Terrible Teeth Real Stars Of ‘Jurassic Park’ Sequel ‘Lost World’ Have Sharp Fangs, Big Appetites

“The Lost World: Jurassic Park” gives you more of what you liked in the original, only bigger and better, and isn’t that what sequels are all about?

Well, yes - usually. Except that “The Lost World” was directed by Steven Spielberg, which immediately primes you for something more than your typical sequel, because Spielberg doesn’t just do “sequels.” You go into this one expecting more than a retread. You want magic.

And that, the movie cannot provide. “The Lost World” is a lot of fun - it’s mean and scary and delivers the promised thrill ride - but it still must rank as a disappointment, because it isn’t a real movie. It’s just a collection of moments.

Admittedly, they’re good moments - but, still, just moments. The dinosaurs look more realistic than ever (even more so than in the original, which says a lot). But they’re chasing after characters so thin, they might as well be pop-up cardboard standees. This may be the first movie ever made in which lizards have more dimension than human beings.

That was also a problem with 1993’s “Jurassic Park,” but it did not prevent the movie from becoming the biggest worldwide money-maker of all time ($916 million), because the dinosaurs themselves were such wondrous creations. You simply hadn’t seen anything like them before, and they held your attention when the movie did not.

But “The Lost World” can’t play that trump card, because we already know what its monsters look like. The movie tries to compensate by giving us lots of new dinosaurs, including the pint-sized compys, which seem cute and playful from a distance, until you get close enough to realize they’ve got really sharp teeth. By then they’re swarming all over you, like piranhas, and it’s too late to run away.

Still, the thrill of discovery is essentially gone, and Spielberg knows it. He dispenses with the talky setup of the first film to get to the good stuff quickly (it only takes 20 minutes for the movie to reach its first man-versus-beast confrontation). The opening scenes of “The Lost World,” in which we catch up with mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and the misguided entrepreneur John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), have a sloppy, tossed-off feel.

They’re poorly written, yet Spielberg does not care. You can feel his impatience: He knows what the audience has come to see, and he’s so eager to give it to us, he shortchanges his characters.

By the time the action moves to Isla Sorna - a second island where the dinosaurs were bred before being shipped off to the theme park - most of the main protagonists have been introduced, and yet they’ve barely registered. The story, which is drastically different from Michael Crichton’s bestseller, pits two teams of explorers against each other.

The good guys, scientists who only want to observe and document the beasts’ behavior, are Malcolm, his scientist girlfriend (Julianne Moore), his daughter (Vanessa Lee Chester), and a photographer (Vince Vaughn).

The bad guys are led by Hammond’s greedy nephew (Arliss Howard), who wants to take his uncle’s original idea one step further: He plans to build his own Jurassic Park smack in the middle of San Diego, and he’s hired a crew of big-game hunters to capture one of the creatures for him - preferably a big one.

A lot of people get eaten in “The Lost World,” and the movie’s overall tone is darker than the original (one poor guy gets torn in half). The violence is essentially bloodless, because it’s a Spielberg popcorn movie, but if your little tykes were frightened by “Jurassic Park,” they’re likely to be terrified by this one. Take that PG-13 rating seriously.

But aside from a few great “jumps,” there’s not much in “The Lost World” to scare grown-ups, because the movie plays it safe: It’s the kind of film where only supporting characters get killed, so it’s easy to predict, right from the start, who will survive and what will be left of them. Still, “The Lost World” will almost certainly live up to its hype as the biggest blockbuster of this summer.

If you look at it from the dinosaurs’ perspective, the movie could even be seen as a meditation on family and parenting, one of Spielberg’s favorite recurring themes. That’s not as much of a stretch as it seems: The dinosaurs truly are the stars of “The Lost World,” which tells you all you need to know about the movie’s flaws. But the good stuff is just good enough. See you in line.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: “The Lost World” Locations: East Sprague, Newport, Post Fall 6 and Showboat cinemas Credits: Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Vanessa Lee Chester, Vince Vaughn, Pete Postlethwaite Running time: 2:14 Rating: PG-13