Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) had two of the most iconic and popular action figure lines of the nineties. The toys for these films put highly posable dinosaurs in the hands of kids who could play out the fight for survival on Isla Sorna. The toys of people hardly resembled the actors (with the exception of Jeff Goldblum) but the dinosaurs looked exactly like the ones in the movies.
Growing up watching Jurassic Park regularly, and playing it even more often, I was psyched about the sequel. I remember eating my The Lost World: Jurassic Park chocolate bar after seeing the movie in the theater. I loved the movie. I loved seeing my favorite dinosaurs again and meeting new prehistoric beasts. For a kid there were few films that captured our prepubescent imaginations like Jurassic Park.
As I grew older the spell wore off. The Lost World: Jurassic Park isn’t Spielberg’s ultimate escapist work the way that Jurassic Park is. The Lost World: Jurassic Park is a clone of all the beats of the earlier film with some new ideas thrown into the mix, resulting in a particularly muddy affair. The pacing is all over the place, the action is awkwardly staged and the ending feels tagged on at the last minute.
Yet, even as a jaded film critic I still get goosebumps when the T-Rex first appears. I still feel joyful watching a stampede of herbivores run for their lives. I still become excited to see the Raptors on the hunt. So in this respect Spielberg’s film is a success. It’s a mediocre movie that can, nonetheless, tap into the spectator’s inner child and transport them back to when they were just a kid.
