Review of The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) by Andy C — 23 May 2016

A failure on many levels, including shockingly disappointing technical (not special effects, just basic continuity etc) levels that suggest what a lazy attempt this was by everyone involved.

The first film was, I won't lie, mostly worth watching for the (mostly practical) special effects, not necessarily because I think the whole story is great (oh, it isn't). The dinosaurs are, by 1993 standards, pretty realistic. Here, that novelty is gone and we're left with weaker imitations of the already-less-interesting parts of the original (Goldblum one-liners, dinosaurs destroying vehicles with people inside them, etc). The stakes are raised for a kinda stupid 25-minute (or so) scene in San Diego that I guess wasn't terrible, but still didn't match the suspense of the original. We knew we were in trouble the minute Jeff Goldblum grabs a pair of binoculars and stares through the wrong end without a shred of irony. It wasn't a joke, he looked through the freaking wrong end of a pair of binoculars (field glasses if you prefer, you proper asshole), and the movie immediately cut to a POV shot through said binoculars as if he were not, in fact, looking through the end that makes everything look further away. And that was only 1 of dozens of stupid errors. (I did have to rewind to find the sign that reads "tresspassing" but still, come ON). The shallow/cliched villains in this film make Dennis Nedry look like a layered character (this is not good.).

While I did say the effects are no longer new and shiny, they are still pretty good most of the time (and I say this compared to nowadays, in 1997 they were mindboggling I suppose), and if it's on cable and you are in a mood to trash it, it's watchable from that perspective.