Stuff I Grew Up With/Franchises: Jurassic Park. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

I had heard rumors that there was possibly going to be a sequel to Jurassic Park a couple of years after the original film's release but, after awhile, it seemed like they were just rumors. And then, in early 1997, as had been the case with the original, Mom and I saw an ad on TV that proved that a second film was indeed going to arrive on Memorial Day that year. The most tantalizing thing that the commercial showed was that there were going to be two T-Rexes this time instead of just one, which got me really excited. Soon, more ads started coming, toys (which I bought a lot of) started hitting the stores, and finally, Mom and I went to see the movie after I got out of school for that summer. I actually saw it twice the theater, which is something I never do, because my aunt and her boyfriend also took me to see it for my birthday that June, even though I had already seen it. So, what were my initial impressions of the movie as a ten-year old? Basically the the same as my opinion of it now as an adult: I like it but not nearly as much as the first movie. There's no denying that, for the most part, it's another exciting adventure movie, with the same amazing special effects and kickass dinosaurs (including some new ones that weren't in the first movie) but, at the same time, there's something missing. For a long time, I couldn't put my finger on what it was but, over the years, I've finally figured it out: the sense of wonder the sense of wonder that permeated the first movie is almost completely absent here. Except for the instance where the characters first arrive on the island and come across a herd of Stegosaurs, as well as the last scene where you see the dinosaurs living out their lives on the island, the dinosaurs are now treated mainly as monsters rather than animals simply doing what they do. Not that I mind since I love monster movies and also, I guess after the first movie did such a good job of portraying the wonderment, there was no need to do it again or any way that they could without it coming across as "been there, done that" (although the movie does have that problem in another way) but it does ultimately result in this movie not having the magic that the first film did. Also, I said that it is exciting for the most part but I also can't deny that there are a number of moments where the movie drags as well, a problem that the first movie didn't have in my opinion, even during the relatively slow first half.

The basic story is that, four years after the events of the first movie, Dr. Ian Malcolm, whose academic reputation and standing was destroyed after he publicly talked about what happened at Jurassic Park, visits John Hammond's estate after the latter's greedy nephew Peter Ludlow, takes over his company, InGen. Malcolm learns from Hammond that there is another island containing genetically created dinosaurs on: Isla Sorna or Site B, where the dinosaurs were actually bred and nurtured before being moved to the park on Isla Nublar. The island and the dinosaurs were abandoned shortly after the disaster at Jurassic Park when a hurricane hit the spot and yet, the dinosaurs have been fluorishing there with no human contact. Over the years, Hammond has been trying to keep the island's existence hidden from the public but it's recently been discovered by accident when a wealthy British family on a yacht cruise stopped there for lunch and their daughter was attacked by a group of small but fierce dinosaurs called Compies, an incident that Ludlow has used as the means to take control of InGen. Hammond knows that Ludlow plans to exploit the island in order to keep InGen going as a company and intends to stop him but, in order to do so, he needs a record of the dinosaurs living there peacefully to gain public support and he's sending a small team to accomplish this goal, a team that he hopes Malcolm will join. Malcolm initially refuses but, when he learns that his girlfriend, paleontologist Sarah Harding, has gone to the island by herself, he joins the team to find her. Upon reaching the island, things quickly go south as Malcolm learns that Sarah has no intention of leaving, that his daughter, Kelly, has unknowingly come along for the ride, and, worst of all, a team of InGen mercenaries led by Ludlow arrives in order to capture some dinosaurs and take them back to a park in San Diego. The group manages to stop the mercenaries from doing so but they soon become trapped on the island with no way to escape or call for help and are forced to journey through the dangerous island interior in order to reach the old compound to contact a rescue team. And even after they manage do so, they discover that Ludlow, still desperate to recoup his company's losses, is up to something that could put the entire city of San Diego in danger.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park is kind of a unique film in Steven Spielberg's filmography because, as he himself says in the special features on the Blu-Ray, it's the only true sequel he's ever directed. Granted, he's directed all of the Indiana Jones film but all of those movies from Temple of Doom aren't sequels to Raiders of the Lost Ark so much as they are different, separate adventures that the lead character has embarked upon, much like the James Bond movies; here, though, we do have a film that is a direct continuation of the first film's story, which is rare for Spielberg to be in the director's chair for since the only other film of his that became a franchise was Jaws and he had nothing to do with the three other installments there. Another thing that it's interesting about the film is that, in my opinion, it feels less like a traditional Spielberg movie than the first one did. In fact, if you had told me that someone else directed it, I wouldn't have been inclined to disbelieve you. I don't know why that is, exactly. Maybe it's because this film has less of the sense of wonder that the first film did, which Spielberg also often puts in his movies, and is more of a straightforward monster/survival movie, or because it was made during that period after Schindler's List where Spielberg was transitioning away from the big, spectacle movies he was known for in favor of darker, more hard-hitting stuff like Amistad and Saving Private Ryan and a bit of that leaked into the movie, but, whatever the case, this film has a noticeably different flavor than both the first film and what Spielberg is usually known for.

