Four years later and the FX-ridden The Lost World takes place on a new island - Site B. This is a private laboratory-cum-zoo where the Hammond family bred the dinos that populated the first movie's island. Funds in the family company, InGen, have been running low since the last disaster so Hammond's nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) hires a veteran adventurer, Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), to round up dinos for export to other countries where they will be put on public display. The old Hammond (Lord Attenborough) is appalled by this prospect. He knows just how wrong things can go when you meddle with nature.

So he summons up Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) to help him save the day, but when Dr. Ian Malcome (Jeff Goldblum) discovers his girlfriend Harding has gone to the island, he follows her in to rescue her.

Stan Winston (another Oscar Winner) once again provides the excellent special effects, that just keep getting better and better, and this time round the script has become a lot tighter making the story flow, rather than skid around the corners as the first did.

I have to admit here that when I came out of the cinema from watching Jurassic Park I was slightly disappointed, okay so the special effects were amazing, but it appeared that the script and plot were just dressage so that they could have an excuse to display all the dinosaurs. Unfortunately they took a very good story by Michael Crichton, got rid of all the good parts like the plot and left a shaky story held together by special effects. This time they got it right, with The Lost World, they managed to make a real premise for the dinosaurs, being all over the place. They actually made it into a real disaster movie, whereas the other movie made it look like it was all their own fault really. And I have to say that, although this may sound a little bloodthirsty, they actually let you see people getting eaten in this film. Although they also had some very good photography which let you interpret that people were getting eaten, in contrast to the last film where you would see bushes rustling and screams. This all added together to give a sense of realism, and if as a director you can manage to make a film about dinosaurs being brought back to life realistic, then it really is an achievement.

I have to say that there is one man here though who really made the movie, that was John Williams, the composer who is always synonymous with the greatest action movies of all time, including the Star Wars Trilogy and Jaws. This movie was no exception, in fact for the first time in almost a year he made me jump in a movie, by the timing of his music you were lulled into a false sense of security at one point in the film at which point a
dinosaur suddenly appears.

The acting in the film was the only thing that left a little to be desired, not the greatest of performances from Postlethwaite, Howard or Attenborough and Goldblum while carrying the film didn't really shine. However credit must go to a good performance from Julianne Moore and although shaky in places, at some points she really shone.

The question of what the best moment in the film is quite simple, the fact that they managed to kill of one of the Hammonds, finally. I have to say that in the last film I wanted Attenborough to play a mean and nasty John Hammond, and like the book have him die at the end of the movie, however it
obviously just wasn't possible, and in retrospect I think casting Attenborough for the post was a terrible mistake. Howard played a much better Hammond, and as he was nasty he got killed in true Spielberg fairy tale style.

So to round up in summary, The Lost World is a great action blockbuster disaster movie, it doesn't make you think, but its definitely way up there as one of the greatest of its genre. It knocks the socks of the original, which is quite something to do, its not often when a sequel is better than the original movie, so kudos to Spielberg.

Score :10/10

Movie Link: http://www.lost-world.com

Don't forget to enter our The Lost World Competition in association with Mercedes-Benz and Marin Bike.

©1997 j-dom media

by Alex Andronov [e-mail him]