Movie review: The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Originally published July 4, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1233

Last year’s “yet” film was Independence Day. A “yet” film, for those who missed the column or else simply have more important things on their mind (like, well… anything, I guess) is one wherein you don’t simply ask friends, “Have you seen (fill in the blank)?” Instead you ask, “Have you seen (fill in the blank) yet?” because it’s simply a given. It crosses genre lines and interest lines, cutting a swathe across the American movie-going consciousness and, by the way, sucks up dollars in the same manner that–these days–Rob Liefeld attracts negative press.

This year’s “yet” film is, of course, the movie that you’ve already seen: The Lost World: Jurassic Park, in which the dinosaurs look great.

This is not to be confused with the Arthur Conan Doyle story of the same name, a book I read years ago and which I remember primarily for Doyle’s marvelous hero, Professor Challenger: A hard-bitten scientist who seemed like a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Monk Mayfair.

The good news is, the sequel makes the threadbare, cardboard character story of the first film seem like it was crafted by Tennessee Williams.

And the dinosaurs look great.

The bad news is what I figure you’ve pretty much already glommed to. When it comes to the story, as was once said about Hollywood: There’s no “there” there. And what is there was already done better elsewhere.

Lost World is also a bizarre agglomeration of book and film requirements. The opening sequence, for example, is taken not from the Michael Crichton book of the same name, but rather from the beginning of the original book. And the climax of the film, in which an enraged T-Rex stomps through San Diego (but does not, unfortunately, make it over to the Comic Con, which is a crying shame) was taken not from the book, but from King Kong… and even, if my admittedly spotty memory is serving me, from the original silent movie version of the Doyle book.

But the dinosaurs look great.

Even the existence of Jeff Goldblum’s character, chaos theorist Ian Malcolm, owes his existence to movie requirements considering the fact that he (and for that matter, John Hammond) were obliterated in the first book. (Actually, it’s assumed that everyone has seen the original, because Malcolm’s theories and specialty play no factor and aren’t even, I think, mentioned.) But Goldblum’s patented quirky delivery, mildly distracted air, and imposing physical presence (he must be, what? Nine feet tall?) were easily the best character elements of the original film, so not only was he spared in the first script, but he was chosen to headline the sequel. There hasn’t been such a miraculous literature-based film-dictated resurrection since Rambo showed up in the book version of First Blood, Part II, which was a good trick considering that he was killed at the end of the original novel.

It doesn’t help that the film suffers from what’s called an “idiot plot,” namely that for the story to (nominally) work, everyone in it has to be an idiot. The sequence that leaped out at me in particular was when the following elements had been firmly established: (1) the carnivores have moved out of their immediate stomping grounds and are in pursuit of our heroes; (2) the dinos are very possessive about their young; (3) Mrs. And Mrs. T-Rex are cheesed off that our heroes were mucking with their baby; (4) the dinos have a fairly sharp sense of smell. So what ensemble is Sarah the paleontologist wearing? A vest soaked in the blood of the baby T-Rex which isn’t drying in the heat. Just what the well-dressed would-be survivor should be wearing: A Tyrannosaur magnet.

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the dinosaurs looked great.

The problem with Lost World is that it’s uninvolving on an emotional basis, i.e., caring about what happens to the characters. There is once again an attempt to have some sort of perfunctory character arc. In the first film, it was the Sam Neill character’s being uncomfortable with children; by film’s end, the kids were leaning on his shoulders and we knew that he was past this flaw. The problem is: Big deal. His kid-phobia wasn’t awesomely relevant to the plot; it’s not as if he kept trying to ditch the youngsters, or considered for a moment throwing one of them to a hungry Raptor as a distraction.

This time around, we have an even more half-hearted attempt at character growth involving Malcolm and his (heretofore unmentioned) daughter. He’s busy, and she feels neglected. Ironically there is the germ of an interesting notion here if one contrasts it thematically (as we’re supposed to, I guess) with mom and dad T-Rex and their dedication to their child. It’s almost as if the film is saying that the dinos are more dedicated to their offspring than are humans. Nice thought. But the Malcolm/daughter plot doesn’t really go anywhere, since Malcolm doesn’t come away from the experience having learned all that much as a father except maybe that he should check his RV next time to make sure there’s no stowaways. For that matter, his daughter disappears altogether in the last twenty minutes (as opposed to, say, Tommy Lee Jones saving his daughter in the climax of Volcano, which was hardly Citizen Kane but at least had some sort of payoff to the nominal character arc.)

