The Lost World (1998)

People are voting emotionally.

How sad is this?

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I knew this film was Canadian before I looked at the box. Stilted acting, really bad cameramen, terrible cut-away shots that just looked amateur, green screen usage that was just pure college-work and ridiculous over-emphasis on the 'savages' that capture the unconvincing female lead which, had I been totally sober, may have caused me to rip out my own eyes.As it was, I was eating rum & raisin ice cream and so managed not to self-harm, and could only put the shambolic Hammer Horror wannabes that comprised the overly-long and not at all scary 'sacrifice' scene down to the producer and director both being off sick at the time and some gaffer being called in to shoot that scene on his mum's camera, having done a good job of it at his redneck cousin's wedding. Come to think of it, that scene probably WAS his redneck cousin's wedding.Some of the things that upset me and caused my ulcers to pulse are listed below. I had to stop delineating them after a while because there were just so many, many terrible things about this film that it made me start to cry at my desk and rock to and fro, hugging myself. It's a wonder I managed to finish this review at all.Fake blood spurting out of a dinosaurs'neck as it flew in the sky Vampire bats chewing off an arm that, once severed, looked like a piece of purple rubber Terrible accents - passing off Inuit as Mongolians while filming in Yellowknife - awful awful casting and dreadful filmography. Unconvincing acting - Favourite Dodgy camera-work Poor Green Screen technology Bad editing The production of this entire film is just bad, bad, bad. The actors were SO one-dimensional that a blank piece of paper would look full of charisma next to them. For example, woman spends 15 minutes squealing about being tied to a scaffold (some people pay for that privilege, lady) and then when she finally gets 'rescued', is asked: 'Are you okay?'. 'Yes, just get me down', she says, sounding like a mother returning from the school run and asking for a cup of tea.I've seen better budget films done at the London School of Arts and Media by 19-year-olds. I've had more fun watching films of my cat walking round the flat with a Christmas hat on his head, taken on my mobile while drunk. This is typical - Canadian film-makers trying to do a big budget film on a coca-cola budget. Had to switch it off after 1/2 an hour which was far too long a time. I will never, ever ever be able to reclaim those lost 30 minutes of my life. Even my Haagen Daaz started to taste stale. Birds started to fall dead from the sky near my flat. The Christmas tree shed all its needled. Flooding happened in Cambodia as a direct result.In the end, my DVD player started to make a horrible noise after 30 mins and caused the DVD to pixellate, which was the best part of the whole diabolical spectacle.

The choleric, maniacal and bearded Challenger (as Doyle described him in the book) is, by a strange choice of casting, portrayed by a polite, serious Patrick Bergin after a shave here. However, this movie still is way better than the almost simultaneously produced kiddie version for Berlusconi's TV with John Rhys-Davies. It is the darkest among the many adaptations, more reminding me "King Kong" or an Indiana Jones adventure than "Lost World", but it is moving fast and surely entertaining. My main complaint: I didn't like the mad mercenary David Nerman made out of John Roxton. The creatures were not too exactly following today's palaeontological knowledge, but hey, they're movie monsters! Special FX aren't top of the crop, but obviously they didn't have the big budget for more. Michael Sinelnikoff as Summerlee returned a year later for the TV series with the same title (otherwise, this movie is not related to that production). Not a good movie, all in all, but not too bad either.

My Take: Decent, violent and rarely-seen adaptation. I do have the book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but I haven't read it yet. I was only familiar with the characters in Doyle's tale when I watched this movie many years ago, when I was a kid. I really loved it as a kid, because I loved Dinosaurs that much back then. I watched this movie a lot of times. There were a lot of reruns of this movie back then. Sure, it was not "Jurassic Park", but I still loved it.I know many of you are confused due to the numerous remakes of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic story in the 90's, that you mistake this movie from something else. As for me, I only know two "Lost World" movies. This and Steven Spielberg's hit sequel to "Jurassic Park". Both are good films. Even though the film delivers a lot of flaws and errors in paleontology or in the novel, I'm still looking forward on watching it again. I've forgotten a lot about it when I last watched it as a kid. So I'm looking forward for another rerun, or better yet, a video copy of my own.TV movie rating: *** out of 5.

The movie had the potential to be good. But, after about 20 minutes the viewer should give up. Granted I was not expecting great special effects, but good special effects would have been nice. The effects were BAD, they can't even be classified as special. The make-up, oh-so bad. The storyline BAD, BAD. The blond haired Diva, yea ok she looks this good after living alone for 11 years? The primitive tribes, I think they came from "Gilligan's Island". The costumes - where did the two Divas get those lace up shoes? This movie could have been good, if they never would have made it.*1/2 out of *****.