Return to the Lost World

This sequel to "The Lost World" has Summerlee and Challenger returning to the Lost World to thwart some rascally oil prospectors. Rather more spectacular than the first film (it includes a brief nude shot of the delectable Nathania Stanford) it has the same rather likeable qualities.

It plays like a Victorian adventure story, brave, honest Englishmen against cowardly, devious continental Europeans (In this case Belgian and Portuguese). The lead villain over acts badly but Rhys-Davies and Walker are good in the lead roles.

There is rather more action and plot than the first film and generally it holds the interest.

This is one ridiculous sequel that never should have been made. The team that discovered The Lost World comes back to the plateau where the dinosaurs roam come back to help the natives when some oil drillers come to their home and start drilling. It's British imperialism at its finest and native considerations don't count for much.

Except for John Rhys-Davies, David Warner, Eric McCormack, Darren Peter Mercer, and Tamara Gaski who did promise to help the natives if they needed.

What the oil drillers do is tap into a sleeping volcano and the way it is dealt with is plain ridiculous. That together with the chintzy special effects from the original make this a bad sequel.

Arthur Conan Doyle would shudder.

This was filmed back-to-back with the 1992 re-make of Conan Doyle's famous novel 'The Lost World'. And it shows.

The film starts promisingly enough, with a ruthless organization intending to exploit the lost world and Challenger et al returning to defend the prehistoric plateau, but then things go downhill. Everybody is stranded on the plateau and we're left with a feeble, boring, over-length rehash of the first film.

The dinosaurs (who are hardly ever seen) are just laughable. Are we expected to take that cuddly toy that's supposed to be an ankylosaur seriously? And the tyrannosaur seems rooted to the spot.

Do yourself a favor and get hold of the 1925 silent version of the Lost World. Unbelievably in this age of CGI and other advanced effects, the twenties version is the best and will remain so until somebody finally decides to do a decent re-make.

Why do Berlusconi films use such poor quality film stock? This, its predecessor, the Sherlock Holmes films with Christopher Lee/Patrick MacNee, all present fuzzy images. Surely this is a false economy? How much difference in price is there between good quality stock and the rubbish stuff? Is it purely to match the stock footage(volcanoes) and avoid those Irwin Allen type mismatches? This film is worth watching if you want to be a completist, but the previous criticisms, hammy acting, ludicrous dinosaurs are all correct, but I can't agree that the two principals are second rate. Warner was an actor of promise before he went to Hollywood(see Gielgud's comments on Claude Rains{irony alert 1960 version}). There are also mistakes, piranhas in Africa, guns not firing, why do the workers wear their tin helmets all the time? Whatever happened to Nathania Stanford? Just these two films? Probably saw sense and got a life.

This sequel to the 1992 version of "The Lost World" came out just a month after the release of the first film in Canada. The cast is essentially the same, and the filming was again in Zimbabwe, Africa.

The plot for this partial sci-fi thriller is based on crime. Edward Malone and Jenny Nielson learn that an oil-drilling operation has gone to the area of the lost world. The operators have killed the native chief, Palala, and enslaved tribesmen and the tribe has sent word for help. So they convince a feuding Challenger and Summerlee to return to help the locals.

Between dinosaur attacks, clashes with the European oil drillers, and the threat of a volcano, the good guys are able to win the day. This is even much tamer than the first film, and while young children may yet enjoy it, the older kids would probably be bored and wander off. Parents and grandparents might take advantage of the time for a nap.