You Need To Watch Jeff Goldblum's Most Underrated Scifi Movie On HBO Max ASAP

You can't beat Jurassic Park . The 1993 sci-fi blockbuster about a cloned dinosaur running amok in a defaced amusement park on an island was brilliant. Spielberg's film changed the direction of visual effects in cinema, and the perfect cast became an instant classic. But the franchise is often seen as a case of diminishing returns, as no other film in the six-film franchise can compete with the original.

But the first sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, was pretty close.

It's hard to imagine that after the huge success of Jurassic Park, it would take four years for a sequel to materialize. It's also somewhat surprising that of the first film's three main characters, only Jeff Goldblum agreed to appear in the sequel, playing his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm, who appears to have been killed off in Michael Crichton's novel. In fact, the existence of the sequels depended entirely on Crichton writing the serialized novels, which he rarely ever did.

While long gaps between hit sequels were much more common in the 80s and 90s, that tradition is just one of the reasons why sequels haven't moved forward for so long. Despite Crichton's hesitation, Steven Spielberg is very busy. Universal and Spielberg did not consider Jurassic Park a franchise when filming the first film, and nothing is planned after that.

Do you feel that all these retrospective sequels are immersed in the atmosphere of The Lost World ? Yes, it's about time. The Lost World is like a direct-to-video sequel to a blockbuster that managed to keep a big budget and big stars going. The entire film revolves around Dr. Malcolm Goldblum, a character shared by Dr. Grant (Neil) and Ellie Sutler (Laura Dern). The Lost World retroactively made him the main character, which doesn't make sense, but somehow works.

The Lost World is about the race for control of the second island, Isla Sorna, "Area B", which is not the center of Jurassic Park. Dr. Malcolm is helped by Dr. John Hammond, the creator of the original park, to prove that the evil corporation InGen shouldn't be raiding the islands to collect dinosaurs. Instead, Malcolm had to prove that dinosaurs were allowed to live in their "natural" habitat. Consider Dr. Malcolm doesn't like cloning dinosaurs, his choice of mission negates gullibility, but Jeff Goldblum's laid-back charm gets the point across.

Now that it's been 26 years since The Lost World hit theaters and four other films have failed to bring back the magic of the original, this quirky sequel seems like a worldwide achievement. Early in the film, Hammond says, "We're not going to make the same mistake," referring to the death and disaster of the first film, to which Malcolm—Jeff Goldblum-esque—replies, "No, I don't care about the new one." And he's right. Because while The Lost World borrows a few bits from the original movie, it gives viewers enough new dinosaur thrills to make it stand out.

Upon its release, many critics called the film's third act, in which the T-Rex destroys San Diego, an absurd cover in a botched film. You are not mistaken. However, Jurassic World: Dominion only recently attempted to do something similar on a much larger scale, and most viewers just yawned. The Lost World may not be Spielberg's best film, but when it comes to devastating monsters, it's definitely not the worst.

The film takes its title from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel of the same name, about a hidden plateau where dinosaurs still thrived. Nothing in the movie even comes close to the novel, and this lost world story doesn't match Michael Crichton's book either. But Doyle's stories work because the eccentric protagonist, Professor Challenger, pushes the story forward. The 1997 film is also the same. This film would not have been possible without Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm. The lesson the franchise doesn't want to learn is that for a good dinosaur movie, the human hero has to be unique, alive, and even bigger than the extinct reptiles that might be in the spotlight.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park will air on HBO Max until January 31st.