The Lost World: Jurassic Park (also known as Jurassic Park 2 and The Lost World) is a science fiction thriller film, directed by Steven Spielberg. The film was produced by Bonnie Curtis, Kathleen Kennedy, Gerald R. Molen and Colin Wilson. The screenplay was penned by David Koepp, based on the 1995 novel The Lost World by Michael Crichton. The film stars Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Pete Postlethwaite, Vanessa Lee Chester, Arliss Howard, and Richard Attenborough.

The film picks up four years after the events of Jurassic Park. On a deserted island, dinosaurs have secretly survived and been allowed to roam free but a mercenary group desires to capture and bring the dinosaurs to the mainland. John Hammond, who has lost control of his InGen company, sees a chance to redeem himself for his past mistakes and sends an expedition led by Dr. Ian Malcolm to reach the island before the mercenaries get there. The two groups confront each other in the face of extreme danger and must team up for their own survival in a race against time.

After the release of the original book and the success of the first film, Crichton was pressured not only by fans, but Spielberg himself, for a sequel novel. After the book was published in 1995, production began on a film sequel. The film received a 49% approval rating from critics at Rotten Tomatoes and 59 out of 100 at Metacritic. The film earned over USD$612 million at the worldwide box office, USD$300 million fewer than the predecessor. It is currently the forty-fourth -highest-grossing feature film.

Plot

A family is vacationing on the island of Isla Sorna. A young girl (Camilla Belle) explores on her own and runs into a baby Compsognathus. When the child attempts to feed the dinosaur, a large pack emerges and attacks the girl for more food. Her parents run to her when they hear her screams, and though it is not shown what happens to her, it is later stated that she was injured.

Four years have passed since the disaster at Jurassic Park, and John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has lost control of InGen to his ruthless nephew, Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard). Despite having signed a non-disclosure agreement about the prior events, chaos theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) has gone public and revealed details of his experiences at Jurassic Park. Unfortunately for him, his stories are not widely believed, threats of legal action prevent him from producing any evidence, and his academic reputation is destroyed.

Hammond summons Malcolm to his home, where he reveals the existence of Site B, Isla Sorna. Sorna was the facility where the dinosaurs were actually engineered, before being sent to Isla Nublar when mature. The island was abandoned after a hurricane wiped out most of the facilities, and the creatures have been living in the wild ever since. Hammond reveals to Malcolm that InGen is bankrupt, and that Ludlow plans to exploit Site B. Hammond requests Malcolm's help in stopping Ludlow and preserving the dinosaurs' natural habitat, by creating a wildlife portfolio that will convince environmentalists to leave the island as a nature reserve. Malcolm initially refuses, but after learning that his girlfriend, paleontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), is already on the island, he goes along.

Malcolm is joined by Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), an engineer who built the group's custom vehicles, and documentary producer and environmentalist Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn). Shortly after arriving on the island, they find Sarah while coming across a Stegosaurus herd. When they return to camp, they find Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), Malcolm's daughter, has stowed away. He tries to contact the boat to take them home, but they are interrupted by the arrival of an InGen team sent by Ludlow.

The rival team quickly captures samples of several species, including Parasaurolophus, Stegosaurus, Gallimimus, Pachycephalosaurus, Triceratops, and a swarm of Compsognathus. That night, Nick and Sarah sneak into the InGen camp to free the dinosaurs and cut the fuel lines on the vehicles. The freed dinosaurs cause a huge commotion, compounded by the exploding vehicles. Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), the leader of the InGen team, admonishes his second-in-command, Dieter Stark (Peter Stormare), for the lack of security.

Tembo wishes to capture an adult male Tyrannosaurus, and creates a trap by breaking the leg of a baby T. Rex so that its cries might lure its parents. When he returns to the camp, Nick frees the baby, taking it back to their trailer so Sarah can set its broken leg. Eddie and Kelly hide in a tree stand while Malcolm returns to the trailer. The adult Tyrannosaurs come searching for their child and, after retrieving it, throws one half of the hinged trailer over a cliff with Malcolm, Nick, and Sarah inside. Eddie throws down a rope and tries to pull the trailer back up using one of the SUVs, but is torn in half and eaten by the Tyrannosaurs. The trailer falls off the cliff, but its occupants survive by holding on to the rope, only to be rescued by the InGen team. With all of the communications equipment destroyed in the attacks, both groups team up to reach the old InGen compound's radio station, right through a Velociraptor nesting site, while Sarah suspects the adult Tyrannosaurs will continue pursuing them.

