When it was released in the summer of 1993, Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park played and played in theaters, ultimately ending up the highest-grossing movie of the year with $357 million in unadjusted domestic box office dollars. It was an event, and so too was The Lost World: Jurassic Park four years later. And, while a massive success in its own right, it still made about $128 million less domestically than its predecessor. It wasn’t quite the crowd-pleasing rollercoaster ride the original film was, with some detractors (quite fairly) claiming it was too grim and violent to have the family appeal that the original film did.
But, let’s be honest, that’s part of why The Lost World is the best Jurassic Park sequel. It’s a film that feels like it has real stakes, which is an impact only compounded by the fact that, this time, there’s a kid on the island standing beside the adults.
A Lot of Movie
On one hand, The Lost World can feel like a movie that throws a lot at the wall to see what sticks. On the other hand, it’s also careful to try to stick to what worked the first time. Most of the dinosaurs we see here were seen in the original movie, which, in spite of the upped stakes provided by the darker tone, can make it feel like a retread of the 1993 adventure.
But when a movie is as beloved as Jurassic Park, feeling similar to it isn’t exactly a detriment. Is The Lost World as great as Jurassic Park? Not at all. But it’s far more entertaining than the films that followed. Not to mention, if you rent a Jurassic Park movie wanting to see dinosaurs eat people, The Lost World is the entry for you. A lot of people get chomped in this movie.
And, more often than not, these chompings occur in a memorable and well-crafted set piece. For instance, the raptors in the tall grass is one of the franchise’s most iconic sequences, the opening scene with the little girl and the Compies does a great job of setting the dangerous tone, the T-Rex attacking the InGen camp is a blast, and the waterfall scene is just as top-tier.
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Retaining the Original’s Power
But the highlight of The Lost World, the elongated sequence that shows that Spielberg and crew still had the juice that made the first film great, is the trailer over the cliff set piece. From the shots of Dr. Ian Malcolm, Dr. Sarah Harding, and Nick Van Owen dangling over the side of the cliff within the trailer to the hair-raising race against the clock faced by the ill-fated Eddie Carr, desperately trying to pull the lengthy, heavy vehicle back up in an SUV as a pair of T-Rexes stomp around nearby, it all works. Of course, it’s also in this sequence, with the demise of Mr. Carr, that any number of ’90s kids got some pretty visceral nightmares. So, in a way, that’s another plus.
What The Lost World is, like Jurassic Park, is a rollercoaster ride. It’s just this rollercoaster is so intent on delivering ante-upping set pieces that it often forgoes logic. This includes what may just happen to be the most rationality-dispelling moment in blockbuster cinema history. InGen wants to bring the T-Rex and its baby to San Diego and, thanks to some tranquilizer darts, they succeed in doing so. As the protagonists and human antagonists stand at the Port of San Diego, the boat bringing the dinosaurs careens onto the mainland. We see that all of the boat’s crew have been devoured, yet there’s absolutely no explanation of what killed them.
It doesn’t make a shred of sense, but now that there’s a T-Rex about to go all Godzilla on California, we don’t quite care. That in and of itself summarizes The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Something ludicrous happens, but we’re not given enough time to really let it bother us because another ludicrous, entertaining thing is right around the corner.
What also helps The Lost World: Jurassic Park stand as the best of the IP’s sequels is that what came after was even less impressive than this film was at its worst (except for when Dr. Malcolm’s daughter gymnastics a raptor to death). Jurassic Park III is an admirable early film from Captain America: The First Avenger‘s Joe Johnston, but even with a new dino, it yet again felt like a retread. And, this time, hardly anyone was eaten.
Then there’s the Jurassic World trilogy (soon to be expanded via Jurassic World Rebirth). Jurassic World was a huge financial success and, to a degree, a critical success, but it was also too glossy. And, for some, the whole raptor training plotline was and remains ridiculous.
There were also problems with how the two protagonists were written. One was an Indiana Jones ripoff and the other one was a negligent aunt whose first big moment of badassery was a scene where she takes off her high heels in the jungle (played for laughs).
As for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion, the first was ambitious but ultimately a failure, while the latter was disastrously anticlimactic. It’s hard to imagine that the film that finally brought the dinos to the mainland (and brought back the original cast) could be so dull, but that was exactly the case for Dominion. They’ve only helped to further emphasize how it was nice to get some more ’90s vibes from The Lost World. Perhaps we took those vibes for granted back in the day.
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