Die verlorene Welt

This 1992 film was well down the line of movies that have been and will be made based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's science-fiction adventure novel, "The Lost World." It's also not the best nor the worst of the various renditions of movies.

John Rhys-Davies plays Professor Challenger and Eric McCormack plays Edward Malone. In this version, the person of Lord John Roxton is absent and a new character is added. Tamara Gorski plays Jenny Nielson, a wildlife photographer. She became part of the expedition since her wealthy father put up the money for the venture. David Warner plays Professor Summerlee, an antagonist of Challenger, who is selected by the Royal Science Academy to head the expedition.

The setting for this version of Doyle's novel is central Africa, instead of South America as in the novel. There are no noted performances, and anyone familiar with The Lost World story will know the general plot of the film. It has several diversions from the novel, but nothing that makes the story any better. If anything, those may have weakened the story by cluttering it up with too much detail and taking away from the dinosaur-age animals and encounters.

This is a relatively tame sci-fi flick, in spite of the script's attempt at mystery to play on a fright factor. Those who like sci-fi should enjoy this film, although aficionados of the genre will find this one lame compared to such great films as Jurassic Park and King Kong.

Well acted and truer to the book than most versions, this film keeps you interested as long as you are not concerned about the dinos. John Rys Davies and Warner are very good as usual. The rest of the cast are virtual unknowns even today, so you are not seeing seminal performances by current well known actors.

As far as the dinos, think Dr. Who back in the Jon Pertwee era. Some scenes aren't bad but generally we're talking rubber dinos that look like rubber dinos. As in Who, the story outweighs the special effects. (Current Who TV has great special effects of course.) still, as I said, some scenes are better than others.

Notwithstanding them, the film is worth a look.

There is something rather endearing about this cheapie production, there is no sex or nudity and any violence or gore is muted, it's obviously made for the family audience.Although low budget it's rather a pleasant looking production.

The acting by the leads is good but some of the natives look as though they would be more at home on urban streets or in a disco than in a jungle, however Nathania Stanford as Malu has a cheeky grin and looks pretty good in a sarong.

The monsters are hokey with no attempt to hide the fact that they are puppets (Jurassic Park this ain't), usually they are more cute than frightening.

All in all not badly done within it's limits.

There isn't anything to add regarding most of the production values or plot summaries that hasn't been addressed earlier.What impressed me was our hero,the bold Professor George Edward Challenger- an outstanding portrayal by an outstanding character actor.The original character,as conceived by Doyle,is truly larger than life.Bold,brave,arrogant,brilliant,insightful,virile,unscrupulous when attaining his goals,humorous,and reckless,and resourceful.John Rhys-Davies epitomizes this character without a flaw.(Brian Blessed is the only other actor I can imagine pulling it off,but the portrayal would have had a gleefully sadistic element not in keeping.And Warner is a worthy foil-arch,pompous,equally arrogant and ereudite,yet possessing the same high level of scholarly integrity and brilliance.Watch this,not as great art(I don't think they ever intended it as such,but as a lot of fun.

When you look at the multiple screen adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's hit science-fiction novel "The Lost World," (I have seen six) there is rarely one where you don't see at least something that you don't like, even if you don't care for the movie entire. That is the case for me with the low-budget, low-key adaptation done in 1992. Looking at this movie, I admire the spirit and the enthusiasm of the cast and the casting choices. I also admire the enthusiasm that one gets from its director, Timothy Bond as he makes the best out of what he has in terms of budget and screenplay. Well, the former can be dealt with in limitations, however a lack of enthusiasm in the latter, which is more controllable, tends to be crippling. I just don't sense that the movie's writer was having particular fun when he wrote this. The movie is really lacking in connections not only between characters, but in plot elements as well and also the timing, though packed with sporadic moments, is really just as stiff and plodding as the rubber dinosaurs in the back-lot jungle.

The movie does sport a very strong cast. Over the years and adaptations, Conan Doyle's iconic character of Professor Challenger has been played by the best, including Wallace Beery, Claude Rains, and Bob Hoskins. Here, a very well-cast John Rhys-Davies takes a very aggressive and determined note in the character and does it very, very well. Rhys-Davies, an enormously underrated actor, has appeared in a lot of low-key stuff as of late, and this is one of his more enthusiastic performances. The movie also features David Warner, who handles his contrarian lines well enough to keep the character from being annoying. Eric McCormack is also enthusiastic and very good as the reporter, Nathania Stanford is good as the jungle girl with a heart, and I really liked the gorgeous Tamara Gorski as one of McCormack's love interests, characters that are *always* added to the film adaptations. Oh, and there's also a tag-along kid played by Darren Peter Mercer, but this is a weaker point. It's not that I don't like the young actor's performance really, it's just that I don't like the whiny character.

The ultimate weakness of the movie is the lack of enthusiasm in its screenplay. There are some fine moments and many more than fine ideas that are presented, such as a tribe of native people who wear skeleton-like war paint as they sacrifice captives to a tyrannosaurus, but these ideas are rushed and thrown out the window without giving them their own due. Another weakness is the fact that too many characters were crammed into the story. A notable character from the book is missing and replaced with a second romantic interest for the reporter when one was clearly enough. This love triangle also never really plays itself out to its rightful potential. But really the most interesting element in the movie is the relationship between McCormack and *one* of his love interests. It's well-written, charming, and yet does not overplay itself to the point where it becomes sappy.

I like the cast of the movie, I like the relationship between Eric McCormack and Tamara Gorski, and I like some individual moments, but ultimately this version of "The Lost World" is really just a plodding bore as it just moves from one point to another without any intelligence or real sense of motivation. There's nothing really terrible about it, but it is quite disappointing. How does it compare to some of the other adaptations that I've seen. I guess I liked it a little more than the 1960 version, but it pales when compared to the 1925 silent classic and especially so with the marvelous, involving 2001 masterpiece directed by Stuart Orme.