Jeff Goldblum returns as Dr. Ian Malcolm and is pretty much the main actor of the movie this time around, which is nice to see since I'm a fan of his as an actor, and I think he does a commendable job. He portrays Malcolm as being much more cynical than he already was in the first movie, with not as much light-hearted, easygoing humor as he threw in before. He still makes jokes but it's in a much more disillusioned, bitter tone than it was previously. It's perfectly understandable since Malcolm warned Hammond that what he was doing could be very dangerous and then, he experienced firsthand why it was dangerous, ending up with a shattered leg by the end of that film. As if that weren't enough, in the years since he's been publicly disgraced for talking about what happened (as you can see in his first scene when some dickhead humiliates him on a crowded train), having lost all credibility in the academic world, and now he learns that there's not only another island filled with dinosaurs but that Hammond is planning to send a team of people there, including his own girlfriend. Speaking of Hammond, it's interesting how his relationship with Malcolm has switched around, with him now being more accomodating and friendly towards Malcolm than in the first movie (no doubt because he now understands how right he was) while Malcolm comes across as more antagonistic towards the old man whereas before, he was rather jokey with him when he wasn't warning him how dangerous the idea of Jurassic Park was. He doesn't seem to really appreciate what Hammond is trying to do, cynically telling him at one point, "So you went from capitalist to naturalist in just four years. That's something." All he can hear is that he's putting people in danger again, with it becoming personal when he learns that Sarah Harding has been sent there by herself, prompting him to tell Hammond, "It's fine if you wanna put your name on something but stop putting it on other people's tombstones." You also learn that Malcolm's personal life isn't the best, with him having an uneasy relationship with his daughter, whose mother has pretty much abandoned them both and gone to Paris. It's clear that he does love Kelly and tries to do what he can for her but he's not there for her that often, something that Kelly is now tired of. He has a similar relationship with Sarah, who says that she's made a career out of waiting for him and says that this is the one time where she doesn't need him to "rescue" her, which grates on him since he's terrified of Isla Sorna and is afraid that she won't last long there by herself. Of course, their differences gradually get worked out as the movie goes on and they face danger together, with Malcolm being there for both his girlfriend and daughter constantly and it all culminating in them apparently being together as a family by the end, which is a very "Hollywood" way of doing so, but it's still nice to see them try to give Malcolm some depth rather than have Goldblum go through the motions during his return and I think he handles himself very well.

