“Oooh, ahhh, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and screaming.”

Justin’s rating: This is I Told You So: The Movie

Justin’s review: How do you possibly follow Jurassic Park — the cultural phenomenon that dominated 1993 — with a sequel and not, in some way, botch it? Both Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton attempted to answer that question, and both failed to produce anything as amazing and perfect as the original. While I’ve watched the first movie dozens of time since seeing it in theaters back in ’93, I think I’ve only watched the follow-up twice. It was such a crushing letdown that I actually preferred Jurassic Park III in my movie-viewing habits.

However, it’s been a long, long time since I last visited The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and so I thought I’d give it one last go, one honest shot at redemption, especially in light of how lackluster the Jurassic World movies ended up becoming. I mean, even a bad Spielberg outing is still better than most, right?

In the aftermath of the events on Isla Nublar, Ingen did its best to suppress the events and existence of dinosaurs — and seemingly got away with it, save for Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who broke his NDA to blab about it to the world.

As a reward for his honesty, Malcolm is summoned to Hammond’s mansion to learn that there was a second island — Isla Sorna AKA Site B — where most of the dinos were bred and have subsequently been released into the wild. Oh, and Hammond’s sent in a team to document the creatures, but the team’s in trouble and has Malcolm’s girlfriend (Julianne Moore) and daughter among their numbers.

The Lost World went with a barebones plot that sports none of the mastery of the original. Merely send in a group of edible humans into an even more dangerous setting with a secondary goal of trying to capture and bring back some dinosaurs (a la King Kong). The pretense of the team saving the dinos by logging them is so flimsy as to be one-ply toilet paper, especially when that’s abandoned for a safari team.

I think the key problem with The Lost World is that there’s no sense of build up and wonder that the first film had. Don’t forget that the first half of the original movie wasn’t pure dinosaur horror movie. There was discovery and a cool theme park to explore and fun technology and people cracking jokes and babies being hatched and a whole lot of rich character development. That made the horror/action second half far more impactful.

In contrast, this is all dino horror territory with very little awe, discovery, or innovation. It’s ironic that a franchise that began with some of the most lauded CGI of the ’90s — yet used it incredibly sparingly — decided that’s all that really mattered and doubled (tripled?) down on computer creations at the cost of a plot.

Another problem, and not one isolated to just this movie, is the decision to promote a fan-favorite side character to the main protagonist. Goldblum worked amazingly as a stuttering, snarky commentator from the sidelines, but he feels so isolated and exposed as our hero. It’s kind of like watching Ghostbusters II but it’s only Venkman. Or Louis Tully.

The new characters aren’t that memorable, which is woefully deficient for this franchise. Consider that even Dobson — WE GOT DOBSEN HERE — from the first film remains in the public consciousness decades later. Can you recall any of the names of the people in this film? The only non-Malcolm character people remember from this is the teen girl who did combat gymnastics that one time. And the supposed “good guys” end up causing a majority of the death and devastation, so it’s hard to root for them.

Yet this is still a Spielberg movie with a big budget, so there’s some stuff to like here. The cinematography is superb, the opportunity to introduce a few new dino types is taken, and the action scenes are expectedly thrilling, especially the trailer scene. The dinos still hold up fairly well today, which I guess is a sign of money well spent in that department.

And ending with fan service romp of a T Rex through San Diego is as implausible as it is fun. I can’t but help to think that a bulk of the movie should’ve been the dinos in our world, as it’s here that the movie finds its second wind.

After rewatching this in 2024, my opinion from 1997 hasn’t changed: The Lost World is a disappointment and an unworthy sequel. I know it has its defenders, but I’m not one of them.

Intermission!

• You have a picnic on a dinosaur beach, your kids are gonna get eaten
• Nice transition between the mom screaming an Ian Malcom yawning
• The kids grown up for their cameo
• “Don’t worry, I’m not making the same mistakes again.” “No, you’re making all new ones.”
• “So you went from capitalist to naturalist in only four years. That’s something.”
• Hey it’s West Wing’s Toby
• Here, the geese chase you
• “She doesn’t even have SEGA!” Guess we know who paid for product placement.
• “How many Sarahs do you think are on this island?”
• That’s her lucky pack, it’s how it always looks
• It makes me happy they used a puppet for the baby dino
• Sarah lecturing about “not bending a blade of grass” on the island after she stuck her fingers up a baby dino’s nose seems a tad hypocritical
• “I’ll be back in five or six days.” “You’ll be back in five or six pieces.”
• 30 minutes is a half-hour, or haven’t you heard?
• The little dino that’s a battering ram
• DINO RAMPAGE
• “Spit. … YOUR GUM.”
• “Mommy’s very angry.”
• “Hang on, this is gonna be bad.”
• The cracking glass is cool
• Poor, poor Eddie
• “Saddle up! Let’s get this movable feast underway!”
• The compy attack looks like good times
• The T Rex silhouette on the tent is neat
• If you have to choose between a snake in your shirt and a T Rex, go with the snake
• The “long grass” shot is pretty neat
• Really convenient that this building has gymnastic high bars
• How did the T Rex manage to kill everyone on the cargo ship? How big are those hatches?
• “Now you’re John Hammond.”
• Waking up to see a T Rex outside your window has to be surreal
• “There’s a dinosaur in our back yard.”
• The movie poster for Arnold Schwarzenegger as King Lear
• Gas was $1.15 in California back in 1997