232. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming.
Title: The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Date Watched: 8/16/2013
Original Ranking Out of 10: N/A
Revised Ranking Out of 10: 6
Synopsis: Ian Malcolm goes to a different island with dinosaurs and it's not too different from the last time.
The Good: More dinosaurs and at least one really spectacular sequence.
The Bad: Storyline is pretty silly. The ending isn't as much fun as it should be.
Why Do I Own This Movie?: Oh, it was cheap and I have a Spielberg/dinosaur fetish.
Should I Still Own This Movie?: I'm going to say yes, but don't hold that against me.
What Did I Notice That I Didn't Notice Before?: Are the special effects worse than they were in the previous movie? I had completely forgotten Vince Vaughn was in this and I'm not sure who is taller: him or Goldblum.
Other Impressions: I remember liking this more than the first one when I saw it in theaters some 15 years ago, but I was also too cool for school when it came to the first one because "It wasn't as good as the book." On the rewatch, it's pretty clear that the first one was the better movie and this was just an excuse to show dinosaurs, not that there's anything wrong with that.
There aren't as many memorable moments in the sequel as there were in the original and, though it tries to make things bigger and better, it sort of weakens the effect in the process. In the first movie, it was terrifying to have the two kids in the kitchen with the three velociraptors. Here, there's an attack by more of them (I think -- I didn't actually count) where adults easily outrun, outmaneuver, and outsmart them.
Wasn't the whole point that we couldn't do any of those things?
What the sequel does have is one hell of an exciting sequence that involves a trailer dangling over the edge of a cliff. It goes on *forever* and manages to maintain that kind of white-knuckle, teeth-clenching excitement the entire way through, upping the ante even when it seems like things couldn't get worse. Yes, there are some questionable moments (why would the T-rexes suddenly give up and would putting the car into reverse actually make a difference when it can't get a grip in the mud?), but they're minor and fixing them would lessen the impact of the sequence.
I said Jurassic Park was Spielberg on auto-pilot -- other than a few key moments, this is him on auto-pilot while in the back of the plane taking a nap. It's still pretty entertaining and, even if the dinosaurs look even more like CGI/puppets, I enjoyed the trip back to the universe -- really, there's infinite possibilities for a sequel here and I hope number four explores some of them.
The List
Title: The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Date Watched: 8/16/2013
Original Ranking Out of 10: N/A
Revised Ranking Out of 10: 6
Synopsis: Ian Malcolm goes to a different island with dinosaurs and it's not too different from the last time.
The Good: More dinosaurs and at least one really spectacular sequence.
The Bad: Storyline is pretty silly. The ending isn't as much fun as it should be.
Why Do I Own This Movie?: Oh, it was cheap and I have a Spielberg/dinosaur fetish.
Should I Still Own This Movie?: I'm going to say yes, but don't hold that against me.
What Did I Notice That I Didn't Notice Before?: Are the special effects worse than they were in the previous movie? I had completely forgotten Vince Vaughn was in this and I'm not sure who is taller: him or Goldblum.
Other Impressions: I remember liking this more than the first one when I saw it in theaters some 15 years ago, but I was also too cool for school when it came to the first one because "It wasn't as good as the book." On the rewatch, it's pretty clear that the first one was the better movie and this was just an excuse to show dinosaurs, not that there's anything wrong with that.
There aren't as many memorable moments in the sequel as there were in the original and, though it tries to make things bigger and better, it sort of weakens the effect in the process. In the first movie, it was terrifying to have the two kids in the kitchen with the three velociraptors. Here, there's an attack by more of them (I think -- I didn't actually count) where adults easily outrun, outmaneuver, and outsmart them.
Wasn't the whole point that we couldn't do any of those things?
What the sequel does have is one hell of an exciting sequence that involves a trailer dangling over the edge of a cliff. It goes on *forever* and manages to maintain that kind of white-knuckle, teeth-clenching excitement the entire way through, upping the ante even when it seems like things couldn't get worse. Yes, there are some questionable moments (why would the T-rexes suddenly give up and would putting the car into reverse actually make a difference when it can't get a grip in the mud?), but they're minor and fixing them would lessen the impact of the sequence.
I said Jurassic Park was Spielberg on auto-pilot -- other than a few key moments, this is him on auto-pilot while in the back of the plane taking a nap. It's still pretty entertaining and, even if the dinosaurs look even more like CGI/puppets, I enjoyed the trip back to the universe -- really, there's infinite possibilities for a sequel here and I hope number four explores some of them.
The List