Julianne Moore plays Malcolm's paleontologist girlfriend, Dr. Sarah Harding, and unlike Malcolm, she's not all scared of the dinosaurs and even gets dangerously close to them to study them. You find out that she leapt at the opportunity to come to the island since she met Malcolm when he was in a hospital in Costa Rica after the events of the first movie and he told her so much about what happened, which only fueled her curiosity rather than frightened her. Not only does she apparently agree with what Hammond is trying to do but she thinks she can debunk some old theories about dinosaur behavior by studying them in the wild rather than making educated guesses about them like everyone else has been forced to before. After what she goes through in this movie, though, I can't help but wonder if her opinion on dinosaurs changes somewhat, even if it doesn't become as cynical as her boyfriend's was by the end of the first movie. And as I mentioned when I was talking about Malcolm's character, Sarah's relationship with him is quite similar to his daughter's: she loves him but feels that she's not there for him as much as he could be and this is one time where she feels she doesn't need him to come to her rescue. Again, though, that conflict kind of gets pushed to the side when they end up battling dinosaurs together and seems to have worked itself out by the end since the two of them have apparently ended up as something of a family along with Kelly but, as with Goldblum, Moore manages to play it very well and also comes across as genuinely intelligent, like she knows what she's talking about and doing when discussing the dinosaurs and how to deal with them, as well as brave, only screaming during times when anyone would.

Vince Vaughn appears in what has to be his first really big movie as Nick Van Owen, a video documentarian and environmentalist who's part of the team Hammond sends to Isla Sorna. Now, I'm not a big fan of Vaughn or his style of acting, particularly in all those comedies he did with Owen Wilson, but back when I first saw the movie as a kid, I didn't mind him (although I had no idea who he was back then, nor did many other people) and I still don't to this day. His character isn't very deep but he doesn't annoy me and, I have to admit, there are moments where I do find him to be kind of cool, like when he, along with Sarah, sneaks into the InGen camp and lets all of the dinosaurs loose, having known ahead of time that they would probably show up. Being an environmentalist, his natural instincts are to help the dinosaurs, which lead him to help the baby T-Rex that Roland Tembo, the big game hunter, injured in order to draw out the big male, but, as a consequence, he puts himself, Sarah, and Malcolm in danger when the baby's parents come for their child. Speaking of Tembo, his attitude often puts him at odds with the hunter, who instantly recognizes him from some environmental rallies he attended, and the two of them constantly antagonize each other, leading to Nick removing the shells from his gun to ensure that he won't be able to kill one of the Tyrannosaurs. Truth be told, when he first appears he admits that he only joined Greenpeace simply because most of it is made up of women and that he's even going on the expedition to Isla Sorna, which he considers to be a wild goose chase, because Hammond's check cleared, but once he gets on the island and sees that the dinosaurs are indeed real, it inspires him to do what he does throughout the film. Overall, his character may be pretty standard and some of the stuff he says about protecting the dinosaurs and the cruel nature of man may be overdone and too on the nose but, on the whole, I think Vaughn handles himself pretty well here. He does a lot better than he would the following year when he tried to step into the shoes of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in the Psycho remake and failed miserably at it (another movie with Julianne Moore, weirdly enough).

Richard Schiff as Eddie Carr, the field equipment expert, doesn't have many lines or really much to do and I'm not that much of a fan of the awkward-type of humor he tries to do as the character but I do like the back and forth he has with Goldblum, with Malcolm becoming increasingly frustrated over the course of the film with how his satellite phone refuses to work when he needs it to and Carr talking him down and explaining why it isn't working. I also feel kind of bad for the guy since he's clearly out of his gourd on the island and is not quite able to deal with the stuff he's seeing, being something of a timid person and all, which makes it even worse when he's the first one to die, getting pulled apart by the two Tyrannosaurs. But, what I do like is that he went out as a hero and made it so that Malcolm, Sarah, and Nick could escape the trailers that were hanging off the edge of the cliff. There's nothing whatsoever heroic about Arliss Howard as the really despicable character of Peter Ludlow, Hammond's nephew and new head of InGen. Unfortunately, he's portrayed as such in a very typical fashion: the greedy English businessman who has a sense of nothing less than arrogance and snobbery about him (his comment towards Malcolm when you first meet him is enough to make you want to punch his lights out), doesn't care what happens to anyone else as long as he's able to get ahead, and is actually the one behind Malcolm's academic reputation being sullied. Despite what happens on the island, Ludlow never learns his lesson, going so far as to bring one of the Tyrannosaurs back to San Diego to salvage the company, and even after all of the chaos and havoc the dinosaur causes, is determined to at least keep the infant to ensure that they get something out of the fiasco. It's a real shame that his death is off-camera but, on the other hand, it is satisfying to know that the baby T-Rex manages to get some revenge for all of the crap he's been put through by Ludlow's team by killing him himself. I've also never minded Vanessa Lee Chester as Kelly, Malcolm's daughter, and I actually think she's less annoying than how Lex and Tim, who do have a small cameo at the beginning, were at points in the first movie, although she really did not need to be part of the story because she does nothing significant other than kick a Velociraptor through a wall (something any of the adults could have done) so we could have a cute callback to a remark she made at the beginning about being cut from the gymnastics team; otherwise, she's nothing more than a helpless kid who has to be led around by the adults. There is that aforementioned conflict between her and her dad but, like I said, that gets resolved pretty easily and quickly once they start getting chased by dinosaurs. Speaking of which, I've always wondered why she seems to be completely African-American and not a mixture with Caucasian, which is what she'd have to be. Maybe I'm just not that knowledgeable about such things but that doesn't make much sense to me. Also, didn't Malcolm say in the first movie that he had three kids? What happened to the other two?

