Why no photo? Well, if Interpol, The FBI, The CIA, MI5 and the Jehovas Witnesses were to see me, al...
Why no photo? Well, if Interpol, The FBI, The CIA, MI5 and the Jehovas Witnesses were to see me, all would be doomed.
After proliferating the Great Changing Monkey of Versailles incident, I have been on the run from the authorities. French Dictato...
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This is about The Lost World Only!!!The Lost World – is for my money as good as Jurassic Park if not better. There, I’ve said it, let the flaming begin.
I settled down last night for a relaxed night with a take away, a bottle of wine and a no-brainer dvd to watch, my girlfriend picked The Lost World, and who am I to argue – it is Spielberg after all. Down went the lights up went the surround sound and back we settled to re-watch this movie.
A quick synopsis – After the events of Jurassic Park, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), has had his side of the story soured by INGEN, the company which was headed by John Hammond (Richard Attenborough). However, unbeknownst to Dr. Malcolm, there was a second site where the dino’s were reared before they were taken to the original island. An incident regarding a young british girl being attacked by dino’s whilst her family visited the island in a yacht has prompted Hammond to put together a team of four specialists to go back and study the island.
Dr. Malcolm is defiant at first, however when he finds out that his girlfriend, Sarah (Julianne Moore), is already at the island he agrees to go with the electronics
gadget specialist guy and the video documentarian,Nick Van Owne, (Vince Vaghan), as he tells Hammond – “This is no longer a research mission, it’s a rescue mission,”
Well of course things don’t go according to plan, Dr. Malcolm’s daughter sneaks on board of their expedition, and Hammond’s nephew, who has now taken over INGEN also prepares a trip to the island to capture the dinosaurs in an attempt to ship them back to the U.S. to open a Theme park. Throw in Pete Postlethwaite as an archetypal Big Game Hunter and the story really begins to gather momentum.
The first act of the film is a little overlong, taking quite a while to set up the story, and it’s not until both teams arrive at the island that the fun begins.
As with films of this type, you can easily point out the characters that are earmarked to die in a particularly horrible way, trust your instincts, you won’t be wrong. In fact one of the only recent films that I can think of that eschewed this method was Alien Resurrection, where they killed off the more interesting characters and left the duller ones to carry the film. You can forgive The Lost World this character simplification though, it’s not trying to be Shakespeare.
After a brief bit of sabotage, the next time the two teams meet is after a couple of T-Rex’s looking for their lost baby ravage Dr. Malcolm’s camp site, where Malcolm, Sarah and the Nick are trapped inside one of the high tech vans which they T-Rex’s decide to push over a cliff. This provides one of modern cinemas true heartstopping moments as Sarah is resting on the glass window of the now dangling vehicle, as she tries to move the glass begins to crack and the cracks begin to spread, the more she moves, the more it spreads, until…………oh watch it and see.
The two teams are now trapped on the island and have to go someway inland to find a communications centre so that they may radio for help – of course many hardships await them on the way.
You may think that as they leave the island that the story would be at an end, but it ain’t - you see Hammond’s nephew has captured a T-Rex and it’s baby and is taking them back to the U.S. where the final act of the film takes place. This is really great as we get to see a T-Rex roam the neighbourhoods of San Diego causing much damage. Of course, this is Spielberg so the baddies all get their comeuppance, but it makes it none the less entertaining.
Whereas Jurassic Park was more suspenseful, The Lost World is far more of an action film, and despite the slow first act, the pace never lets down once it starts. It’s a little too cutesy, and you kind of get the feeling that Dr. Malcolm’s daughter was just thrown in to add fluff to the story. Performances are fine, even if Goldblum seems to play the same irreverent character that he did in Independence day. Pete Postlethwaite particularly shines out as the bad guy who may not be as bad as you thought he was.
There are of course more special effects than in the first film, and they work seamlessly and wonderfully, eye popping to say the least.
The film may be a little too dark for the little ones, and there is the odd occurance of mild bad language (B**tard seems to be the word of choice.) – so do be careful with those under 12’s.
As for the dvd itself, the transfer is reasonable if just a little grainy. The picture is in anamorphic format, so it nicely fills your widescreen t.v. One of the standout aspects, however, is the D.D. 5.1 soundtrack, you can hear the sounds of the jungle/rainforest all around you. It is used to amazing effect throughout the entire film, and makes you glad that you have a surround sound system – a reference disc for surround sound definitely.
The menu’s are nicely presented and represent a scene from the film, with a prowling Velociraptor. There are quite a few extras, a couple of deleted scenes with subtitles as to why Spielberg left them out. There are the usual story board to film comparisons, a making of documentary, stills on the models for the dinosaurs and for the sets, trailers and a whole lot more, there is even a trailer for Jurassic Park III, but it doesn’t show you much.
Whilst not a masterpiece, and not a total “Family Film”, The Lost World is certainly worth owning, and in my opinion, a worthy successor to Jurassic Park.
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Production Year: 1964 - Action/Adventure - Director: Cyril Endfield - Original Language: English - Classification: Parental Guidance - Starring:Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Ulla Jacobsson, James Booth, Michael Caine, Nigel Green
Action/Adventure - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring:Jack Ging, Marla Heasley, Lance Legault, Melinda Culea, Mr T, Dwight Schultz, Dirk Benedict, George Peppard, Carl Franklin
Production Year: 2002 - Action/Adventure - Director: Vincenzo Natali - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring:Lucy Liu, David Hewlett, Anne Marie Scheffler, Joseph Scoren, Matthew Sharp, Jeremy Northam
Production Year: 1977 - Action/Adventure - Director: Clint Eastwood - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring:Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney
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Feb 22nd, 2001
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