The Lost World
Naturally, such massive special effects run up a hefty budget, which Spielberg has conveniently funded by corporate sponsorship. All the characters proudly wear Timberland-donated costumes, Julianne Moore asks not for a camera but a "Nikon", and the camouflaged assault vehicles prominently display a shiny Mercades symbol because hey, when you're trying to blend into the jungle there's nothing like a glinting metal logo to keep you fashionably discreet. I kept waiting for Jeff Goldblum to check the time, only to discover he was wearing a Lost World watch (available at your local Burger King! Collect all four!).
Oh, I nearly forgot - there's a movie mixed in with this big-screen commercial. The special effects of The Lost World are predictably amazing and the dinosaurs steal the show once again. But there's nothing quite as sad as seeing a good film maker milking a formula, and Spielberg has given us homogenized, pasteurized skim milk fortified with nothing.
The first 20 minutes of the film are rushed and haphazard as Spielberg pushes to get the lame premise established so he can get down to the business of dino-doom. This is the exact same movie as Jurassic Park, right down to the T. Rex pushing a car full of two-dimensional characters off a cliff. The only difference is that this time, there is no continuity to the script and the characters are surprisingly bland. No one expects Oscar-winning performances from a summer thriller, but Goldblum's dry wit is forced, and Vince Vaughn (who was nothing short of brilliant in the sly comedy Swingers) is given minimal screen time.
The Bad Men try once again to set up a dinosaur theme park, but this time on the mainland; the first half of the movie is set in the jungle with teams of brutal hunters capturing specimens for display, and the second half has T. Rex running amok in the streets of San Diego. This offered the funniest scene in the movie, as T. Rex chases down a group of Asian tourists in a wry jab at the old Godzilla movies. Clever, but there are glaring and inexcusable omissions between the two halves of the film. Characters in the first half simply disappear with no explanation, and the absence of any discernable plot is surprising from a director of Spielberg's caliber.
There are moments of real suspense, but they are few in comparison to the drawn-out, "tense", melodramatic chase scenes. There's a fine line between the profound and the silly (remember Eliot and ET flying across the moon?), and Spielberg has rendered that line extinct here. The best thing about the killer lizards is that the more people they eat, the less "acting" we have to suffer through.
The movie is gory enough to give kids nightmares, and lame enough to do the same for adults. Again, the dinosaurs were nothing short of amazing, and you never doubt their veracity - too bad the same can't be said for the humans in this poorly edited, mediocre fossil of a film.
- Jared O'Connor
MOVIES
All Content © 1997, 1998 Jared O'Connor and Michael Baker