The Lost World: Jurassic Park Critic Reviews

Much of this movie seems like a retread of Jurassic Park (with a little King Kong thrown in at the end), not because director Steven Spielberg is intentionally copying himself, but because there's really not much more that he can do with the premise.Read the full review

It's not just that we've been there before but also that Steven Spielberg and his associates simply haven't been able to imagine as many flat-out scary moments this time around.Read the full review

The story (adapted by Spielberg and David Koepp from Michael Chrichton's "Lost World") isn't much better than "Jurassic Park." And the predictability factor is high.Read the full review

For the first half-hour, the movie is pretty crummy. Even Spielberg appears bored with the script's lame setup, its quick evocation of the first movie and its wan establishment of human villains and heroes. Like any 50-year-old adolescent, he can't wait for the dinosaurs. And when he gets to them, the movie ceases to bear any relationship to conceits of narrative and becomes a sheer adrenalin spike to the brain stem.Read the full review

David Koepp's script, from the Michael Crichton novel, is schematic and largely predictable. There's an obvious threat and not too many ways to quell it. Underneath the technical virtuosity is a standard chase film, and director Steven Spielberg does little to elevate it dramatically. Read the full review

Where the original film was a cut-and-dried Pop-Art-flavored allegory pitting scientific hubris against the unpredictable, ungovernable forces of nature, the sequel is an all-stops-pulled, edge-of-your-seat adventure film whose messages are not so neatly packaged. Read the full review

It would be imprecise to say that the thrill is gone, because The Lost World recovers from its turgid opening and comes to life, or does so in spasms.Read the full review

Steven Spielberg, a gifted filmmaker, should have reimagined the material, should have seen it through the eyes of someone looking at dinosaurs, rather than through the eyes of someone looking at a box-office sequel.Read the full review