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THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK
Review by Michael Jacobson
Stars: Jeff
Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, Richard
Attenborough
Director: Steven Speilberg
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Video: Widescreen 1.85:1 16x9
Enhanced
Studio: Universal
Features: See Review
Length: 129 Minutes
Release Date: October 10, 2000
Film ***1/2
I’m bound to cause some controversy here, but I was one
of the few critics who actually thought The Lost World surpassed the
original Jurassic Park. True,
many complained the film lacked the sense of awe and wonder the first movie
delivered. But nobody, not even
Steven Speilberg, can replicate the experience of seeing something for the first
time, be it a 25 foot shark or dinosaurs walking around in the 20th
century. He can, however, take that
same element and create a picture that is bigger, faster, more exciting and
boasts more action set pieces than before.
And that’s exactly what he did.
He also changed the parameters of the dinosaur/human
relationship for his second film. In
the first one, the giant beasts were harbored in an artificial preserve meant to
be a big tourist attraction, and they ran amuck when the system (and human
element) failed. In The Lost
World, Speilberg has created a second island location, where the dinosaurs
have been given free roam to hunt, breed and live.
The island is theirs, and as we learn, they’ve completely established
patterns and territoriality just as they would have in the prehistoric era.
This time, dinosaurs don’t invade man’s territory, but vice versa.
That is, until the very end.
When scientist Ian Malcolm (Goldblum) is called back to see
entrepreneur John Hammond (Attenborough) again, he learns incredible news:
there is another island. This
one was meant to be secret, where the dinosaurs could live without human
interference. However, an unfortunate incident with a family who
accidentally landed there has begun the island’s undoing.
Hammond wants to try to keep the preserve intact, away from those who
would exploit or destroy it. He
therefore needs photographic evidence of the creatures.
He has already assembled and dispatched a team, forcing the reluctant
Malcolm to go along when he learns that his girlfriend (Moore) is already there.
Soon, the trio of observers learn there’s not only danger
from the dinosaurs, but from another group of people led by Hammond’s nephew
(Howard). They are there to bring
back specimens for his new reincarnation of Jurassic Park, which he’s building
in California. This group means to
intrude harshly into the dinosaurs’ delicate territory.
And the big beasts won’t go down without a fight, meaning that soon the
innocent are dying along with the guilty.
There are many incredible scenarios of action and suspense
along the way, the best of which involves a dangling trailer, a lengthy drop,
and slowly cracking glass, but doesn’t end quite the same way.
Speilberg and his team have created bigger and better dinosaurs:
they move faster and interact with even more believability.
Most importantly, there are more of them everywhere.
This crew of technicians were just beginning to discover what they could
do in the first movie, but here, they move forth with almost a swagger and a
belief that no visual image is impossible.
The finale is a great throwback to the King Kong and
Godzilla movies. A T-Rex is turned
loose in San Diego with spectacular results, including a refutation of the
popular myth that, despite the mayhem and destruction, pets never get hurt in
these movies. Ouch.
Basically, The Lost World is a solid, thrilling,
white knuckle ride from beginning to end. It
lacks the slow, lengthy exposition scenes of the first film (one bonus about a
sequel is that those were no longer necessary), it doesn’t take nearly as much
time to get to the heart of the action and conflict, and it boasts the ability
to throw one topper after another at the audience at a dizzying pace.
The simple fact is, Speilberg amazed us with Jurassic Park, but
knew instinctively that there was so much more he could do with his creatures.
The Lost World is kind of an exercise to push the technical limits
even further, and the result is a very satisfying marvel of a film, and the rare
sequel that proves more entertaining than a successful original.
Video ****
Wow! I may
have been slightly disappointed in the overall transfer quality of Jurassic
Park, but The Lost World gets it completely right. This is a picture perfect, reference quality transfer from
beginning to end that duplicates everything the first disc did right and repeats
none of the mistakes. There are no
imaging problems with darker scenes to interfere with the enjoyment of the
movie: they come across as clean,
sharp, and as well defined as the lighter counterparts.
Much of the film takes place outdoors in a beautiful tropical setting,
and the colors are perfect from beginning to end:
rich greens, deep blues and reds, sharp browns and earth tones.
There’s never any noticeable bleeding, and images throughout are
crisply rendered, even in deep focus. There
are plenty of scenes that take place during rainy nights, and even there, the
images maintain their integrity. This
disc ranks amongst Universal’s finest offerings!
Audio ****
Again, The Lost World DVD shows improvement over the
Jurassic Park disc. This is
an incredible, problem-free 5.1 mix, one that makes even greater use of the .1
channel and surrounds than the first one did.
There’s a lot more action here, and much more opportunity for
multi-directional sounds, which this disc takes full advantage of.
It places you right in the middle of the chaos and never lets you go.
Quieter moments of dialogue come across much cleaner, with no distortions
or noise, making this an audio track with full integrity of dynamic range.
As with the video, this audio is reference quality.
Features ****
Like its counterpart, The Lost World DVD is fully
loaded. It begins with an excellent
making-of documentary, two deleted scenes, storyboards, production photographs,
sketches and paintings, three trailers, a dinosaur encyclopedia (oddly enough,
the same one from the Jurassic Park disc—it hasn’t been updated to
include the new species found in this movie), production notes, talent files,
and some DVD ROM extras, including a link to the set of Jurassic Park III.
Plus cool animated menus with sound similar to the first movie.
Once again, there’s no commentary track, but the documentary is so
in-depth and expansive that I found I didn’t miss it as much as I normally
would.
Summary:
The Lost World is a spectacular triumph, both as an action/monster movie and as a DVD. No matter how you consider it, film or disc, this is one sequel that proves an improvement over the original in all aspects. Recommended without reservation.