Richard Attenborough, the only other returning actor from the first film, reprises his role as Hammond. He only appears twice in the entire film, at the beginning and at the very end, but Attenborough manages to make him just as warm and welcoming a character as he was before but also add a feeling of guilt over the tragedy that happened in the first film that he understands was his fault. He knows he's made some serious mistakes and is trying to do what he can to set things right and redeem himself by ensuring that these creatures that he and his company have created can live in peace and solitude, separated from mankind and those who would exploit them. As Malcolm himself mentions, albeit in a rather cynical way, he's gone from a billionaire who, whether he knew it or not, exploited nature, to a naturalist who now respects nature and feels that mankind must learn to step aside and let life find a way. And while it's never explicitly stated, the IV you see beside Hammond's bed during his first scene and the rather weak, frail way he looks and acts suggests that he's dying and is trying to accomplish his goal in the short amount of time he has left, which could very add another meaning to his statement to Malcolm, "It's our last chance for redemption." Attenborough may not have nearly as much to do this time around but, as always, he's simply a joy to watch and brings the same feeling of gravitas to the film and character as he did before, especially in his ending monologue.

The other members of the InGen team are pretty forgettable. There's the asshole second-in-command, Dieter (Peter Stormare), who comes across as a genuinely standoffish, dickish person who ultimately gets eaten alive by the Compies, which he had coming since he was being cruel to them with his cattleprod; the Spanish guy Carter (Thomas Rosales Jr.) who gets stepped on by one of the Tyrannosaurs and ends up stuck in its foot (!); and Dr. Robert Burke (Thomas F. Duffy) the team's dinosaur "expert" (I put expert in quotation marks because a lot of the information he gives proves to be fatally wrong) who gets eaten by one of the T-Rexes because he did the stupidest thing imaginable: panicking because a freaking snake, which I know was not venomous, slithered into his shirt. Buddy, you're cornered by a T-Rex. just grin and bare it! However, the one member of the team who is very memorable and whom I really like is Pete Postelthwaite as the big game hunter Roland Tembo, the head of the team who admits early on to Ludlow that he's only there so he can hunt the male Tyrannosaurus, who he considers to be the ultimate game. This guy is just a bad-ass, take no shit type of person who makes it clear to Ludlow during his first scene that not only does he not particularly like him but also that he's in charge and he'd better do what he says if he doesn't want to get eaten and also that he doesn't care about money, that his fee will be the opportunity to hunt the male Tyrannosaurus. As I said earlier, his profession often puts him at odds with Nick Van Owen and the two of them openly antagonize each other about it, with Tembo at one point telling him that to him, hunting the T-Rex is really living to the fullest, just like climbing to the top of Mt. Everest. I think they really should have left in Tembo's original introductory scene where he laments about how he's hunted and killed just about every major predator on the planet and is initially reluctant to head the expedition to Isla Sorna since he doesn't think there's anything there that would prove to be a really challenging quarry because it would have made Tembo's need for the T-Rex even more clear. In addition, it also would have fleshed out his relationship with Ajay (Harvey Jason), who you do get a feeling in the final film is his best friend since he always sticks close to Tembo, is the only member of the team who assists him in his solo hunt, and Tembo is depressed over his death in his last scene, but that deleted scene shows that they did indeed have a solid history with each other and a friendship. That's what's also great about Tembo: although he doesn't spend much time lamenting the deaths of the others who get killed and sometimes seems rather insensitive about it, he's not a cold-blooded, fanatical person who's going to put those with him in danger. Besides scolding Ludlow for ordering camp to be set up on a game trail where they could get attacked by predators, he has his men help Malcolm, Sarah, and Nick after they narrowly escape falling down the side of the cliff with their trailers and also allows the group to take a break from walking across the island, even asking Sarah if she's injured when he sees the baby T-Rex's blood on her shirt, and that night gives them plenty of time to sleep before tackling the most difficult part of the journey. While he does end up downing the T-Rex with a tranquilizer dart, the deaths of Ajay and the rest of his men makes it hard for him to celebrate and prompts to turn down Ludlow's offer to work at the Jurassic Park in San Diego and immediately leave Isla Sorna. His last line, "I think I've spent enough time in the company of death," strongly suggests that this will indeed be his last hunt.

