THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997)

I saw this opening weekend at the theater and I was disappointed. I watched it again just now (in 2020) for this review and...I'm still disappointed. The original was magical and fresh and exciting. Part 2, eh, it's kinda lame. Even with a dinosaur running around tearing up shit in San Diego (for like 5 minutes), it's still a yawner.

Four years after the original film, the billionaire creator of the dinosaur island tells Jeff Goldblum that there's a second island full of dinosaurs and that Jeff's girlfriend is already there! How would you not know that your girlfriend has left the goddamn country?! So anyway, Goldblum and his daughter go to the island. Stuff happens and I didn't give a single shit about any of it.  There is a lot of action in TLW:JP, but the entire film is still amazingly boring.  Way too much action happens at night time, the story is just straight up dumb, Goldblum's daughter uses gymnastics to kick a raptor that's like three times her size, the crew of the boat all die without any explanation as to how, Jeff looks through some binoculars backwards, strong cast with not much to do.

Based solely on entertainment value, it's passable. But compared to the original it's pretty much a big pile of shit. The raptors are still cool though.

If you need me, I'll be in my room watching Tom Hanks in Tsunami Sunrise. 

Part 1 - Jurassic Park (1993)
Part 3 - Jurassic Park III (2001)
Part 4 - Jurassic World (2015)
Part 5 - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Part 6 - Jurassic World: Dominion (2021)

Jeff looking through the binoculars backwards.

JURASSIC PARK (1993)

"I'm, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way."

An eccentric billionaire hires some scientists to come check out his top secret (but soon to be open) island theme park. Once there, the scientists (Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum) are shown the top secret attraction: fucking dinosaurs! And lots of 'em. You got the tall ones with the long necks, the fat ones with the horns, the short ones with the legs and a T-Rex. Say again? We got a T-Rex. They also have Velociraptors. As exciting as all that sounds, it gets even more exciting when all the dinosaurs escape and start chasing the humans all over the joint. Eek!

Just like he did with JAWS and the first few Indiana Jones movies, Steven Spielberg creates an imaginary world filled with rich characters, visually attractive environments and action scenes are awesome!!! It's like reading an Robert McCammon novel. The action just piles up and piles up. It's rad.

I was fortunate enough to see JURASSIC PARK on the big screen a few weeks ago and I'd kinda forgotten how awesome this movie was. I had a lot of fun revisiting it and even though I knew how it was going to end I was still on the edge of my seat, especially during the raptor chase scenes. Holy fook. I was also really shocked at how well the special effects held up. JP is nearly 20 years old and the effects still look great.

If you've never seen JURASSIC PARK then I'm not even sure what to think, but you need to fix that shit as soon as possible.  Mandatory viewing for all movie lovers.

Part 2 - The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Part 3 - Jurassic Park III (2001)
Part 4 - Jurassic World (2015)
Part 5 - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
Part 6 - Jurassic World: Dominion (2021)