From Spielberg Produced to Speilberg Directed

"The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)"

The other day I watched Cosmo's suggestion of "Twister," which was produced by Steven Spielberg and tonight I watched "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," which he directed. I'd seen this movie as a kid and it was cool but being grown up and so forth all I have to say is: What a horrible shame.

I LOVE "Jurassic Park," literally. I LOVE it. It's one of my all time favorite movies. It, along with "Terminator 2: Judgement Day," really took CGI to the next step. It not only was good for it's effects but it felt like something you had never seen before. Even after multiple viewings the storyline still feels original and not boring/something re-hashed just under a different name. And that is where the second film first begins to fail.

The plot? Jeff Goldblum is back as Malcom, Malcoms girlfriend, Sarah Harding is played by Julian Moore (who is ugly, don't care what anyone says,) who is also a paleontologist. According to Hammond there is another island with dinosaurs on them. Somehow they are living even though they were bred to need a dosage of Lysine (I may be very wrong with that word..I can't remember correctly,) and Hammond is sending in a team of 4 to document them. One of them is Eddie, who is probably the only person you give a shit about throughout the whole movie, Nick who is played by Vince Vaughn who to me isn't an action movie guy, and Malcoms lady, Sarah. Malcoms pissed and Hammond wants Malcom to be the 4th to go. Malcom only goes after he hears Sarahs there to "rescue" her..So begins our story.

That story..is not something that feels interesting. To me it feels boring and unoriginal. Shit, even the story to "Jurassic Park 3," felt somewhat more original then this. After I finished watching the movie I started pondering whether I should try to write a script for a "Jurassic Park," style movie because I'm sure I can come up with a better beginning story then that, and a better story period (anyone wanna take me up on this and work with me on a script for realsie?) Just wait until I explain what happens about..25 minutes in. It gets worse. But first...

The second mistake in this film? Malcom and his wife somehow (obviously I assume from adoption,) have a black kid...WHY? EVEN AS A CHILD THIS PISSED ME OFF. It's stupid because the viewer has to stop and say "How the fuck do they have a black kid? Previous marriage? I guess adoption." STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. Another thing, why do they have to put this bullshit in a movie. Hooray for adoption of kids whether you're white and they're black, why would you put this black character in a generally caucasian dominated cast? ESPECIALLY since this black character contributes ABSOLUTELY nothing to the story..and I mean NOTHING. Her race plays no part in anything. Maybe I'm racist, I don't know. But this infuriates me.

O'Kay. They're on the island, their annoying black daughter sneaks with them, blah blah. A group of people come in who are attempting to capture dinosaurs to bring back to the U.S. One specifically, a male T-Rex. Which leads up to the end. Everything on the island pretty much sucks. Borefest. They try to lure the T-Rex by stealing it's baby, our group of GOOD guys steal the T-Rex back and bring it back to base after discovering it has a broken leg. The T-Rex assaults this big trailer thing they're in. They knock it off the cliff (un-original..I can recall something like this happening in the first one.) The only thing that saves this is Eddie comes along and juggles this task of tying a rope and throwing it down to them, keeping it tied and at the same time roping the trailer and using the jeep to attempt to pull it back up. Guess what? Eddie dies which is bullshit because he's pretty much the only good character in the whole movie. You see him attempting to do something good and the audience cares for him and they kill him while he's still doing it. Lame shit. At least he could act, somehow Vince Vaughns character Nick survives the whole movie.

Maybe I'm being biased here since I love the raptors, but the short segment with them is the best part. It's fun and exciting to watch. But it's ruined by fucking dumb daughter of Malcom and Sarah. She used to be on gymnastics (go figure, she can swing around and jump around, I know...totally racist. You know it was funny.) ..So she knocks the raptor out of this window using her gymnastic knowledge..GAY. Lame shit. Not enough raptors in the movie as well..most definately not enough.

The dude captures a T-Rex..they bring it back to San Diego to go in the San Diego Zoo..it breaks loose and runs rampant around San Diego killing all kinds of people and the movie basically just gets 10x lamer then it already was. -Shakes head.-

Onto other things..The CGI is good of course. You should expect it to be. Sounds effects annoyance. There's a scene with a Velociraptor and they used dog noises..and like it's so obvious..just so dumb. The score is O'Kay. I don't know, I have John Williams score for "Jurassic Park," and to me a lot of it sounds like the same shit. He didn't take a new direction with it..the theme is still there a lot but..it's nothing interesting. Maybe it sounds better on CD? In the movie..ehhh'. Nothing great although I do want to check out the CD before I completely dismiss it.

The acting..shit. Complete shit. Jeff Goldblums awesome but Vince Vaughn is not an action star. Sorry. Julianne Moore is O'Kay I guess. Eddie is the best one out of all of them and he is played by Richard Schiff. The little black girl can't act for shit (another reason it annoys me..a lot.) The other group on the island is OK. Mediocre acting..they're all cliche' roles. Not hard to do. Pete Postlethwaite is pretty good as Roland though. Otherwise, meh'.

Overall this movie pisses me off..I know it's been around for 9 years but I hadn't watched it since like '98. I knew I'd hate it but not this much. It was a huge step back for the "Jurassic Park," movies. I don't understand how you can make such a good first movie and see "The Lost World," as being better...what the fuck was Spielberg thinking? It's O'Kay though..he's made plenty of awesome movies though to make up for it. If you want to see this..then see it. If you have interest in it watch it with caution knowing chance are you're gonna be pissed off in the end (like no one hasn't seen this yet? Oh well.)

In closing, this took the series in a totally different more cliche' lame direction.

IMDB link for "The Lost World: Jurassic Park."

"Jurassic Park 3," took it in the same direction. I ill explain sometime in the next couple of days....