The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) Revisit

 

I love returning to films that I have not really posted on before, because it gives me an opportunity to think about the reason they stay in my head so long that I want to revisit them. "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" has not been ignored on this site, it was part of a Triple Feature Screening Video that I posted 9 years ago.  This however is the first time I am writing about the movie, and that requires some thought and analysis as well as some cheerleading. 

The main reason that anyone should be coming back to this subject for a sequel, four years after the original, is to spend more time with nearly everyone's favorite character from the first film, Ian Malcom. In the original "Jurassic Park" once you get past the dinosaurs, which were terrific innovations at the time, the most interesting element of the film is Jeff Goldblum as  chaotician Dr. Ian Malcom. The character has all the idiosyncrasies of the actor, plus the clever lines of humor, as well as narration of  the science and the morality issues in the film. Goldblum brings the standard thriller adventure to life with, as John Hammond says" You'll have to get used to Dr. Malcolm, he suffers from a deplorable excess of personality". In "The Lost World" you get a double dose of that personality, with frequent and completely justifiable moments of "I told you so." There are new characters for him to mock, cajole and kibitz with. Whatever they paid Goldblum was completely worth it.

Of the new characters, Pete Postlethwaite as Roland Tembo, the big game hunter brought in to collect specimens from the laboratory island for the new zoo attraction, is the most interesting and fun. He has no sense of humor and feels quite stern, bit his aura of authority keeps the action together once the shit hits the fan in the plot. Julianne Moore as Ian's girlfriend and paleontologist, Sarah, is the new John Hammond, at least when it comes to making mistakes about how to deal with the animals. She is responsible for the biggest error in the decision being made when she brings the wounded baby T-Rex into their mobile lab. It creates the scenario that produces one of the best examples of Steven Spielberg action directing, you will ever find.   I will get to that in a moment. Vince Vaugh is a serviceable action hero during the second act, and Arliss Howard as the unctuous Peter Ludlow, the new Chair of InGen, is suitably loathsome while also being out of his depth. One more character that deserves mention is played by future West Wing star Richard Schiff as Eddie Carr, the logistics man for Malcom's expedition to the island. Schiff is surprisingly great as a man of action, who performs the most heroic deeds in the film. His on screen death was one that was not played for laughs like Gennaro in the first film, but as a tragedy for all still alive.

The most spectacular set piece is the dual T-Rex attack on the mobile laboratory and the struggle of the character to survive. Spielberg paints a picture of the attack, mostly from inside of the vehicle. There are a few exterior shots, but mostly the action plays out in the confines of a double long recreational vehicle. The roll over effect is nicely staged, and the pushing of the vehicle so that the trailer half is hanging off the side of the cliff, makes the car in the tree scene form "Jurassic Park" look like the warm up act. When people criticize sequels for just repeating stories with bigger budgets, they would be ignoring this scene which also has bigger stakes and technical planning. The ambition compounds the threat, includes more of the dinosaurs and ratches up the tension repeatedly. There are multiple moments when the situation grows worse, and just as they start to resolve a complication, something new arises and doubles down on the characters desperation.  This is Spielberg at his merciless best in building tension and releasing it over and over. This scene stands up next to the T-Rex attack in "Jurassic Park", without any need to feel inadequate. It is an exquisite four minutes of movie magic.

One of the biggest criticisms of the film when it was first released was the final chapter set in San Diego. I recall people saying that it cheapened the film, but I always thought it answered the problem of Ian Malcom's credibility quite effectively, and it set the stage for InGen as a villain in subsequent films. They are always chasing the dollar, and underestimating the risks at someone else's expense.   Besides, there are two or three great visuals in that sequence, the Venture coming out of the dark and running into the dock is frightening and the T-Rex in the backyard, with the doghouse dangling from it's maw is disturbing. 

Even the moments in the film which are contrived, such as the gymnastic move by Ian's daughter, still work because Spielberg knows timing and setting well enough to make us invested, even in the ridiculous. We saw this film at an Alamo Movie Party Screening, and audiences are encouraged to react out loud to things on screen. This moment got some hoots, but not a lot, and there was even some cheering when the raptor goes down. 