The Lost World does have its fair share of exciting sequences, which I'll describe in detail when I talk about the dinosaurs, but on the flip side, it also has some serious pacing problems, particularly during the second act. Like the first movie, the film builds up to when the characters first arrive on the island and begin encountering the dinosaurs but, once they do, the lapses in-between the action scenes become much more noticeable and feel a lot longer than they did before. I don't know what it is exactly but, when I watched the movie again recently, it felt like it dragged a lot while they were on the island, especially the section after the T-Rex attack on the trailers and they have to make their way across the island to reach the old compound. It was mainly just a lot of dialogue and people walking and, while I do enjoy a lot of these characters, I still found myself thinking, "Okay, can we get back to the dinosaurs now?" I think it also doesn't help that the action scenes, as impressive and fun as they are, don't seem to last as long as those in the first movie. The scene with the Stegosaurs and Sarah when they first arrive is very quick and the same goes for the dinosaurs being let loose in the InGen camp, the Tyrannosaurs attacking the camp, which ends kind of abruptly with the T-Rex suddenly giving up on those taking cover behind the waterfall, and the scene in the long grass with the Velociraptors. Come to think of it, the only extended sequences on the island are the aforementioned attack on the trailers, the Compies stalking and killing Dieter, and the scene with the raptors at the compound, and those have very long spaces in-between them with those quicker scenes sprinkled here and there, making the pace feel a bit choppy. On top of that, I think after the first movie, it's kind of hard to do any more scenes with dinosaurs in the jungle that feel all that original and fresh, which is why the climax in San Diego with the T-Rex works so well, as well as the fact that it's the longest sequence in the film. Ultimately, I wouldn't say that The Lost World is a boring movie but rather that, for one reason or another, doesn't have the same fluid pace or level of excitement that its predecessor does.

