“The Lost World: Jurassic Park” was directed by Steven Spielberg, written by David Koepp, is loosely based Michael Crichton’s 1995 novel, “The Lost World” and is a sequel to the 1993 previous film. Along with Spielberg & Crichton, Jeff Goldblum returned as Dr. Ian Malcolm with a brand new cast. Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Arliss Howard, Venessa Lee Chester, Pete Postlethwaite, Richard Schiff, Peter Stormare & Harvey Jason. Richard Attenborough, Ariana Richards & Joseph Mazzello also return from the previous film but only for the opening scenes. Unlike before where the film came out after the novel, production began on the film just as Crichton was writing the second novel however, the book was released in ’95 and filming didn’t wrapped until the end of 1996.

After a rich family’s yacht stumbles on to site B, Isla Sorna, 50 away from Isla Nublar, the young daughter is attacked by a small group of “compies”. 4 years after the events of the previous film & the lawsuit filed by the rich family, Peter Ludlow (Howard) has taken control of InGen from his uncle, John Hammond (Attenborough). Hammond calls for Dr. Ian Malcolm (Golblum) and ask him to head up a small team to provide evidence of the dinosaurs on site B in order to secure the island outside interference and protect from the rest of the world. The team consist of Eddie Carr (Schiff) an equipment engineer, Nick Van Owen (Vaughn), a video documentary filmmaker & the paleontologist, Dr. Sarah Hardin (Moore) who is also Malcolm’s girlfriend. Malcolm feels that Hammond’s plan won’t work due to the same events of last time, but his mind is quickly changed after Hammond informs him that Sarah is already on the island alone. Malcolm, Eddie & Nick all head to Isla Sorna to resuce Sarah. As if things couldn’t get any worse, after finding Sarah & learning of her progress, Malcolm’s daughter, Kelly (Chester) has also joined the group on the island. Before Malcolm can get everyone off the island, the group is stunned to learn that another group from InGen arrives on the island. Confused, the group follow these mercenaries and learn that Ludlow had gathered a hunting group to take dinosaurs off the island and bring them to his new state of the art zoo in San Diego, California to make profit off the them and save his controlling state in InGen. The hunters include Dieter Stark (Stormare), their own paleontologist, Dr. Robert Burke (played by Thomas F. Duffy) & big game hunters, Roland Tempo (Postlethwaite) and his long time partner Ajay Sidhu (played by Harvey Jason). Malcolm knows that putting people & dinosaurs together is always going to end badly, but idea of taking dinosaurs off the island to a populated area is much worse. Now in this turn of events, Malcolm and his group must do all they can to ensure that Ludlow and his mercenaries must not succeed in their objective.

After the success of the first film, Universal & Crichton felt pressured to make a follow up film & novel. This was a solid departure from the first film, going from pure science fiction to a straight up action adventure. It followed the “Alien” formula, changing genres in the next installments. “The Lost World” was a great film with amazing visuals. My only complaint with this film is the abrupt shift in tone once we get to the final act. It’s a major change from Crichton’s novel which, in my opinion, had a better ending and would’ve made a much more entertaining and exciting ending to the film. Jeff Goldblum nails Dr. Malcolm, bringing him to life from the novel. Moore, Vaughn & Howard are all solid in their performances. Pete Postlethwaite’s performance is also great despite having the least amount of screen time. The film’s extended version actually gives more to Postlethwaite’s character and flushing him out more which made the overall performance that much better.

Overall, this film wasn’t better than the first but it is damn fine action adventure. Universal went to make third film in 2001, “Jurassic Park III” but no one from “The Lost World” would return. Sam Neill & Laura Dern would return from the first film but that’s it. It would be 14 years later before another film would be released. “Jurassic World” came out in 2015, followed by “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom” in 2018. “Fallen Kingdom” would see the return of Jeff Goldblum as “Dr. Ian Malcolm”. “Jurassic World: Dominion” is set to come out in 2021 which will see the old cast of the film join the cast of the new trilogy in a new adventure following the events of “Fallen Kingdom”.