On the way, Stark goes off in the woods where he is killed by compys. At night, the female Tyrannosaur comes across the group's camp and pokes her head into Sarah and Kelly's tent sniffing Sarah's jacket covered with blood from the baby's leg. One of the InGen team members wakes up and notices the Tyrannosaur. His shouts awaken the other group members and they all run, with the Tyrannosaur in pursuit. Tembo tries but fails to shoot the male Tyrannosaur, finding his ammunition disabled by Nick. Nick, Sarah, Kelly are later joined by Malcolm at a waterfall and escape safely after the T-Rex takes off. However, Tembo uses a traqualizing gun to try to knock the male Tyrannosaur out, taking him only 2 shots.

After fleeing the female Tyrannosaur, the InGen team passes through a field of tall grass and are picked off one-by-one by Velociraptors. Malcolm and his friends pass through the field unharmed and Nick reaches the compound, but the others are attacked by three raptors and go into hiding. Kelly wounds one of them by knocking it out of a window and Sarah manages to pit the last two against each other. Ian, Sarah, and Kelly then run towards a building, where they reunite with Nick and contact a rescue helicopter. As they fly away, they see that Tembo has caged the male Tyrannosaur from tranquilizing it during the camp attack, and Ludlow preparing to ship it and the baby back to the mainland.

When the ship carrying the dinosaur arrives in San Diego, it crashes into the dock. A boarding party finds out the entire crew is dead. While searching for survivors, a guard opens the cargo hold and inadvertently releases the Tyrannosaur, which enters the city. Malcolm and Sarah learn that the Tyrannosaur stopped breathing due to a tranquilizer overdose, it was given amphetamines to bring it round, but not knowing the proper dosage, they administered too much and the dinosaur is out of control. Realizing that the Tyrannosaur will likely come for its infant, Malcolm and Sarah rush to the Jurassic Park arena to get the baby T. rex, which had been brought in separately by plane. They lure the adult with the baby and run back to the boat. Ludlow tries to intervene, but is trapped in the cargo hold and devoured by the baby. Malcolm and Sarah manage to tranquilize the adult before it can escape again, and seal it in the hold.

By morning, as Malcolm and Sarah fall asleep on the couch in their living room, Kelly watches television reports of the cargo ship on its way back to Site B, surrounded by a convoy of naval vessels. The program breaks away to an interview of restored InGen Chairman John Hammond, who explains that the island will now be left alone as a natural reserve so the dinosaurs can live free of human interference. He offers a quote by Malcolm, "Life will find a way." The scene cuts to Site B, where the family of Tyrannosaurs is shown reunited in the wild, alongside a herd of Stegosaurs migrating and a flock of Pteranodons flying overhead.

Production

After the release of the novel Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton was pressured by fans for a sequel novel. Having never written a sequel, he initially refused, until the success of the first film prompted Steven Spielberg himself to request one. After the book was published in 1995, production on the sequel film began in September 1996. The Lost World was filmed at Eureka, San Diego, Burbank, and Kauai. Although the ending takes place in San Diego, only one sequence is actually shot there, where the InGen helicopter flies over the wharf and banks towards the city. The other sequences were all shot in Burbank.

Spielberg suggested the Tyrannosaurus rex attack through San Diego be added to the film story, inspired by a similar attack scene of a Brontosaurus in London in the 1925 film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World.

Many elements from the original Jurassic Park novel that were not in the first film were used for Lost World. The opening sequence of the vacationing family's young daughter (Camilla Belle) being attacked in Costa Rica by a group of Compsognathus was similar to the opening scene in the original novel, and Dieter Stark's death is analogous to John Hammond's compy-related death in the novel. Also, Nick, Sarah, Kelly, and Burke being trapped behind a waterfall by the female T. rex is taken from the first novel, where Tim and Lex are trapped behind a man-made waterfall with the T. rex attempting to eat them.