Knowing that it was what audiences wanted, Steven Spielberg decided to up the ante on the number of dinosaurs in the film by both introducing new ones and bringing back some old favorites. Among the latter is the T-Rex and Spielberg decided to double the fun in that regard by having two of them this time. Their attack on the trailers where the characters have their baby is definitely a highlight. While it does feel initially derivative of the attack on the cars in the first movie, Spielberg takes it a step farther by having them push the connected trailers over the cliff, forcing the characters to hang on for dear life. It's a really exciting and nicely suspenseful sequence, particularly when Sarah falls down onto the rear window and as she regains consciousness, she realizes that her weight is causing the glass to slowly crack, forcing her to be careful about how much weight she puts on it. The suspense is further enhanced with Malcolm attempting to climb down to help her while Eddie Carr's satellite phone slowly slips down a light that it's hanging on, threatening to fall and break the window, which it eventually does despite Nick's attempts to grab it and Malcolm has to save Sarah by making her grab onto her pack as he holds it. Speaking of Eddie, he comes across the scene and tries to save them by giving them a rope to climb up but that situation is further complicated when the trailer that's still atop the cliff is slowly dragged to the edge, forcing Eddie to hook his jeep to it and try to pull them back. On top of that, the knot on the rope that he sent down to them begins coming loose and he has to tie it up again. And just when you think the situation couldn't get any worse, the Tyrannosaurs come back, destroy his jeep, grab him, and rip him in half. His sacrifice allows the others to escape but, still, what a way to go! Another nice scene involving the Tyrannosaurs is when they've set up camp for the night and one of smells the blood of his infant on Sarah's shirt, which she has hanging on a line in her tent, and comes to investigate. Once again, it's pretty suspenseful as the dinosaur sticks his head into the tent, sniffing the shirt, and Sarah and Kelly, who are both scared out of their wits, try to be absolutely still and quiet. But, that idiot Carter wakes up, screams like a girl upon seeing the T-Rex, wakes everyone else up and causes them to panic, which leads to them getting chased by the female T-Rex, who shows up right then to join her mate. That's when they take cover behind a waterfall and that dumbass scientist gets eaten because a snake slithered into his shirt, while Roland manages to tranquilize the male T-Rex back at the camp.

But the best stuff involving the T-Rex is yet to come at this. The one that Roland managed to tranquilize is then taken back to San Diego to be shown at the Jurassic Park ampitheater but, on the way there, he was revived when the crew realized he'd stopped breathing and killed all of the people aboard the ship (although, it doesn't make any sense how he managed to do that in some very small spaces and then head back down into the hold, which is closed when the ship arrives). When the ship crashes into the dock at San Diego, the T-Rex bursts out of the hold and goes on a rampage throughout the city, which is my personal favorite part of the film. While it was cool seeing the dinosaurs in the jungle, it was a breath of fresh air, and a logical next step, to now see one wreaking havoc in a city and Spielberg makes it obvious what his inspiration was when he shows a close-up of several Japanese people running and supposedly yelling, "I left Japan to get away from this!" Being a Godzilla fan, I loved that. A nicely funny moment happens before the actual rampage when the T-Rex wanders into a suburban neighborhood and begins drinking some water out of a swimming pool, which prompts a dog to start barking at him. Needless to say, that dog isn't around for long. The stuff with the kid in the house seeing him and waking his parents up to show them is a little cheesy but I've always liked that bit with the dog. And again, it's fun watching the T-Rex stomp through downtown San Diego, munching on people and traffic lights, knocking over a bus, and kicking over a Union 76 ball before chasing after Malcolm and Sarah when he realizes they have his baby. Of course, since he's the hero dinosaur to the audience, Spielberg decided to give the T-Rex a happy ending when he's reunited with his baby, their lives are spared, and they're sent back home. Speaking of the baby T-Rex, while I have plenty to rave about in terms of what a convincing creature he is when I talk about the effects, I don't have much to say about him as a character in the film since all he does for the most part is constantly cry for his parents but, that said, he sounds so pitiful that I do find myself feeling sorry for him, especially given how Roland purposefully injured his leg in order to drive the male T-Rex out, and happy when he's reunited with his dad at the end and also manages to get sweet revenge on Ludlow.

Also returning are the fast and deadly Velociraptors, who are featured the least out of the entire series here, not coming into the movie until pretty late and feeling like an afterthought since they only have a couple of scenes. Those scenes are good, especially the latter one when they attack Malcolm, Sarah, and Kelly at the old, abandoned compound, but there's not really that much to say about them since not much is done with them that wasn't seen in the first movie. In fact, they don't feel as big of a threat as they did before since there's no buildup to their appearance and their presence is only mentioned once before then when Ludlow says that they're a hazard that they'll need to contend with in order to reach the old compound. When they do show up, we once again see what fast, agile and deadly pack-hunters they are when they stalk the team in a field of tall grass and take them out one by one, with one guy get jumped by one from a great distance, but in the second scene at the compound, they don't feel quite as deadly even though I know they are. Moreover, their intelligence is not emphasized that much here, save for the moment when the two of them attempt to dig underneath the door of a building that Sarah and Kelled are holed up in and one manages to get the drop on them when they attempt to do the same on the other door. Mostly, they come across as typical, uncoordinated brutes who don't do anything that makes them seem any more intelligent than the other dinosaurs, especially when they're smashing through windows and are easily distracted when someone tries to get their attention. Case in point, there's a rather dumb moment where one raptor has Malcolm cornered but Kelly uses her gymnastic skills to kick him out a nearby window. The poses she makes before kicking him are bad enough but what gets me is that when she yells, "Hey, you!" at the raptor, he actually turns to look! The two raptors getting into a fight when one accidentally falls on top of the other instead of trying to figure out another way to get their prey doesn't help their case for being very intelligent either. In short, this is most definitely the Tyrannosaurs' movie and the raptors aren't given much, if any, thought, which is a shame (they would be treated much better in the third film, though).

