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The Lost World: Jurassic Park Movie Review

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a 1997 science fiction action film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore. It’s a weak sequel.

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“Don’t worry, I’m not making the same mistakes again.

No, you’re making all new ones“

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Four years after the events of the original film, John Hammond sends a team to Isla Sorna, the second island Hammond’s company InGen used to make the dinosaurs, to study the animals while coming into conflict with a team led by InGen to bring some of the dinosaurs back onto homeland. This is a tired plot that is so inferior to the first movie’s much deeper and much more interesting storyline.

The main reason why this movie is so middling lies in its approach. Whereas the first movie was a science fiction adventure, this one is more of a science fiction action flick designed to appeal to the dumbest masses. I found most of the movie’s action typical, tiresome and simply not all that fun. Some scenes are good, but most bored me quite a bit.

The movie does benefit from two good central characters. Jeff Goldblum is promoted here to basically the protagonist role and he’s once again a lot of fun, funny and very charismatic. Julianne Moore plays his girlfriend who is a paleontologist and she’s also excellent in one of her earlier roles. They are a good couple. Vince Vaughn is more forgettable, though, but Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond is a serviceable, but obviously stereotypical character.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is at its best in the first half where the story at least had some traction, it was engaging to watch and less action-oriented. I liked its more character-driven, more realistic approach. But then came the second half where they ruined everything with consistent spectacle that was borderline annoying and far from memorable.

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The movie does benefit from excellent CGI, especially for its time. It’s more extensively reliant on computer imagery instead of models, but it works as the dinosaurs are well designed and they look cool. The score is also pretty good as is the well-utilized setting. But Spielberg’s direction is certainly one of his weakest.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a weak sequel that benefits from excellent special effects, a solid first half and memorable Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore, but the second half is too extensive in terms of action scenes and simply not engaging enough. The story is also tiresome while the original’s rich themes and adventure elements are entirely lost here.