This Lost World is a splendid BBC TV dramatisation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous adventure story. Bob Hoskins makes an unusually genial Professor Challenger, far less of a bully than Doyle's character, but his slightly stereotyped companions are nicely filled out by a solid cast. James Fox is Challenger's more timid but still covertly adventurous rival, Tom Ward is the moustachioed big game hunter who faces an Allosaurus with an elephant gun, and Matthew Rhys plays the tagalong reporter hoping to impress his faithless fiancée.
Practical Effects
BBC puppetry that ages better than most 2001 CGI.
Acting
Hoskins' twinkling Challenger redeems a problematic literary icon.
Production
Tropical New Zealand standing in for Venezuela—convincingly!
Director
Stuart Orme
Bob Hoskins
Prof. Challenger
James Fox
Prof. Summerlee
Tom Ward
Lord Roxton
Matthew Rhys
Edward Malone
Elaine Cassidy
Agnes Cluny
Peter Falk
Theo Kerr
Bianca Roe
Selena
Nathaniel Lees
Indian chief
Joanna Page
Gladys
Robert Hardy
Prof. Illingworth
Tom Goodman-Hill
Arthur Hare
Tessa Peake-Jones
Mrs. Hilda Summerlee
Dominic Rowan
Reporter 2
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Filmed in New Zealand pre-Lord of the Rings, using many of the same locations Peter Jackson would make famous months later.
This adaptation notably softens Challenger's aggressive masculinity from Doyle's original, reflecting early 2000s reconsiderations of 'great man' scientists—though it keeps the colonial expedition framework largely uncritiqued.
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