Some new dinosaurs that pop are the Stegosaurs, who were put in because a lot of people were disappointed that they weren't in the first movie (although there were Stegosaur toys made to promote the first one) and, as the first dinosaurs Malcolm and his team come across, act as the only real source of wonder in a film that's otherwise just a monster movie. Even that gets dropped fairly quickly when Sarah gets a bunch of adults angry at her when she accidentally scares a baby with her camera and has to dodge their spiked tails, with one coming very close to impaling her when she crawls inside a log for cover. Speaking of the baby Stegosaurus, the moment between Sarah and him before she scares him is dripping with that typical Spielberg whimsy (the only major example of such in this film that I can think of) that some may roll their eyes at but it's never bugged me, mainly because I think it's sweet and the baby is pretty cute. Another introduction is a dinosaur called a Pachycephalosaurus which doesn't get much screen time and that's a shame because it could have made for some great action scenes, especially after you see it demonstrate its headbutting ability by sending one guy flying through a jeep and coming out the other side! I would've liked to have seen more of that but, unfortunately, you don't get it, not even when Nick lets all the dinosaurs being held at the InGen camp loose (the Stegosaurs and the sole Triceratops you see here do most of the damage there) and the only other noteworthy moment with the Pachy is watching it struggle and scream when it gets snared. The most prominent new type of dinosaur are the Compsognathus or Compies, these little critters that look basically like green, chicken-sized lizards that walk on their hind legs. They look harmless, with Dr. Burke telling Dieter at one point that it's believed that they're mainly scavengers, and one by itself even looks kind of cute, but like the Dilophosaurus from the first movie, appearances deceive because they prove to be quite deadly when in large numbers. They attack a little girl at the beginning of the film, although you learn from Hammond that they didn't kill her, and when Dieter goes to use the restroom in the woods and gets lost, a big group of Compies stalk and eventually manage to kill him. They swarm all over and bite on him a couple of times before they finish him off and that's when you see how vicious and relentless they are, with him just barely managing to pry them off of him. I really like his death scene in that you don't actually see him get ripped apart but you do see his blood oozing down the creek that he got killed next to and later on, Roland says that all found were, "Just the parts they didn't like," which was all you needed to know. Besides a brief appearance by a Diplodocus (I think that's what that was since it didn't look like a Brachiosaur) and possibly some Gallaminus during the roundup scene, the only other noteworthy new dinosaurs here are a Parasaurolophus that you see the team lasso and then trip in order to capture it and an appearance by a Pteranodon at the very end of the movie, the latter of which would get more extensive use in the third film.

