Jeff Goldblum

It's so much more driven by wanting to get cool scenes and moments in than it is character decisions.

Let's start with the marketing. "Something has survived" - cool line! Unfortunately there was nothing whatsoever in the first film to suggest that the animals would all be killed. The island getting carpet bombed was entirely in the novel. The whole "Site B" thing was completely unnecessary for the film series, you could change almost nothing about the film and have them go to Site A. Edit: I forgot about the Lysine scene in the first one.

The boat gets from San Diego to Costa Rica with Kelly stowed away - how long was she stowed away with nobody noticing?

Van Owen comments to Eddie "Do you see any family resemblance here?" - what was the meaning of that comment? Was it an allusion to the fact that Kelly is clearly not Malcolm's biological daughter? Or was it saying that the audience should see them as such?

The Dieter character is cartoonishly evil, he exists only to give someone a brutal death (which to be fair is one of the high points of the film), him wandering off without even telling anyone where he's going and making sure they've heard him is stupid.

Van Owen goes from being a Greenpeace activist to a terrorist who unleashes dinosaurs to stampede through a camp full of people. The scientist characters are cool with this.

When the characters are arguing after Eddie's death the smug dinosaur expert talks down to Sarah about how the T. Rex won't pursue them, Sarah insists that she's right, that the T. Rex has an incredible sense of smell and that it will come after them. Then she fucking walks off wearing clothes covered in baby T. Rex blood which causes 2 T. Rex to pursue them.

The cave scene with the T. Rex after them, everyone dunks on it for the beardy guy running out because of the snake, but the really bizarre part of that scene is after he's left, Van Owen randomly yells "IT'S COMING BACK!!!" and then Malcolm runs through the cave entrance. What, did he mistake Malcolm for a T. Rex? Did Malcolm slip past it?

The gymnastics scene, man, fuck you, how the hell could she get that much power to it? Why does she start doing her routine before the raptor is even up there? And where the hell does the other raptor go when they're on the floor saying "The school cut you from the team?"

The boat seemingly returns from Costa Rica to San Diego in the space of a single night. It's no wonder it couldn't slow down before smashing into the harbour. Everyone onboard was killed with no explanation or possible way for it to have happened.

When the boat arrives some random asshole comes up to the crashed ship, grabs the controls, and opens the cargo bay for no fucking reason. Edit: Ludlow told him to, my bad.

Ian - whose previous attitude has been that he wants to stay as far away from this carnage as possible - suddenly decides that only he and Sarah can save San Diego and goes off on a mission to steal a baby T. Rex from a secure facility. Ludlow tells them where it is because they ask him (???).

Van Owen would have been far more appropriate for the saving San Diego role, he was a fanatic and man of action, but he mysteriously disappears from the film immediately after leaving the island. Did they film the San Diego scene in reshoots and he was unavailable?

The San Diego T. Rex is pursuing Ian and Sarah with his baby (they get out of the car way sooner than they need to to run half the way), but somehow they manage to outrun it, go into the boat, get pursued by Ludlow, and the T. Rex reappears once he's showed up.

It's not all bad, Pete Postelthwaite is brilliant, probably the best character in it, I liked the scene with Hammond, when they're going back to to the island there's a real sense of adventure, but overall it's just a mess. A lot of cool things that don't really hang together at all.

It feels like Steven Spielberg wanted it to be his Aliens compared to Alien - more of them, make it better - instead it's his Prometheus.