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The Lost World

The Lost World

List Price: $39.95
Your Price: $35.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Slick, Better-Than-Average Version of Doyle's Classic Tale
Review: The BBC/A&E production of "The Lost World" tunred out much better than I expected, giving us slick storytelling and solid characters with good acting.

THE STORY is 'basically' the same. Well, at first I was worried looking at the cover -- six people apparently looking at the dinosaurs. Six? Yes, the film, based on Conan Doyle's 1912 novel, added TWO extra characters to the original expedition team (misunderstood genius Prof. Challenger, natural-born cynic Prof. Summerlee, newsreporter Edward Malone, adventure-loving hunter Lord Roxton), which are about to reveal the secret of the plateau in the Amazon, and to prove that dinosaurs are still living there.

THE NEW CHARACTERS are one zealous priest and his niece, played by Peter Falk and Elaine Cassidy respectively. They join in Professor Challenger (Bob Hoskins) and his team in the jungle, only to complicate the situation -- deadly dinosaurs, the more dangerous apemen (or the Missing Link) and the "Indians" (so they say).

The addition, in fact, works for the better, getting rid of the annoying elements in the original book, like the patronizing way Doyle treated the natives in the book. And other changes done to the story are justified, but some might find the different tone in the ending (or the modernized answer to Challenger's expedition) slightly anti-climax, compared with the slient version, or Spielberg's "Lost World."

SPECIAL EFFECTS are first-rate, with the convincing images of dinosaurs walking in the jungle. The fierce fight between the humans and the allosaurs is the highlight of the film though some kids find it too horrible. (And parents should be warned that there is a suggested scene of cannibalism). The location is fantastic, showing some of the scenes (like the entrance to the plateau) almost exactly as the book tells us.

In spite of its length (more than 2hrs 30 mins), "The Lost World" keeps on rolling as smooth as "The Jurassic Park," and it makes you think a little about the way we meddle with the nature. It aspires to be more than just a dinosaur movie, and it succeeds well.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Top quality tv movie
Review: The Lost World (2001) is high quality. I spent four hours over two days watching this on tv with all the commercials in between. Of all the movies I've seen on tv in the past few years this is probably the most memorable.

This version of The Lost World reminds me of the 1960 version, obviously due to it being based on the same book, and I knew some major points of the story and seeing them redone with a contemporary style was very rewarding. I love this movie.
It is quite modest and not full of in-your-face visual effects.
The length (given by IMDB at 2 and a half hours) is well used to develop characters and all that stuff. I just watched it for interest and because Bob Hoskins is a cool actor, and all this is my review.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Lost Opportunity
Review: The original novel is a fabulous romance -- by turns hilarious, mysterious, frightening and moving -- in which four Edwardian gentlemen travel into a prehistoric hell and demonstrate the courage and honor behind their eccentricities. None of that was good enough for the writers, actors and director here, though. Instead the characters have all been given new "personal issues" they need to "confront," while they learn lessons about ecology and anthropology of the sort you might find in a Natural Wonders catalog. (As for the "evolutionary propaganda" another reviewer mentioned... woof.) I used to think Bob Hoskins was the one actor who could play Professor Challenger -- I guess I was wrong based on his decision to play him like a twinkly Teddy Bear. Meanwhile the super-detailed computer-generated dinosaurs are about as convincing (and one-tenth as charming) as the clay models in the 1925 silent version. Will there ever be a decent movie version of Conan Doyle's "The Lost World"? Don't bet on it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: If it WAS Widescreen I might have been worth the price.
Review: The word Widescreen is used to promote this two DVD set.It's all over the packaging as an exclusive feature of this edition.Too bad they forgot to tell the people producing the DVD not to pan and scan the film. If I wanted a panned and scannned version I could have taped it off A & E when they broadcast it.This is an overpriced,falsely advertised, rip-off.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The REAL Lost World
Review: This is the Ultimate 'Lost World' Dinosaur movie experience. Had this been released in the theaters it may have been just as big, if not bigger, than the Jurassic Park Lost World. It sets around the much more believable theory, unlike Jurassic Park where the Dinosaurs we're magically recreated by a few droplets of DNA from a Mosquito, something Scientists still admit is physically not possible, And set the Dinosaurs as always living, from the time of their origin, in a remote Plateau deep in the South American Rain Forests, land where No man has lived to see, especially since it takes place in the early 1900's when Planes and Helicopters we're not exaclty accessible. All in all, one of the Best movies I've personally ever watched, and the fact that it was never in theaters makes it even more incredible. Well worth the x amount of dolalrs it costs for the DVD, no matter what format it is in.


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