According to Jack Horner part of the waterfall scene was written in as a favor for him by Spielberg. Burke greatly resembles Horner's rival Robert Bakker. In real life Bakker argues for a predatory Tyrannosaurus rex while Horner views it as primarily a scavenger. So Spielberg wrote Burke into this part to have him killed by the Tyrannosaurus rex as a favor for Horner. After the film came out Bakker, who recognized himself in Burke and loved it, actually sent Horner a message saying "See, I told you T. rex was a hunter!".

Distribution

The Lost World: Jurassic Park was released on Memorial Day, 1997. The film made its VHS debut on November 4, 1997, and was first released on DVD on October 10, 2000. The DVD includes deleted scenes that were incorporated into the Fox broadcast television premiere of the film.

The film was also released in a package with Jurassic Park. The DVD has also been re-released with both sequels on December 11, 2001 as the Jurassic Park Trilogy and as the Jurassic Park Adventure Pack on November 29, 2005. The soundtrack was released on May 20, 1997. On the same day it was first released to DVD, a deluxe limited edition box set was released that included Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park, soundtracks for both films with packaging made exclusively for the set, two lenticulars, eight 8x10 stills (4 from each film), and a certificate of authenticity signed by all three producers of the set, all inside a collector case.

Reception

Box Office

Following four years of growing anticipation and hype, The Lost World: Jurassic Park broke many box office records upon its release. It took in $72,132,785 on its opening weekend ($92.6 million for the four-day Memorial Day holiday) in the U.S., which was the biggest opening weekend at the time, surpassing the previous record-holder Batman Forever at $52.8 million. It held onto this record for four and a half years, until the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in November 2001. The Lost World took the record for highest single-day box office take of $26,083,950 on May 25, a record held until the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It also became the fastest film to pass the $100 million mark, achieving the feat in just six days. However, its total U.S. box office gross fell below the total of the original film. With grossing $229,086,679 domestically and $389,552,320 internationally, the film ended up grossing $618,638,999 worldwide, becoming the second highest grossing film of 1997 behind Titanic, and the 40th highest-grossing film of all time.

Critical

The Lost World received mixed reviews. On the film aggregator website, Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 49% "rotten" rating with 28 out of 56 reviewers giving it a positive review. It also has a 59% on Metacritic. It received much of the same criticism as the original Jurassic Park, with praise for the special effects but accusations of flat characterization. Roger Ebert said, "It can be said that the creatures in this film transcend any visible signs of special effects and seem to walk the earth, but the same realism isn't brought to the human characters, who are bound by plot conventions and action formulas." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times saw improved character development over the original, saying, "It seemed such a mistake in Jurassic Park to sideline early on its most interesting character, the brilliant, free-thinking and outspoken theorist Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) with a broken leg, but in its most inspired stroke, The Lost World brings back Malcolm and places him front and center," calling it "a pleasure to watch such wily pros as Goldblum and Attenborough spar with each other with wit and assurance." The dinosaurs were even more developed as characters, with Stephen Holden of the New York Times saying, "The Lost World, unlike Jurassic Park, humanizes its monsters in a way that E.T. would understand." Entertainment Weekly remarked in 2008, "Mr. T-rex was cool in the first Spielberg flick, sure, but it wasn't until [it was in] San Diego that things got crazy-cool. It's the old 'tree falling in the woods' conundrum: Unless your giant monster is causing massive property damage, can you really call it a giant monster?"

The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Visual Effects and for "Best Action Sequence" in the MTV Movie Awards 1998 for the T. Rex rampage through San Diego. It was also nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film, Best Director, Best Young Actress for Vanessa Lee Chester, Best Special Effects, and Best Supporting Actor for Pete Postlethwaite. However, it was also nominated for three Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Screenplay, Worst Remake or Sequel and Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property, but failed to win any of those prizes.

See also

• List of characters in Jurassic Park

References

1. Gritton, Lance. Personal interview. 14 Apr 2007.

External links

• The Lost World: Jurassic Park Official Site