D: Steven Spielberg
S: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite
Insubstantial adventure movie modelled more closely on classic white hunter
pics like Howard Hawks' Hatari! than the traditional monster movies
that served as the basis of its predecessor. It pits men against animals
in a wild safari of hunters vs. gatherers, and climaxes with series of eco-friendly
speeches on why man must leave nature to its own devices and get on with
the business of loving one another instead. But because it does deal with
prehistoric monsters who devour most of the non-name cast in the course
of the running time, it does bow to its multi-generic parentage by lurching
awkwardly into Godzilla territory in the closing third as a T-Rex
runs amok in San Diego eating dogs and stomping on cars as terrified Japanese
businessmen run away screaming (albeit closely followed by bespectacled
waspish Americans). This structural problem is symptomatic of the deep flaws
which dominate this $75 million sequel to the most successful movie of all
time, which is never one thing or another, but a series of moments and highlights
designed to remind audiences of other films they may have enjoyed more at
some other time; even perhaps as recently as four years ago.
The film never really had a chance to be anything but an unseemly mess,
based upon the dreadful novel by Michael Crichton churned out to cash in
on the success of his original outing in dinosaur country. While screenwriter
David Koepp and director Steven Spielberg had wit enough to trash most of
the novel (saving only its best action scene: an assault on a trailer by
two T-Rexes, and its deus ex machina premise; the existence of 'Site
B'), they did not go so far as to come up with a replacement story. Instead,
the film is as opportunistic as the novel, with nothing to say but plenty
of money to be made in saying it, and they have merely invented a series
of scenarios as an excuse to pit more people against more dinosaurs than
in the first movie, a trick which worked fine for James Cameron on Aliens
but does not here.
The plot begins by reinventing the characters of the first movie to fulfil
adapted roles in relation to the laughably convenient premise. You see,
the original Park is now not the only place to have living dinosaurs wandering
around. There is now actually a second island where the dinos were originally
bred, and as the picture opens, a hilariously anachronistic rich British
family on a yachting holiday with their horde of servants and their uncared-for
daughter have stumbled upon it. Now emotionally and professionally shattered
scientist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is cajoled into visiting the dino-factory
by aging and now eco-friendly John Hammond (Sir Richard Attenborough), about
to be shunted from control of his company by his evil nephew, Peter Ludlow
(Arliss Howard). Malcolm's determined, independent and completely contrived
love interest Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already on the island
charting the natural behaviour of dinosaurs in their natural habitat (ignoring
the obvious), and spurred by a primal, masculine urge, he agrees to go and
'rescue' her. He takes with him likable equipment boffin Eddie Carr (Richard
Schiff) and 'video documentarian' Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughan), along with
a pile of hi-tech hardware designed exclusively for observation and transport.
Once he's there, the plot matters little. It spirals off in any convenient
direction with the immediate aim of making sure that there are plenty of
opportunities for the various characters to encounter the various breeds
of dinosaur (many of which were not seen in the previous film and thus create
a perfect opportunity for tie-in merchandising). Malcolm fails to rescue
Harding because she doesn't need rescuing and doesn't want to leave anyway,
and he can't get off the island because of a communications problem which
seems like it belongs in a Woody Allen movie ("machines hate me").
Meanwhile his young (black) daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chster) has tagged
along, and serves as a catalyst for debate on family values, echoed by the
emphasis on the behaviour of two adult T-Rexes towards their offspring.This
serves as the film's emotional core, with Goldblum's unlikable failure as
father and lover presumably about to find redemption by facing his greatest
fear: going toe to toe with dinosaurs again (the spectre of Aliens
hovers here again, but Malcolm is no Ripley).
Then suddenly a team of crack white hunters arrives with Ludlow, who is
foolishly determined to set up a dino-zoo in San Diego (in another of the
film's hamfisted and unconvincing eco-statements).They are led by crusty
Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), who seems to have some sort of psuedo-homosexual
relationship with another minor character later eaten by Raptors which is
supposed to motivate his bowing out of the venture in the final third with
the line "I've spent enough time in the company of death". This
group, being large and violent towards other species is perfect fodder for
a series of close encounters of the poetic justice kind, climaxing with
an en-masse jog away from the T-Rexes and into a field inhabited
by Raptors (who make what amounts to a cameo appearance).
It's all a matter of narrative contrivance, each new twist coming from absolutely
nowhere and going only as far as the next dinosaur attack, where several
characters get eaten and thus necessitate a new set of contrivances to advance
the film to its climax. This occurs in San Deigo, where in another of the
film's tiresome nods to other movies, King Kong lives again as an
adult male T-Rex meant to serve as the star attraction at the launch of
Ludlow's zoo gets loose and begins stomping around in people's backyards,
pausing only to eat far more than seems necessary for sustenance before
chasing Malcolm and Harding to rescue its infant from unfeeling human hands.
The result of all of this is that despite Spielberg's characteristically
deft handling of action scenes and his inventive visuals, the film becomes
numbing. You have nothing to hold onto between disembowelments and no one
to root for. The characters exist only to be chased, menaced, eaten or otherwise
trussed about in the interests of narrative momentum, and the dinosaurs,
for all the technical mastery that went into their creation, are merely
so much wallpaper decorating a house of cards which only barely remains
standing until the end.
Of the cast, Postlethwaite is the definite standout, but muddy characterisation
makes his transition from unrepentant white hunter to morose pacifist hollow
and unmoving. His hard-assed white male violence is initially unsettling,
and gives him an edge which the other characters simply don't have. His
ambition is to kill a buck T-Rex and mount its head on his wall; a dream
so barbaric that you have to react to it, which is more than you can do
to any of the cliched moral quagmires the rest of the characters are placed
in to pass the time. Jeff Goldblum does what he can with an unsympathetic
supporting character thrust unhappily centre stage (even Crichton had sense
enough to bolster him up with several new characters in the novel), but
is not even given the dignity of seeing his problems resolved at the conclusion.
