(Rewatch) Jurassic Park (1993) - 10/10
Just a perfect, brilliant film. It is the oldest and yet the effects have aged way better than in some (if not most) of the sequels. The writing is crisp and the pacing so well done. All the characters are given just enough depth that you care about them, about what happens to them, and all the genres combine to make a masterpiece, if you ask me.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) - 4/10
Absolute garbage. So many issues that I don't even care enough to get to right now, so I'll mention my three biggest gripes with this - 1. Spielberg completely forgot what made the first one (and Jaws) so great, which was not showing the monster(s) too much or it'll ruin the tension. 2. Sarah Harding. I literally sat there screaming at her for a minute straight at one point, I genuinely just wanted her to die. 3. Waaay too many characters, cliched and done to death. Felt like they were just there to be cannon fodder so we could get deaths but not risk the characters that they needed to survive.
Despite this, there were a few things I liked, mostly coming from my favorite character from the first movie; Dr. Ian Malcolm. I liked his reason for going back, it was emotional and it was understandable. Often times in films (sequels) like this, you're left wondering why the hell someone would put themselves through this again, but this was believable, even if Sarah wasn't remotely worth the risk, imo. I also like his line near the end, to the newphew. "Now you're John Hammond."
Jurassic Park III (2001) - 7.5/10
Wow, what an improvement!
Cast was much better, characters way better written and, guess what? They learned their lessons from the last failure - less monsters in every shot made for better tension and less characters that we can flesh out more. Granted, I walked in knowing which characters had plot armor and was right at the end, but it was still such an improvement on the last one. A few gripes; I wish Sattler was more than just a cameo. I hate that they felt the need to outdo the T. Rex by giving us a dinosaur bigger and badder and without the same weakness. Nowhere near enough raptor action, though what we got was really good. I miss the clever raptors from the first one; they keep saying they're smart, but they don't show us much of it at all.
Edited: wanted to say they also managed to give us a believable reason for why Alan returned despite his history; money and a promise that they would only fly over the island. He has, after all, been shown to be a bit naive about some things in the first film, so we know that he's a bit too trusting now and then.