The Lost World:
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Christina says:
The lights are on but nobody's home. This is a movie without any storyline worth mentioning, a bunch of good actors who aren't allowed to act and marvelous dinosaurs. Let's start with the good things. The computer generated dinosaurs as well as the animatronics seem even more real than in 'Jurassic Park'. I also liked the way they were used, exept for the T. rexes who had to be the typical American family. It was for the sake of the dinosaurs that I don't regret having spent more than two hours in a movie theater. I didn't even care that the dinos were shown off without any story worth mentioning to wrap them up in. Let's hear it for progress. Too bad that so many movie makers think they don't have to care about anything else if only they creatively play with their special effects .Why worry about something like a good script, for example. The few strings of story David Koepp wove to connect the dino scenes can only be called annoying. Cynical, serene Ian Malcolm as we know him from the books and the first movie has changed into a chauvinist jerk. Even Jeff Goldblum can't save the part. The script condemns him to save his seemingly mentally impaired girl friend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) from the dinosaurs. She allegedly is a paleontologist familiar with predators. Still she breaks even the most simple of rules like don't touch the young, don't walk around in bloody clothing. Apart from that she utters cool speeches, stares into the camera and screems. Oh, well, as we all know women only watch this kind of movie only for their boy friends' or husbands' sakes. So why create a credible female lead that women in the audience can identify with and rob the guys of this cozy "Women!" -feeling. Isla Sorna, the dinosaur island, is a paradise for real men. On the good guys' team we have except for Malcolm Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), radical environmentalist, lovable on-duty macho and one-man-backup-plan and nice Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) who ends up being the only good guy eaten by the T. rexes. On the bad guys' team there are Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), the Great White Hunter with the noble heart who is looking for the ultimate trophy and psychopathic dino-torturer Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare) who first meets a swarm of compies and then his maker because his pal prefers to listen to his walkman instead of Dieter's cries for help. Morale: evil always is punished justly. For a negative role model the men are presented with wimp Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) who may be rich but no real man. Even his own men rather follow Nick Van Owen. Tsk, tsk. Michael Crichton could have saved himself the trouble of writing a sequel to Jurassic Park. All that is left of it in David Koepp's script is the trailer scene and some names. My favorite dinosaur scenes are taken from the first book. The rest is stolen from other movies - oops, sorry, that's called hommage. John Wayne certainly would have loved the technical advancement of animal catching in the 'Hatari'-scene. About half way through the movie I reached the point when I didn't want to see another face staring open mouthed into the camera or another vibration in a puddle. But there was no mercy... In spite of all this I cannot help but admire Steven Spielberg. How he could keep a straight face in various interviews as he claimed to have focused on character developement is beyond me. Maybe he should take up acting. And once more the dinosaurs are not wiped off the face of the Earth, as Michael Crichton had planned in his first dinosaur book. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) suggests to maintain a dino reservation on Isla Sorna. I see another sequel coming up. Money can keep rolling in when real men want to measure their strength against the prehistoric giants. Who needs Marlborough Country... Monika says:
"Something has survived" we are advised by the movie poster. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) who remembers his terrible experience at Jurassic Park four years ago only too well, is horrified when he finds out. The dinosaurs should have died of lack of lysine according to their genetic makeup, but they didn't only survive on Isla Sorna but formed a new closed ecosystem. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), has turned from evil capitalist to reformed environmentalist and wants to send a team on the island to watch the dinosaurs in their natural environment. He hopes for Malcolm to be the fourth man on the team and is surprised to find him less than enthusiastic about the whole idea. Malcolm has lost his job after spreading stories about dinosaurs in public and really doesn't have much of an alternative. But he only changes his mind when he finds out that the team's paleontologist is his girl friend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) and that she is already on the island on her own. Now he rushes the other participants, camera man Nick Van Owen and technical specialist Eddie Carr, to leave immediately. After their arrival on Isla Sorna they first find Sarah's torn back pack and then herself, happy as pie and just about to watch a group of stegosaurs with their young. On returning to their trailers they find Malcolm's teenage daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) who came along without her father's knowledge. Malcolm wants his girl friend and daughter off the island immediately but can't handle the radio equipment and Sarah's resistance. In the meantime a second team led by Hammond's nephew Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard) lands on the island. They are not here to take pictures, though. They want to catch dinosaurs for their theme park in San Diego. Ludlow hired big game hunter Roland Tembo and his team, among them