The-Reel-McCoy -- The Lost World

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	Rated: PG-13
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I guess one measure of a great movie is that it spawns a sequel. By that standard then, we may now say that Jurassic Park was quite a movie, for there is now another Spielberg dinosaur movie extravaganza: The Lost World.

Michael Crichton, I suppose under the duress of Steven Spielberg, undertook the impossible task of writing a book as original, inspiring, and as exciting as the first Jurassic Park. This book has been out for quite a while now and, luckily, much of the horrible plot and content of the book has been replaced and/or altered for the movie. But even so, The Lost World fails at recapturing the awe and wonder not only of the dinosaurs but of man's abilities, potential, and possibilities. The inspiring concept of being able to genetically bring the dinosaurs back to life and the wonder and amazement of being able to witness such an event is something that only the first Jurassic Park was able to give us. I'm sure we all remember Laura Dern staring with her mouth wide open as she stood up to get a better glimpse of what the picture then focused on: dinosaurs, living and breathing once again. Furthermore, The Lost World demonstrates that something is not quite right when a movie's characters are composed almost entirely of crazy people seeking out what normal people would avoid. Case in point: Twister, a good movie with its special effects, but without them, a complete waste. Chrichton is to blame for Twister's script too. Is he going downhill?

One thing The Lost World does do, however, is bring more action and suspense into the picture. Another key success of the movie is the return of Ian Malcom, played by the captivating stutterer: Jeff Goldblum. One of my favorite lines from the movie displays Goldblum's wonderful deliverance and offers us a reminder that this is a sequel and is meant to be fun: "Oh sure. Now everything is like 'Oooh' and, and 'Aaah'. But later th-there will be running a-and screaming." One of the best scenes of the movie was simply amazing: Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) falls several feet flat onto a window of a trailer knocking the wind out of her when suddenly she realizes that the window is beginning to crack and that is all that is keeping her from falling several hundred feet over the cliff...

I think the movie will be much more enjoyable to those of you who are willing to believe that certain things are even possible. Although I was not fortunate enough to let these things slip by. For instance, the "gymnastics" scene just did not fit. I mean, come on. Here we have a girl who is screaming and crying and trembling at the fear of the velociraptors trying to get her. But what is her next move? Jumping up into the rafters onto the only two metal bars on the island devoid of rust, doing several superfluous acrobatic turns and flips, taunting the raptor, and then kicking the beast (which probably weighs twice as much as her) through the window. That was completely unbelievable and not even really all that cute. What was cute, however, was having the Tyrannosaurus Rex take on San Diego. It was reminiscent of a modern-day Godzilla movie. But before the T Rex arrived to wreak its havoc, we are led to believe that it ate the entire crew (except for the hands) of the cargo ship, even though its head could not have fit inside the navigators area, and then was somehow trapped below the deck with the doors closed on top of it, even though there was no one there to push the button to close the huge doors.

All in all however, I liked this movie. And almost anyone on Earth will like this movie too, unless they somehow hate dinosaurs, suspense, action, and wonderful special effects.