He goes from being a professional failure and emotional disaster area to
being asleep on a couch as the movie closes, his status in both arenas still
as uncertain as at the opening except that he seems to have remembered how
to shave. Julianne Moore equally handles herself with dignity, but her character
is a transparent appeal to demographics, hoping that a strong, independent
firey redheaded behaviourist will pass for a Susan Sarandon of the jungle
and strike a blow for strong roles for female actors in mainstream narrative
cinema. But there is no sense of affection between her and Goldblum and
their relationship is at best another narrative contrivance designed to
up the stakes in the action scenes ("Gee, he has to save her, she's
his girlfriend, after all"). The same is true of the character of Goldblum's
daughter (who existed in the novel but was not a relative), a cynical attempt
to include minorities in the action that gives the character nothing to
do but be scared of the big beasties (an additional scene of the girl being
attacked by the T-Rexes was apparantely cut from the final print). The rest
are mostly dino fodder, with poor Schiff being torn apart by T-Rexes (thus
eliminating the only likable character) and Vaughan abruptly transforming
mid-way into an environmental commando before simply dropping out of the
story altogether. Almost all of the other characters get eaten sooner or
later, with Howard being saved to the end (his fate a repeat of that of
the villain of the novel, but in a different setting).
In the hands of a lesser director, this would have vanished into the archives
of movie dross, but it is Spielberg's controlled hand which keeps it alive
for the next expansion of the franchise. His visual sense, timing and ability
to structure and execute an action scene allows The Lost World to
pass for two hours without becoming boring, and even manages one or two
jolts for good measure. Neat directorial touches such as having the raptors
attack in a field of high grass, leaving trails of crushed plants behind
them, or the plethora of silhouette shots which allow suspense to build
before the animatronics and CGI effects kick in show a director capable
of doing the job even if the technical wizardry was not entirely up to scratch.
Spielberg has been too long one of Hollywood's most proficient action/adventure
directors to allow anything as trivial as a bad script get in the way of
a good series of well-mounted set pieces (Indiana Jones and the Temple
of Doom being a prme example from before).
The special effects themselves are, of course, excellent, and anything Spielberg
wants us to see, Industrial Light and Magic can build. True, the technology
has not advanced much since the original film, but that does not mean that
it is no longer convincing. As before, the dinosaurs do seem very much alive,
with a good blend of animatronics and CGI keeping us on our toes. If the
film seems less spectacular on the technical front, it is merely because
it lacks the shock of the new, and because the pace of the film does not
allow time for wonder before people start 'running and screaming' (as Malcolm
knowingly observes early on).
John Williams' pounding score is another a plus, helpful in driving the
film forward and building excitement with percussion and strings in his
characteristic style. It is as different in character from its predecessor
as the film is, with a thrilling, high-adventure main theme which captures
the mood as perfectly as the majestic Jurassic Park theme did last
time.
On the whole, The Lost World trips along briskly, and each individual
scene has its moments of suspense, action and excitement. But it never really
draws you in on the level of story, and it is unable to mount a satisfying
climax. Without strong narrative or emotional threads to pull us towards
resolution, the eventual ending is no more or less interesting than the
set-pieces which have gone before. The final showdown on board a freight
ship with the T-Rex's life in the balance is not involving and does not
purge the soul with pity and terror. It seems that the dinosaur is permitted
to kill, maim and destroy as much of mankind as it pleases simply because
man is so mean to its fellow animals (both in general and in the picture).
Therefore we are meant to root for its safe capture and return to the Island
rather than its execution. Unfortunately, we don't really care enough about
the creature for this to work. We could all empathise with Kong's lust for
buxom blondes, but it is hard to root for Daddy Rex even in the face of
his attempted rescue of junior (which seems to come to him as an afterthought
once he has smashed up enough of downtown San Diego), because he simply
doesn't have enough character to win our sympathy, and no matter how unlikable
the human cast are, it's hard to wish for the extinction of your own species.
At the end of the day The Lost World is a puerile exercise in special
effects and tour-de-force direction which concentrates so hard on
making each scene as high-impact and memorable as possible that the film
on the whole is instantly forgettable, because it barely even registers
above the gut, where it is firmly aimed. It is so resolutely vapid that
only the saddest and most forgiving type of critic or film buff will accept
its environmental politics and family values as worthy of thematic discussion.
It is a weak adventure film, an episodic meander from one point of nowhere
to another that never comes close to a sense of purpose that any real adventure
should have. Its swiping the title of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's splendid
genre novel is merely the final insult, as one longs to see Professor Challenger
leap from the jungle and begin bullying these reactive, witless characters
into action and come up with some kind of plan for saving themselves other
than pure mammalian instinct to run away as fast as possible, climb the
nearest tree and hope the danger will pass.
Review by Harvey O'Brien copyright
1997.
Note: The Region 2 DVD was curiously released only in a boxed set with Jurassic Park. This was a canny ploy on the part of Columbia/TriStar Universal, as was the relatively bargain price for a 2 DVD set. The features are reasonable enough, with nice animated menus (do we need them?), a production documentary and lots of promotional bits and pieces including a tacky 'trailer' for Jurassic Park 3 (a couple of generic jungle and storm shots with a logo). The movie doesn't improve with repeated viewing, but the technical qualities of the DVD can't be faulted.