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The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Previous to this viewing, I had only seen The Lost World once, back when it was originally released in 1997. I seem to remember a lot of people really disliking this sequel to Jurassic Park. I also remember being a bit bewildered at the time because I thought it was just fine as sequels to sci-fi/horror films went.
Seeing it again 8 years later, I have to agree with my original assessment — it is certainly not as bad as people make it out to be, and far surperior to Jurassic Park III, which just left me flat.
I can definitely see some nits to pick, like how stupid the characters have to be to get themselves into the situations they end up in (Vera was literally screaming at the screen when they stole the baby T-Rex in order to fix it's broken leg). But maybe I'm just more accepting of the fact that the Jurassic Park movies are essentially horror films with big budgets and awesome special effects. And in horror movies people do really dumb things so that you yell at the screen and squirm while they ignore you. :-)
Certainly, there were a number of great scenes in this one. The whole dangling trailer scene was intense and just didn't let up. The opening scene was nice and creepy. Plus, they took my favorite character from the first one and put him into the lead role in the sequel with some great lines: "Oooh! Ahhh! That's how it always starts. Then later there's running and screaming."
Yes, there's a new kid introduced, but she's hardly annoying, and at least she doesn't end up with the cringeworthy line, "It's a Unix system! I know this!" like the girl from the first movie.
Notable cast sighting is Richard Schiff (Toby from The West Wing) as the fourth member of the expedition.
Overall, I'll admit this movie isn't as good as the first one, but is far superior to the third, and is definitely worth a place in my collection for just plain fun. 3/4 stars.