He takes along an equipment specialist and a 'video documentarian'' (who comes equipped with a tiny tourist toy of a video camera and doesn't seem sure how to use it). His girlfriend ( Julianne Moore) is already there. The plot sets up a reason for a scientist ( Jeff Goldblum) to return to an island where dinosaurs survive. 'The Lost World'' is even more perfunctory.

But soon they are cut down to size by a plot which has them chasing and scaring the human characters, as in any monster movie. Why not a pseudo-documentary in which the routine plot elements are simply ignored, and the characters venture into the unknown and are astonished and frightened by what they find? There are moments in the first 'Jurassic Park'' which capture a genuine sense of wonder, the first time we see the graceful, awesome prehistoric creatures moving in stately calm beyond the trees. We know the tired old plot lessons already, about man's greed and pride, and how it is punished, and why it does not pay to interfere with Mother Nature. Everything else-the scientific mumbo-jumbo, the theme park scheme-was just the recycling of other movies. He should have tossed aside the original Michael Crichton novel, knowing it had given him only one thing of use: an explanation for why dinosaurs might walk among us. Perhaps the time to do the thinking on this project was before the first film, when all the possibilities lay before Spielberg. But the same realism isn't brought to the human characters, who are bound by plot conventions and action formulas, and scripted to do stupid things so that they can be chased and sometimes eaten by the dinosaurs.

It can be said that the creatures in this film transcend any visible signs of special effects and seem to walk the earth. The dinosaurs look amazingly real, and we see them plunge into the midst of 360-degree action a man on a motorcycle even rides between the legs of a running beast. The movie is well done from a technical viewpoint, yes.

Watch return to the lost world 1992