After watching The Lost World: Jurassic Park agian for the 100th time with a less-than-usual critical eye and a more mature attitude, i came to the same conclusion- it still SUCKS.
Really and truly, it's one of the worst sequels i've ever seen and one of the biggest dissapointments of my life, EVER, and i'm completly honest about that. My love of the first film, my love of dinosaurs, my love of mindless action and my admiration for the Goldblum can't do anything to help save this film from being just plain rubbish.
The first half is great, it feels like a true JP sequel. Adressing the issues of the park, the compensations of the characters, what will happen to Hammond and Ingen, seeing Lex and Tim agian, having Malcolm entwined in the events (and how he deals with idiots day to day who think he's a wacko- case in point the skitso on the train), etc. It's like Spielberg actually took the time to tell us about what happened to finalise things, which is what your'e supposed to do in a direct sequel. But then as soon as the second Tyrannosaur attack happens and from there on in, it goes downhill. Speilberg just threw the whole set up out the window and it became an average monster movie, nothing more. It ceased to be JP anymore and became a sad King Kong knock-off. And in the end, there's no finality, no conclusion- wer'e left with the same ending as in the first movie- that the dinosaurs are still around, and no-one learnt anything, agian. That's it!
Of course, i expcected TLW to be brilliant. One of the other reasons of it being an utter dissapointment was that I read the novel twice over before i went to see it. I had certian expectations, i thought it it would be every bit as good as JP. I was expecting the book to come to life. I had planned all the scenes out in my head. But the adaptation (if you can even call it that) was poor- it didn't even follow the book! They cut whole chunks out of the book as well as signifcantly changing the actual plot. This SUCKS becuase the novel was a best-seller, and everyone knew there was going to be a movie made out of it, so everyone expected the film to be every bit as good as the film- and it wasn't. Why though? Seriously? Why change the book that was so popular anyway? The plot of the film was, well, King Kong! I'll never understand why they did it.
The directing was terrible, even for Spielberg. The action scenes were so-so, but still i expected a lot more. There were plot holes so big it was unbelievable. The music was below-average, which was wierd becuase John Williams is an amazing composer, yet there was nothing inspiring about this score. The acting was horrendous, at times you could see that the stars didn't even want to be there. The characters were just different- Malcom had changed and they didn't even explain why. The casting decisions- what were they thinking? Vanessa Lee-Chester, oh my, what a disaster. They changed the story entirely from the book and that was their biggest mistake. By the time the T-Rex gets to San Diego i put up my hands and surrendered, to my shame.
Not only that but it also became ridiculous, and you don't really want to go down that path when you managed to succesfully make a very plausible and scientifically accetable dinosaur movie first time round. I mean, "Jurassic Park San Diego"? Is there even enough room in that state to house a Brachiosaur, let alone a whole menagerie of dinosaurs? If that could be done then surely Hammond would have built his park there and not lease an entire South American island for it. Speilberg was digging his own grave when he came to the last half of TLW. But people make mistakes and i'm willing to accept that he let his childhood get the better of him. He managed to redeem himself with his other films though, just about.
I know it's a sequel and it can never compare to the original, but really, TLW should have. Everyone who worked on the first worked on th second, it really SHOULDN'T have gone the way it did. I first saw it when i was 14 and even then i couldn't understand why it went so wrong.
Thats why i didn't have too high an expectation for JP3, which i think better than TLW. It was short and sweet, and it didn't outstay it's welcome. It didn't brag about being anything other than it was. TLW wanted to be something so big that it ended up shooting itself in the foot.
I actually think the whole Pteranadon build-up in JP3 was more suspenseful than anything TLW tried to do, including the first T-Rex attack. And the second Rex attack i can't watch without laughing becuase it's so poorly done. And Lee-Chester's acting is horrendous, and she LOOKS INTO THE CAMERA.
QUESTIONS regarding the trash that is TLW:
1)The 2nd T-Rex attack on the camp could have been completely avoided if Sarah just removed/threw away her blood stained coat and lucky pack. I mean come on, why did she not think of this when she's a frickin paleobotanist/zoologist who has spent time in safari?! It seems a little silly to me when she grills Nick for bringing the injured baby Rex to the trailer but she couldn't think of removing any evidence of it's blood which would be the only reason for the Rexs to keep pursuing the camp. She even acknowldeges the fact that it's blood is on her but she still doesn't do anything about it?
2)Why is the puppeteering so bad in this film compared to the first? Just look at when the baby Rex is eating it's dinner when we first see it- it looks like a kid is moving it like a sock puppet. Same with when the raptor is pecking it's way through the cracked window to get to Malcolm.
3)Why does Dieter have to go so far away just to take a piss? He couldn't have done it behind the tree near where the Mexican guy was sitting? It's an island full of scary dinosaurs, it's common sense not to go too far on your own.
4)Why doesn't anyone in the harbour building acknowledge a frickin T-REX walking past them, after it had just smashed it's way out of a crashed ship, chased screaming people away and ROARED several times?
5)Why are the raptors so dumb in this film? Theyr'e fighting and smashing into things like they're drunk and don't give a frick- what happened to the classy sophistication from the first film?
6)Why would Hammond send Malcolm, a chaotican, to the island? He "really hated the man" anyway. Why not Grant?
7)Why are the streets of San Diego completly empty at night, yet there are loads of people in a video store?
8)How come Malcolm is able to magically appear through the waterfall a mere 5 seconds after a T-Rex was there? Rex couldn't have wandered off very far in that short of a time.
9)Kelly Curtis...killing a raptor...with gymnastics. W. T. F
10) Kid finding the Rex in his garden, Rex in the city, the baby Stegosaurs, the last scene with the happy family dinosaurs, i could go on....it's a cocktail of really crappy cliche crap!
I'm not biased, really. I have no reason to be. I love JP, i like Spielberg, i LOVE Williams. TLW is just a rubbish movie. It's just not a well made film, whichever way you look at it.
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