Steven Spielberg once claimed that he could not have made Jurassic Park after Schindler’s List. Well somehow he was able to muster the energy to make The Lost World: Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton’s sequel novel to Jurassic Park, which was written in response to the film’s success.

We are reunited with Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum). While in the first film he was the third lead who provided commentary on the foolishness of creating dinosaurs, he is now front and center to point out the sequel’s narrative flaws. Malcolm is the only member of the original venture who refused to cover it up and accept hush money, and is now treated as a lunatic for going to the press. He meets with Jurassic Park mastermind John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) who proposes that Malcolm go to a second dinosaur breeding island that we were previously unaware of. Of course Malcolm refuses and the movie ends. Except that it doesn’t. His girlfriend, paleontologist Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), is already on the island and may need rescue.

Explaining the plot past this point is largely worthless. The problem comes from the fact that there are several parties on the island with their own motivations and these conflicts never become cohesive or develop. We have poachers, scientists, working joes, and they’re all stupid and all miscommunicate, fight, and team up in ways that don’t make sense. Screenwriter David Koepp has taken every reason to go to the island in a sequel and thrown them at the wall. This is complete monster movie territory. I have nothing against monster movies but this entry pales in comparison to its predecessor.

The dinosaurs don’t seem special this time around. No character feels awe and Spielberg makes no attempt to manufacture it. As the series has progressed it has become increasingly clear that no one, not even Spielberg, can pull this trick off twice. We will never again see dinosaurs for the first time and we will always be waiting for the inevitable carnage.

Despite The Lost World’s narrative ineptitude, there are still some great set-pieces. Famously there is the T-Rex attack on the trailer. This is expert craftsmanship from Spielberg. We feel every crack of glass and the tension of the wire. It never lets up and constantly twists the knife on our heroes. Unfortunately this sequence leads to nothing in the story and is precipitated by the colossally dumb character choice to nurse a baby Rex. I’ll also point out Peter Stormare’s fun stand-off with the impish compys. Death by a thousand cuts is refreshing compared to the chomp. One bit of ingenuity in an island of cliche.

Odds and Ends:

Pete Postlethwaite and Richard Schiff are doing great work here despite the writing. Love Schiff’s hero’s death and Postlethwaite’s hairless poacher.

That gymnastics scene has to be one of Spielberg’s worst. It completey robs the velociraptors of their menace.