Movie Review - The Lost World: Jurassic Park

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

Starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Pete Postlethwaite, Richard Schiff, Arliss Howard, Vanessa Lee Chester, Peter Stormare, and Richard Attenborough

Directed by Steven Spielberg

How can the same director and half of the screenwriting team of one of the best "popcorn" blockbuster movies of all time fail so miserably the second go-around as we venture back to the islands off the coast of Costa Rica again in The Lost World: Jurassic Park?  Quite frankly, there's hardly anything to recommend in this second segment of the Jurassic Park Quadrilogy.  Instead we get rehashed scenes, duplicated themes, and special effects that can't hold a candle to its predecessor. I didn't remember The Lost World being as bad as this when I watched it decades ago...but this is really awful stuff.

Since I created a list in my Jurassic Park review, let's continue that trend here as we discuss the many detriments of The Lost World:

• Let's just begin with the obvious "gymnastics" foreshadowing at the beginning of the film that then wreaks havoc during a pivotal scene in the movie's climax.  Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), the only returning character to hold a pivotal role in this sequel, has a daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester) whom we discover at the beginning has been let go of her gymnastics team for not being good enough apparently.  When she stows away and arrives on the island with her father, we're well aware that her "lack" of gymnastics skills is going to come into play at some point.  For the whole film, Kelly is a character that is given next to nothing to do, hardly ever being put in peril.  However, at an integral point in the film's climax, Kelly, her father, and fellow scientist and current love interest of Ian, Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), are trapped in some type of facility with a bunch of beams and high walkways.  Of course, Kelly's gymnastics will come into play here as she jumps around the facility like some acrobatic mini Flying Wallenda brother.  Utterly preposterous and painful to watch.
• Similar to the first film, our main characters are placed into peril while in a vehicle, but this time, it's just ludicrous.  As Ian, Sarah, and videographer Nick (Vince Vaughn) fall over the edge of a cliff in a trailer, scenes of shattering glass and falling debris aren't perilous, but rather ridiculous.  This purportedly tense moment wreaks of unbelievability and the resolution to this scene is nonsensically laughable.
• What the heck is up with the subplot of what are essentially poachers (played by Pete Postlethwaite and Arliss Howard amongst other) coming to the island?  All these characters are is quite literally dead weight as we await for a T-Rex to chomp them to bits.  They play no part other than Stereotypical "Bad Guy" which the first film didn't need at all in order to succeed.
• The special effects here look so much worse than the original.  How they downgraded to dinosaurs that look less realistic than the original is unfathomable to me.  The use of less puppetry and more computer-driven graphics doesn't do the film any favors and the overall result is a huge letdown from the original's stellar effects.

It certainly doesn't help matters that the finale with a T-Rex wreaking havoc on San Francisco is so excessively irrational that The Lost World ends on a horrible note, but that would've really made no difference anyway.  Obviously, my affinity for Jurassic Park taints my opinion of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, but it's not even that the sequel is inferior, it's just that it attempts to carbon copy the original at every turn and fails miserably.  

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Join in tomorrow as we explore more of the Jurassic Park Quadrilogy:

Tomorrow: Jurassic Park III

Saturday:  Jurassic World

Previously:  Jurassic Park

Movie Review - Romeo + Juliet

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, John Leguizamo, Harold Perrineau, Pete Postlethwaite, Paul Sorvino, Brian Dennehy, and Paul Rudd

Directed by Baz Luhrmann
***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Despite your feelings towards the film, no one can deny that director Baz Luhrmann has crafted a unique, modern take on William Shakespeare's classic tale of the two lovers Romeo and Juliet.  As their families fight each other, the two young amours become enamored of one another and refuse to deny their love up until their dying days (oops...did I spoil the tale for someone?).

I remember going to the movie theater to see this when I was sixteen and thinking that it was pretty darn cool.  At this point in time, Luhrmann wasn't known at all and his crazed, schizophrenic visual style was oddly compelling and unlike anything I had ever seen before.  Placing the Bard's "old school" dialog in a completely contemporary setting was riveting to me.

Cut to fifteen years later and I'm not so sure that I'm as much of a fan.  Don't get me wrong, Luhrmann has certainly crafted a distinct take on the material, but there are (several) moments where there is just too much going on visually.  Because of the bombardment of images, the words sometimes get lost in translation and the story becomes a secondary afterthought to the film's appearance.  A decade-and-a-half after the film's release, rather than being riveted I found myself laughing at an early scene involving a showdown between members of the Montague and Capulet families simply because of the way Luhrmann utilizes his camera.  The "wild west showdown" atmosphere he creates just didn't set well with me.

The aforementioned scene is one of several that just had me clamoring for a more straightforward (or at least less crazed) take on the material.  Maybe I'm just becoming a fuddy duddy in my old age, but the film as a whole was a bit of a disappointment.

Luhrmann does manage to get a decent performance out of Leonardo DiCaprio, but Claire Danes' Juliet felt a bit wooden to me at times (although, if I'm being honest, I'm not sure the character of Juliet is all that interesting of a person to begin with).  Most of the other supporting roles didn't really strike my fancy either this time around.

All that said, I can't deny that this is a different spin on the classic tale, but it's one that I don't need to revisit any time soon.  As I was watching it (and not loving it), I wondered to myself what my take on Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge would be so many years later.  Seeing as how that film has the same visual style of Romeo + Juliet, I can't help but think it will have faded from my initial praises as well.  Might be time to take another look at that one...

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach (1996)

Starring Paul Terry, Joanna Lumley, Miriam Margoyles, and Pete Postlethwaite

Featuring the voices of Richard Dreyfuss, Jane Leeves, and Susan Sarandon

Directed by Henry Selick

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Although I've always been a fan of Roald Dahl, I wasn't a fan of this film version of his book James and Giant Peach when it was released fifteen years ago.  Still, I figured that it may be worth a revisit to see if I was just a sixteen year-old curmudgeon when it came out.  Well, I'm either still that same curmudgeon today or the film just doesn't work.

Coming on the heels of his critically-acclaimed The Nightmare Before Christmas, director Henry Selick returns to the world of stop-motion animation, but mixes in some live-action bookends featuring young actor Paul Terry as the title character (that would be James...not the Giant Peach).  Living in England with his horrific aunts (Miriam Margoyles and Joanna Lumley) after the death of his parents, James longs to escape his sullen life and visit New York City.  One evening, he meets a mystical traveling guy (Pete Postlewaite) who gives James some magical "seeds" which grow a giant peach larger than most houses.  In order to hide from his nagging aunts, James climbs into the peach, turns into a Claymation creation, and meets a motley crew of insects who call the peach their home.

Surprisingly, it's the live action segments of the film that work best.  There's an absurdist, over-the-top quality to them that feel as if they were pulled right from the pages of Dahl's books.  However, the stop-motion animation portion of the tale fails miserably.  There's never any zip or excitement and the insect gang isn't the least bit engaging.  Of course, they're forced to sing the least interesting songs possible (crafted by the overrated Randy Newman), but that's only a part of the problem.  The biggest issue is that the story just flounders around once James is in the peach (which could be attributable to the original source novel...I never read this book, however).

The RyMickey Rating:  D