But the dinosaurs look great.

Is it possible to do an adventure/suspense film with genuine character development, arcs that make sense, and edge of your seat sensibility? Sure. Contrast Lost World with, for example, Aliens, a film that got everything right.

Both Malcolm and Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley are pretty much in the same fix: They must return to a horrific situation against their will. In Malcolm’s case, he goes for the most simple reason possible: His girlfriend, Sarah, is already on the island and he’s decided he must spearhead a “rescue mission.” No muss, no fuss, no imagination.

As opposed to the deeply troubled Ripley. Nominally she’s also returning in a rescue capacity, but it’s established early on that a threat to the colonists is really insufficient to spur her into action. They’re dead or they’re not dead: It’s no never mind to her either way. She makes it clear that under no circumstance is she going to stick her neck out for them. Nothing is more important to her than her own survival. But she is driven to return by her own nightmares that won’t let her rest, and her need to see first hand that the aliens are exterminated down to the last one.

Both Malcolm and Ripley try to convince their cohorts about the danger they’re going to face. Ripley’s attempts are dramatic, heart-felt, and riddled with impending doom. She’s a space-age Cassandra: She knows what’s going to happen to the marines, she tries to warn them, and yet tragically she knows she’s doomed to failure.

Malcolm’s admonitions, by contrast, are lightweight. Either they’re straight-up laugh lines (“I’ll be back in five or six days.” “No, you’ll be back in five or six pieces.”) or they’re flip deconstructions of the film, as if Malcolm is expressing outright disdain for the clichés of the genre (“Oh sure, ooooh, ahhhh, but later comes the running and the screaming.”)

Both films feature parenting as a theme. But in Lost World, the arc with Malcolm father-and-daughter is underdeveloped, unrealized and, in regards to the climax, irrelevant, while the T-Rex stomping around San Diego searching for its offspring was just another reason for the monster to cause damage (like it needed any?)and came across as a pale imitation of Kong searching for Fay Wray.

In Aliens, however, her relationship with Newt is instrumental in her character’s development.

She willingly risks her life to save the child when she could have gotten away easily; as opposed to her character in the film’s first half, she’s discovered that simply surviving with one’s own skin intact isn’t always enough. And her face-offs with the Alien queen are masterful in terms of carrying the theme through: The first time in the egg hatchery, you have one protective mother versus another. And the second time, aboard the Sulaco, the queen wants to exact vengeance for the loss of her children, and Ripley stands ready to go head-to-head in order to defend her child. Ripley’s entrance wearing the power loader “armor” is one of the most rousing in SF filmed history precisely because there’s such heavy emotional investment: Ripley has come so far as a character that she is not only willing to face her fear head on, she’s ready to kick its butt with her immortal rallying cry of, “Get away from her, you bìŧçh!”

In short, script wise, Lost World comes up short in comparison to its immediate predecessor, to other films that had explored the same themes, and even to other works of its director (Spielberg got more emotional punch and tension out of ten minutes of Jaws and its rubber shark than he did out of the entire two hours, ten minutes of Lost World and its incredible CGI dinosaurs.)

And yet Lost World winds up fitting the general audience definition and showbiz definition of a great film: For the former, it’s eye candy, and for the latter, it’s making piles of money.

The bottom line is that–as much as I hate to admit it–you don’t need a great script to make a great movie. You don’t even need a good script. Comic books are similar in that respect: Great artwork can overwhelm a lousy story, and bad artwork can destroy a great story. (Although when a movie turns out great, the director is credited; when a movie turns out lousy, the writer is blamed.)

I’ll never forget when Tom DeFalco dissected the script of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Here’s a movie wherein the hero had some sort of illicit affair with a presumably under-aged young girl. He’s engaged in shady endeavors involving priceless artifacts. Every time he gets his hands on something, he inevitably loses it to his competitors. At the climax of the film, he attempts a bluff, gets called on it, has no back-up plan, is tied to a stake, and God has to save him. And yet Raiders is a fabulous film.

It’s undeniable. I own it on laserdisc; I could watch it again and again.

Films such as Lost World do their job simply by attracting and holding the eye. To some extent, it doesn’t matter that they don’t engage the viewer emotionally. The movie makers know they don’t have to, and so they don’t bother. Which is a crying shame because it means that the current cycle of brainless Hollywood eye-candy will continue, with more cartoon characters, more shallow-to-nonexistent characterization, and more idiot plots.

Did I mention how great the dinosaurs looked…?

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705. Saw the trailer for the Spawn movie. Looks great.)