In 7 words or less: By-the-way, there were two islands.
What's it all About? After the embarrassing first day at Jurassic Park, Richard Attenborough now spends all day, lounging around in bed. From his silky boudoir he is assembling a team to go to a secret 'second' island (solely for research purposes of course) where dinos roam free-and-easy without constraints from those mostly useless electric fences from the first film. Things don't go well.
Best bits? The best bits in part two are few and far between, sadly. There are a few outstanding moments where the film makers look like they are having some fun (at last!). The first is right at the beginning, when a mother screams at the sight of her daughter being eaten by some little angry dinos screams and the camera cuts to a big yawning Goldblum in front of a tropical poster.
The next would be a whole lot later on when our characters are in a predicament as a couple of T-Rex's have pushed their science-wagon off the edge of a cliff. What follows is a tense, gravity defying scene. Julianne Moore laying on a slowly cracking pane of glass is a highlight. 'tink!' 'tink!' 'tink!'
Although the story is rushed through to get to it, the T-Rex loose in San Diego is a treat compared with most of this film. It's a massive romp with an over-sized dinosaur smashing buses and stomping cars. It's really what this film needed and compared with some of the sub par effects of this episode, it looks like they've really taken their time over this scene. There are lots of little things to watch out for too; if you speak Japanese, then you will hear a group of screaming Japanese men yelling "I left Tokyo to get away from this!".
Did it make you think thoughts? I wondered why this film doesn't feel like such a treat as the first... It seems like it introduces about fifty characters. They just keep coming! All of them as unlikable as the next. It's very odd. The whole game-hunting aspect of this is badly done. Don't over-think dinos. Just have people hiding from them and then do some running. It doesn't even look as good as the first movie. It seems like there is far more CG rather than animatronics and the CG has gotten worse than before. Aside from the technical stuff, the characters are far less believable and watchable this time around too. Even Goldblum struggles to lead this thing. Then there's Vince Vaughn. Hollywood's most offensive screen presence, who is so clearly evil in real life that when he tries to play a likeable character, he becomes more off-putting somehow.
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| Pure Evil. |
Would you watch it again? Of course, if you think J-Park, you're going to watch the first one. But, if you are feeling like a slowly deteriorating trilogy, then what are you going to do?
Rating (out of 100%): 65% Should have been shorter with added fun.