This movie is not as essential as it's progenitor, but it is entertaining as hell, with laughs provided by Malcom's sanctimony and thrills provided by other characters stupidity. This may be the reason we keep going to films in this franchise, because we know, sometimes in spite of the obviousness, we can be entertained by suspense and action that is well done. 

  

The Bride! (2026)

 

I saw this movie in a Thursday Early screening, and I knew there was trouble by the sparsity of the crowd. In spite of coming from an accomplished actress as director with an award nominated film in her directing resume, there was plenty to doubt. This was obviously going to be a punk rock version of the Bride of Frankenstein, but it is hard to tell who would be the audience. We were there as fans of actress Jessie Buckley, who should be grateful this movie opened after the Academy Award voting this year had closed. She was terrific in "Hamnet" but over the top and more anonymous than expected in this. 

From the start of the film, when the ghost of Mary Shelly, reaches out for an insane story follow up to her famous novel, you get chaos. Somehow her spirit possesses a mob good time girl, and then that woman is murdered and her body rejuvenated by a mad doctor, prompted to do so by the creature that Mary Shelly invented. Yeah, it's that kind of batshit crazy and it gets more convoluted as well. There is a side story that involves the mobster who is responsible for the crime in Chicago in the 1930s, and he is not named Al Capone , but rather has the last name of Lupino, who is pursued by the dead woman reborn who it turns out was named Ida. Film fans will recognize this combination of names as the identity of actress and proto-feminist director Ida Lupino, the most well known woman director of films in the 40s and 50s in Hollywood. That barely scratches the surface of the movie references that the film piles on.

"Frank", the so named creature (maybe a lazy choice, maybe deliberately stupid), is a fan of Ronnie Reed, a singing and dancing movie star clearly inspired by Fred Astaire. Somehow, the Frankenstein Monster and his Bride, end up in a road picture, like a less romantic Gable and Colbert, more like Bonnie and Clyde or Mickey and Mallory. Death and Michael Jackson dance moves follow. Then we throw in a pursuing detective and his secretary, the real brains of the pair, and you have a chase movie. Scene to scene we watch the pursuers and the pursued, hop skip and jump through towns connected by the movies of Ronnie reed, for no particular reason. At one point a cult of women decide to emulate the Bride as if she were a modern YouTube influencer, advocating death and weird makeup tips. Pay close attention to when this happens because although it gets a whole 30 seconds of screen time, it will be a big part of the resolution of the film. 

OK, so this is all supposed to be absurdist art we are absorbing for two plus hours, but only the occasional image suggests anything artistic, the rest of it is gibberish. Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley, overact the vast majority of the time, diminishing the moments in the film when you might have had some interest in their characters. Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz as the pursuers are moistly wasted with motives that are fuzzy and story arcs that make no sense. When the credits at the end of the movie start with The Monster Mash as the closing song, it is clear that this was one long cartoon. Randomly sticking incomplete feminist ideas into a Pepe LePew short, makes no sense an swallows up any purpose the movie might have.

I can say that I enjoyed watching the film in several sequences, but that this is clearly not a good movie and it's existence is a puzzle. Who thought the script was worth the effort, much less the money that it took. Maggie Gyllenhaal got too far out over her skis and the result is a mildly interesting mess that will be lucky to get midnight screenings at art house theaters but not ant acclaim. This is "The Room" for horror film fans, and that may sound inviting, I suspect most of you will not feel so if you spent the night with it.  

Jurassic Park (1993) Revisit [Alamo Rant]

 

I have written about "Jurassic Park" on many previous posts. (Here, Here, and Here), so there is plenty of content on the site to cover the film I saw again on the big screen last weekend. 

Instead of elaborating ore on a film you all know, I want to take this opportunity to vent. I am frustrated to no end by a decision made by one of my beloved movie chains.

Alamo Drafthouse popularized the idea of theater dining and drinking. Those have never been my favorite part of going to an Alamo Presentation, but the experience has been less intrusive than I feared when the whole thing began. (Disclosure: The first in theater Dining Experience I had was at an AMC) The idea of waiters delivering food and taking orders while a movie was playing seems antithetical to me. The process is disruptive to the viewing experience. 