Since Jurassic Park was the breakthrough film for its special effects, The Lost World's effects, despite being nominated for an Oscar like the first one, often get overlooked, which could also be due to the film's less than stellar critical and popular standing, and that's a shame because this is a sequel takes what was done in its predecessor and expands upon it ten-fold. Now that they had gotten the hang of it, there's a lot more CGI here and it's just as convincing and awe-inspiring as it was before, especially in the scenes involving the Tyrannosaurs and the Velociraptors and I think what helps sell those scenes is that they take place at night and the dinosaurs are mostly backlit. That's not to bash the other CG-sequences though; when you see those Tyrannosaurs with their baby in the daylight at the end, as well as all the other dinosaurs, especially during the roundup scene, they still look amazing and totally photo-realistic... for the most part, anyway. There are instances where the CG does look a bit iffy but most of it is still top notch. As was the case with the first movie, though, the effects are so convincing because they're accomplished with a combination of digital techniques and practical animatronics courtesy of Stan Winston Studios, the latter of which are even more jaw-dropping to me. As amazing as the animatronics were previously, here they're even more breathtaking and will totally have you believing that what you're seeing are real, living, flesh-and-blood creatures. The animatronic Tyrannosaurs are just as awesome as the solo one before and the same goes for the other large dinosaurs like the Stegosaurs but for me, the smaller creatures are even more jaw-dropping. Those Compies look so lifelike and so does that baby Stegosaurus but I think the most amazing one is the baby T-Rex. When he's being carried around by the characters and operated on by Sarah and Nick, he looks like nothing less than a real, frightened animal that's struggling and calling for his parents. Even Spielberg was so impressed that he told Stan Winston that that, not the full-sized dinosaurs, was his masterpiece and I'm not inclined to disagree with him. I can't do it justice with words; you have to see the movie for yourself. This is just great stuff all-around and, as it is with the first one, I wish studios would continue to use CGI and animatronics together rather than relying solely on the former.

I used to really rag on John Williams' score for this movie since it makes very little use of the classic themes from the original, with the main theme only being heard in a subdued form at one point during the narrative and the actual, full-blown piece being saved until the ending credits, but in recent years I've grown to appreciate this score for what it is and how Williams decided to do something completely different with it. The main theme here is a pretty memorable one, with an exciting, driving sound to it that's perfectly suited for an expedition into a forbidding place like Isla Sorna and reminds you that, above everything else, this is an adventure movie. Williams also opens the score with a very low, foreboding piece that hints at the island's nature, particularly how, unlike how it was on Isla Nublar, this is a place where the dinosaurs roam free and there's nowhere safe for anyone who goes there. The rest of the music consists of pieces that play up both the setting of the jungle, consisting of a lot of percussive sounds created from all different types of drums that could be considered "jungle" in nature and orchestrated to either be tense and exciting or atmospheric depending on the scene, and the chaos and terror when the dinosaurs attack, which are some of my favorite bits of music here because they're so frantic and get the adrenaline pumping the minute they start, particularly during the trailer scene and the battle against the Velociraptors. The more I think about it, I think the score is another reason why The Lost World doesn't have the seem feeling of awe and wonder that Jurassic Park did, since the music is mainly playing up the dark and terrifying aspects of the dinosaurs rather than the magical, majestic side. It makes sense that Williams would have decided to go that way since it fits how Spielberg and company constructed the movie but, regardless, it does reinforce the fact that this film doesn't feel as special as its parent. Regardless, though, while I do still prefer the score to Jurassic Park for the reasons given, the score to The Lost World is a still good one and is memorable in its own way.

At the end of the day, The Lost World: Jurassic Park is most definitely an example of the typical sequel that's inferior to its parent. Whether it was by design or not, it doesn't have the sense of wonder and awe that the first movie did, going for more of the feel of a typical monster/survival movie, and it also doesn't have the same fluid pace, with there being rather long lapses in-between the action scenes, most of which are fairly short. But, that said, I do cut the movie some slack since Jurassic Park was such a tough act to follow and also because it does have a lot of strengths, such as some good, memorable characters, nice and exciting action sequences, including a great climax with the T-Rex wreaking havoc in San Diego, CGI and animatronic effects that are still jaw-dropping and build upon the groundbreaking work from the first movie very successfully, and a nicely thrilling, and sometimes foreboding, music score. Maybe Spielberg knew that it would be impossible to recreate the flavor of the first movie without coming across as repetitive and just decided to do something different, which may have been his intention for directing his first real sequel in the first place but, whatever the case, while it may have resulted in a more flawed, less classic movie, I do think that it's a worthwhile sequel, one that, if nothing else, works perfectly fine for the most part as a nice adventure movie with a monster movie motif.