hunter and loudmouth Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare) and paleontologist Robert Burke (Thomas F. Duffy). In spite of their contrary interests both teams end up depending on each other in their fight for survival. The second team is successful: they manage to load a T. rex on their ship and take him to San Diego for the showdown. When JURASSIC PARK hit the movie theaters five years ago it seemed hard to believe that those special effects could be topped. Nothing is as short-lived as the computer industry and you can tell right away that enormous progress has been made. The dinosaurs in THE LOST WORLD are unbelievably real. Of course some anatomic details are off just as in JURASSIC PARK, but who cares about details when a herd of stegosaurs tramples over the screen as if this could happen any day or when some angry pachycephalosaurs work out by ramming the intruders' cars. Incredible. The animatronic models are just as good as the computer generated dinos. The dinosaurs are the stars of the movie and easily push their human counterparts aside, even if THE LOST WORLD boasts a number of fine actors. Jeff Goldblum reprises his role of chaotic chaotician Ian Malcolm, who didn't have much to do in JURASSIC PARK except for warning everybody about the consequences of genetic engineering and wasn't too nice a guy there either. Including him in the movie again was a good choice, and he can handle his lead. Bizarre parts seem to be just up his alley. This time he gets to be the hero instead of breaking his bones five minutes into the movie. His cool speeches are plenty and provide the neccessary humor. He also shows that the movie isn't taking itself too seriously. No such luck for Julianne Moore. She and Vanessa Lee Chester are the token women of the movie. The script sees her in one function only: the woman that can be rescued by the guys whenever the need arises. Although she supposedly is a paleontologist and behaviorist she introduces herself by patting a baby stegosaur - the dumbest scene in the movie by far. The second dumbest thing she does is hanging her jacket with baby T. rex blood in her tent to dry off. She might as well put up a sign "Dinner's ready, come and get it!" But her method is more effective, since dinosaurs can't read. As far as the part of Sarah Harding is concerned the author should have stuck to Michael Crichton's book a lot more. But the scenario "Sarah saves Ian" can't be accepted by Hollywood as yet. So she has to depend on her luck which luckily never leaves her even as in the end she crosses paths with some velociraptors who prefer to fight among themselves instead of going for the easier prey. Richard Schiff, Vince Vaughn and Vanessa Lee Chester are the rest of the "good guys". Obviously a Spielberg movie can't do without kids and so Malcolm is stuck with a daughter left to him by one of his ex-wifes. The fact that the daughter is African-American is a minor detail that created a fuss in the USA. Kelly is there to save her father from a velociraptor in one of the not so well done action scenes. Vince Vaughn saves an injured T. rex baby with Sarah. That wasn't so good an idea after all, because the frightening reptiles turn out to be good parents and don't like this at all. They provide for one of the most gripping scenes in the movie when they push the trailer over a cliff although their young has been given back to them. This is Richard Schiff's big moment. He tries to pull the trailers back or at least save the people inside. Unfortunately mommy and daddy are still very angry and he finds a tragic end. The outstanding bad guys are Pete Postlethwaite and Peter Stormare. Postlethwaite is big game hunter Roland Tembo whose grand desire it is to add a male T. rex to his hunting trophies. Anybody can have a deer's, elk's or lion's head hanging on his wall, but a T. rex... He supposedly never heard of sexual dimorphism of tyrannosaurs or else he'd have prefered a female whose head would have been bigger. Well, he gets neither but is one of the more interesting characters. Peter Stormare as Dieter Stark lives up to his sadist image from FARGO. He tortures a procompsognathus with an electric stick after making sure with Robert Burke that this species is harmless. Boy was he wrong. Animal rights activists will be glad to see that punishment isn't far away. Robert Burke is one of the movie's best in-jokes. Unfortunately not too many Europeans are likely to notice. Paleontologists are public figures in the USA. For example the enfant terrible paleontologist Robert Bakker who upsets the experts with his revolutionary theories. All those who are familiar with Bakker's appearance will notice the incredible likeness with LOST WORLD scientist Robert Burke. Hat, glasses, beard, down to the tips of his shoes. That of course is intended. Actor Thomas F. Duffy allegedly spent a day with Bakker at excavations to study him. He brings the scientific touch to the movie by calling the dinosaurs by their correct names and explaining when and where they were discovered. All his information is correct, by the way. Those who don't agree with Bakker's theories may enjoy the fact that his movie alter ego falls victim to a lively T. rex - as Bakker defends the theory that dinosaurs were active, warm blooded animals. THE LOST WORLD provides 135 minutes of exitement. One action scene chases the other, leaving the story behind at times, but you don't expect a drama full of dialogue when you go to see this movie. It is very funny till the end. Especially the dinosaur chase in San Diego is full of funny little details. You only have to look for them. E. g. japanese tourists running from the T. rex who resembles Godzilla or the cameo by David Koepp, the auther of the script. He suffers the same fate as Robert Burke. Feeding time for dinosaurs. See also our reviews of Michael Crichton's books: |
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Copyright 1997 Christina Gross & Monika Hübner |