Alamo had managed it as well as could be expected, but they have suddenly stepped into their own trap. For years, the thing that was unique about the Alamo Drafthouse Experience was the forcefulness of their no phone policy. 

Last year they introduced an option to use your phone before the movie, as a way to order. This year, it has become mandatory. If you want any concession, food order or assistance, you have to use your phone. This was our first time under the new exclusive ordering system, and it was not a pleasant experience. Everyone in our row was grouching about the idea that to get concession items, you have to violate the long time "No Phones" policy. When the No Phone Slide shows up on screen before the film starts, it has a disclaimer now, excluding their own app. You could hear derisive laughter throughout the theater. 

As long as this new policy stays in place, I will be resisting it the best way that I can. The Alamo Experience had two things going for it, They have the best programming and they had the no phones policy. To me, the food and drink service was always secondary at best.  We did often order food and we enjoyed it, but it is not special enough to continue if this intrusive Phone approach is going to stay in place. So, AMC and Cinemark, you will see me more often. I'm not canceling my Alamo Movie Pass, I'm just not going to order anything when I go to a film that I can only find at the Drafthouse. Local eating establishments will be getting my business if I am hungry. #sneekinginmyjuniormints. 

Scream 7 (2026)

 

The movie is largely disappearing, so my motivation to write something unique is low. Most of my thoughts on the film can be found in the LAMBcast Episode devoted to it. Above is the Illustrated podcast.

Below is the audio version.

Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die (2026)

Gore Verbinski  has created a lot of films that I've enjoyed , most of which have a strange twist or odd angle to them. One of my favorites is Rango, the animated film that earned him a very deserved Academy Award, because let's face it no one is going to give him an award for overseeing the chaos that is the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, regardless of how much he managed to make sense of it all.

In anticipating “Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die”, I was expecting the usual degree of visual insanity and quirky characters that have characterized much of his previous work. To be honest a lot of it is here, but somewhere the funny got lost and instead of having a light touch with a serious subject, this movie feels as if it has a heavy thumb on the scale of sadness. 

I can't fault Sam Rockwell as the star of the film because he does exactly what he's supposed to be doing. He is maniacal, controlling, and at the center of all of the chaos. It's just that the chaos doesn't feel quite as chaotic as it should, and even though the premise is off center, it just doesn't feel off center enough. To me, the best section of the film is the opening where his character shows up and appears to be recruiting a team from the patrons of the diner that he's in.  We are led to believe that he's done this over 100 times before and is simply looking for the right combination of customers to get into his desired objective. The way in which he rejects or demands participation is truly amusing. Unfortunately once they escape the diner, what follows is a rather mundane Quest picture where the quest is just not as interesting as it should be.

The last half hour of the film does attempt to reinvigorate the crazy sensibility of the story. The fact that it is so dominated by visual effects that probably use the same kind of computer technology that the story is ultimately about, feels like it is undercutting the goal. I appreciate the characters of the company that Rockwell takes on his mission, and as we lose a couple on the way I was sad because they provided some of the best moments of the film.  

It's hard to understand what's going on from the very beginning, but as we get closer to the climax we do get a sense of what it all means. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but there is  another twist at the end, and although I could see it coming, that doesn't mean that I thought it was appropriate. Let's just say if we take the film at face value we are only watching a single chapter in a book that is not going to be completed. If there was hope that this could be a continuing series that has probably been dashed by the lack of box office, not to mention the less than enthusiastic reviews.

I'm glad I saw the movie, and I would certainly recommend it to fans of Sam Rockwell, because after all everything is better because he's in it. Since his failure with the Lone Ranger a dozen years ago, Verbenski has not been able to get a movie made on the scale of his previous dozen years. I'm afraid this movie is not going to change his situation. He has a great visual eye, but his storytelling chops seem to be muted at least for the moment. So let me finish by saying good luck, trying to figure out how this all works, have fun, watching the Clockwork Orange turn, and don't die from your bloated expectations.