THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK

Monsters scare people. Giant monsters scare and fascinate people even more and that is why many people are paying to see Steven Spielberg’s LOST WORLD:JURASSIC PARK, his long-anticipated sequel to the 1993 blockbuster film JURASSIC PARK. Deriving its appeal from the primal fear of giant monster Tyrannosaurus-Rexes (T. Rexes) attacking and eating human beings, LOST WORLD is entertaining, but morally vapid, as it offers no redemption to either human or dinosaur subjects.

Like its movie predecessor, LOST WORLD begins as hapless, bungling, biological entrepreneur John Hammond (Sir Richard Attenborough), founder of fictitious bio-company InGen Engineering launches yet another ill-fated attempt to exploit the potential of its captive dinosaurs on another remote Costa Rican island. Having turned from capitalist to conservationist because of the dino disaster his company endured in JURASSIC PARK, he now proceeds with caution by dispatching a team of naturalists to peacefully document dino behavior on another remote island where the dinosaurs were bread for shipment to JURASSIC PARK.

He chooses the same chaos-theory scientist Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who led the initial scientific expedition in JURASSIC PARK to lead the LOST WORLD survey-expedition. However, Malcolm strenuously objects, until Hammond mentions that Malcolm’s girlfriend, Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) is already on the island taking pictures. Under duress, Malcolm agrees to go not to photograph dinosaurs, but to rescue Sarah, whom he thinks is in mortal danger. “Ooo, ahhh, that’s how these things always start, but then there’s screaming and running,” says the neurotic Malcolm when he hears his team comment on dinosaur discoveries. .

A major complication arises as Hammond’s nephew, Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), an InGen officer, sends dino hunters to the island to capture and bring home a T. Rex for public viewing in America. As Sarah pursues her non-aggressive photographic mission on the dangerous island, the bad-guy dino hunters overtake Dr. Malcolm, who must now rescue both Sarah and his stowaway daughter, Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester).

Due to Sarah’s ill-conceived plan to nurture a baby T. Rex with a broken leg back to health, enraged T. Rex parents come to execute their reign of terror. Both teams suffer losses. They make the fatal decision to trek on foot to the interior of the island, where they hope to use InGen’s electronic communication equipment to secure help, resulting in more losses.

The dino hunter contingent persists and captures a T. Rex for commercial purposes. At a midnight press conference at the San Diego dock, Ludlow announces to assembled investors that InGen is importing a T. Rex into San Diego, which results in chaos and mayhem. LOST WORLD turns into a modern, more sophisticated KING KONG. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the same studio, Universal, which produced KING KONG should produce LOST WORLD.

Although its story is more complex and interesting than JURASSIC PARK, LOST WORLD continues to derive its dramatic power from dinosaurs threatening, attacking and munching human beings. Moreover, the human characters are underdeveloped and seem merely to serve as fodder for the dinos ravenous appetites. In fact, precious few consequences attend the ghastly deaths by dinos of literally dozens of the scientific expedition members, whose lives are treated more like cartoon lives than real human beings who have families, hopes and careers.

Because JURASSIC PARK already depicted dinosaur attacks, LOST WORLD’s appeal is diminished. With a low irony, where man fails by a quirk of fate, these dinosaurs overpower the humans and foil the weapons arrayed against them.

LOST WORLD is man against nature, and man loses. Although that makes interesting viewing, there is no corresponding moral prescription, except a lame and weak exhortation by the now fully environmentally persuaded conservationist Hammond to leave the animals alone on their island.

Visually, LOST WORLD is magnificent. Spielberg’s direction of the action is superb, as he sets up successive dinosaur threats and attacks with his customary genius. Special effects manager Stan Winston is indeed a master at his craft. Medical novelist Michael Crighton wrote the book, from which veteran screenwriter David Koepp wrote a good action screenplay, and the result is movie magic.

Yet, as in JURASSIC PARK, scientific materialism pervades LOST WORLD, which offers no hope of redemption from the murderous killing sprees on which the dinosaurs go when meddling humans provoke them to wrath.

God says something different. In Romans 8:19-21, the Bible says that all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. So whereas Steven Spielberg depicts a sin-sick lost world of the past breaking into the present, God depicts a sinless future world, in which creation itself (including animals) will be redeemed as God’s children who have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior enter their eternal destiny to reign with Jesus in His perfect Majesty.