I was generally negative about the film because of its lack of plot and weak characterisations. (One should safely conclude that if there was no Jurassic Park, there would have been no Twister.) As a result, I was a little bit surprised with The Lost World: Jurassic Park - once again, little things like, oh, a decent plot and interesting characters would probably have been too much to ask, but I found this sequel to be slightly superior to its predecessor due to its superficially darker, more vicious tone.

To nobody's surprise except for the characters in The Lost World, something has survived, and the astonishingly annoying Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is summoned by cheery INGEN founder John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to join an expedition quartet to venture to Site B, 80 miles away from the original Jurassic Park island, where the dinosaurs have been flourishing unimpeded for the past four years. Hammond instantly refuses, as David Koepp's miserably predictable screenplay calls for, but after finding that girlfriend Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already frolicking about on the island, Dian Fossey-style, we find him on a boat speeding towards Site B, accompanied by team members Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn) and Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), and unbeknownst to him, fulfilling the requisite child demographic, his stowaway daughter, Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester).

As in Jurassic Park, the characters in The Lost World are so bland and unengaging that it becomes nearly impossible to feel any vested interest in the predicament in which they find themselves - in fact, the most interesting character in the film isn't even one of its four protagonists, but Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), a big-game hunter in a sadly smallish role who, while not quite falling into the villanous camp, can be termed more of an anti-hero than anything else. Julianne Moore, a terrific actress of the first order, is wasted in this film with an uncompelling character who has nothing to do.

Given this dearth of empathetic characters, I consequently couldn't help but once again root for the rampaging bloodthirsty dinosaurs, and in this installment of the series, I had a lot more to cheer about: The Lost World is pleasantly much less sanitized than its family-friendly predecessor. There's significantly fewer of the warm fuzzy sequences where the heroes gaze up at the dinosaurs in awe as the magnificent beasts contentedly graze on leaves, and although the cute kid factor is still present, Ms. Chester has much less of a presence in the film than Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello had in Jurassic Park. Gone in The Lost World are John Williams' bleating Jurassic Park theme, and ridiculous sequences such as that insulting animated "Introduction to Dinosaur DNA cloning" clip, which certainly led to gems like the Jami ("What is that? What does that mean? Who? What? When? Where? Why?") Gertz character in Twister. Instead, The Lost World features a darker atmosphere, both in terms of tone and lighting, a suitably-gloomy John Williams score, and more carnage. Granted, most of the dinosaur appetizers are predictably villainous in nature (and, as the filmmakers would have you hope, are consequently getting their just desserts), and most of the violence is offscreen (the majority of the onscreen gore is cartoonish and halfhearted - one can only dream about getting Tom Savini involved in a sequel), but this more-threatening tone is a big step forward for The Lost World; unlike in its predecessor, it helps to present the dinosaurs as a truly threatening force against the film's protagonists, which can be rather important when half the film involves the heroes fleeing from the beasts. Unfortunately, it does drop the ball by featuring several goofy sequences such as the Kelly gymnastic rescue and taking the easy route with unfunny, predictable gags like that involving a young boy awaking to a surprise outside his window.

This probably amounts to cinematic heresy, but I've never been an ardent admirer of Steven Spielberg's direction, which has frequently struck me as astonishingly unsubtle; Mr. Spielberg is often not content with merely making a point - he often appears to feel obligated to sledgehammer the point home and then put a flashing strobe on top of it to ensure that nobody's missed it. There are scenes in films such as E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park which are so unsubtle that a flashing cue at the bottom of the shot reading "Cry here" or "Cheer here" would not be out of place. Fortunately, there isn't anything in The Lost World which quite approaches the cheese factor of the scene in Jurassic Park where John Williams' heroic anthem is cued as a menacing T-Rex is attacked by another dinosaur, thereby allowing our so-called heroes to escape to safety as a helpful "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth" banner flutters down the screen, but Mr. Spielberg condescends to the audience in several scenes in the picture, such as an exhilirating sequence in which the Evil team of dino-hunting mercenaries under the employ of the stereotypically-snooty Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), Hammond's nephew, roar in on jeeps and motorcycles and infiltrate a dinosaur stampede, capturing a number of the beasts. Untrusted to come to our own judgements as to the ethics of their actions, Mr. Spielberg ham-handedly cuts to the stern, disapproving reaction shots of our protagonists as the captured dinosaurs squeal pathetically and vainly struggle against their confines (also known as the "Look At What Those Bad Bad People Are Doing" shot). All that was needed to complete the intended effect was for Dr. Malcolm to shout "They're not in it for the science - they're in it for the money!" as an anonymous black van sped through the shot.

The pacing in the film is varied. A showcase sequence involving the team mobile trailer hanging precariously over the edge of a cliff, our heroes clinging for dear life while an angry T-Rex batters away at it, seems to run about ten minutes, and is astonishingly dull. The familial conflict between Dr. Malcolm and Kelly near the opening of the film, rings utterly false and feels completely obligatory, as do Dr. Malcolm's harsh words for Ludlow upon his visit to Hammond. However, the film's opening sequence, while completely predictable, is quite effective, as is a good sequence where one of the mercenaries gets separated from his group. Staggered, bitten, bloody and disoriented after fighting off a dino swarming, I was hoping for Deiter Stark (Peter Stormare, rehashing the Wayne Knight role from Jurassic Park) to mumble "Unguent. I need..unguent."

Ultimately, The Lost World fails on several counts: it fails to create tension, it fails to give us interesting characters to care about, and most importantly for a film of this nature, it simply fails to consistently entertain. It's a bit better than Jurassic Park, but that isn't saying much, is it?

Written by Alex Fung (aw220@freenet.carleton.ca), 97/06/03

Back to film page.