Jurassic Park III.

Review #2023: Jurassic Park III.

Cast: 

Sam Neill (Dr. Alan Grant), William H. Macy (Paul Kirby), Téa Leoni (Amanda Kirby), Alessandro Nivola (Billy Brennan), Trevor Morgan (Eric Kirby), Michael Jeter (Udesky), John Diehl (Cooper), Bruce A. Young (M.B. Nash), Laura Dern (Ellie Sattler), Taylor Nichols (Mark), and Mark Harelik (Ben Hildebrand) Directed by Joe Johnston (#060 - Captain America: The First Avenger and #322 - Jumanji)

Review: 

Thirty years ago in June of 1993, Jurassic Park managed to, well, become one of the biggest hits of its time. You already know that it was a hit adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel, and you already know its success inspired a follow-up novel that in turn became its own film with The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997). After the release of the film, Steven Spielberg, who directed both features, had no interest in doing any more films in the series as director, but he had someone in mind to do the third film: Joe Johnston, who apparently expressed an interest to direct a Jurassic Park sequel for years (Spielberg would serve as executive producer). The Austin native had been involved with special effects from a young age, most notably beginning his career as a concept artist and effects technician on Star Wars (1977). He became a director with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), the first of his "effects-driven" films, although October Sky (1999) was a noted exception. The timeline from announcing a third film in 1998 to actual release in summer 2001 is a convoluted but fun one to get around to. Various writers were approached with trying to make a draft, starting with Criag Rosenberg, who made a draft that involved teenagers being marooned on Isla Sorna. Peter Buchman was then recruited to do a rewrite when Johnston rejected Rosenberg's draft. Buchman had a two-pronged story: dinosaurs somehow killing people on the mainland and a story where Alan Grant and company crashing on Isla Sorna. Weeks before shooting was supposed to begin in mid-2000, however, the script was rejected by Johnston and Spielberg, with the former having asked David Koepp (who had written for both of the previous films) for ideas, where Koepp suggested making it more of a rescue film. Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor (fresh off an Academy Award nomination for Election (1999)) were then brought in to do a script for a couple of weeks to deal with characters and story (due to an influx of action); it is because of them that you see Laura Dern for two scenes rather than none at all. This script was then fiddled with by Buchman and an un-credited John August to the point where Payne was later quoted as saying that the script basically went for action and then took "the rest out". It probably isn't a surprise that Johnston called the production "a living hell on a daily basis", and there would not be another Jurassic Park film for fourteen years.

Jurassic Park III basically takes the series to the most B-level of desires and decides, screw it, run with that. The second film is a movie where almost everyone is a specialist of some sort, and the best actor is the one who is only present in the middle in Pete Postlethwaite. Well, that, and a nice little sequence in San Diego for the climax. The third film, now in the mode of just finding a way to set up getting to the (second) island of dinosaurs, seems the freest of the two sequels in just going with the flow.  Two things are true here with the third film: it is somehow too short of a film, and it also is debatably better than the second film in entertainment value. If the second film was a movie that accomplished 70% of its grasp, the third film probably accomplishes 71% of its grasp, and that is totally fine with me for one sitting. The first two films dealt with scientists liking to play God or corporate stoogery, so I am totally fine with a ridiculous little ride with people that I like a little better than the previous attempt at spectacle-chucking that tries to play itself as a family adventure. Neill was happy to be back for the third film, not so much because of the paycheck (insert your joke here), but apparently, he was most enthused to see if he could do a better performance than he had done in the first film. I enjoy him here, mostly because his cynical attitude works just as well in riding the coattails of being stuck in fresh dinosaur hell without coming off as an imitation of what was done before (or at least being just a schlock B-hero, which is not really an insult). How can you go wrong with a guy who is doing a speech at an auditorium (about humans that probably would've been wiped clean by velociraptors to walk the earth if not for that one big asteroid) and decides to only field questions that don't talk about that dinosaur attack he went through? Macy and Leoni make for a capable bumbling act to serve as the key figures of a would-be rescue mission that is really more of a "get your head together" mission, which does grow on me to make me eventually stop thinking, "hmm, which one could get a dinosaur nibble?" Nivola apparently called his part the only one in his career at that point that he "had nothing for me to latch on to, character-wise". I can't really argue the point, but I will at least say that he doesn't fall by the wayside in flexing to the whims of ambition, which at least makes him out to not being a cardboard villain. It is evident that the 92-minute runtime hinders the film more than it should, as if they really felt the sequence in the driving weather (complete with having just enough for one call) plus a scene exchanging eggs (don't ask) was going to be enough to forgive it ending with abrupt finish. As much as it would be funny to call in the military only to see dinosaurs play friendly with tanks, I suppose you have to keep some things a possibility for another brainstorming session. Or take a long break, I guess. As a whole, the third film is totally fine under the mildest of expectations when it comes to lean spectacle with few bumps in the road in getting to making a ride that won't make you want to jump right out before it arrives at its destination, and I would say that should be enough for those into that sort of thing.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Redux: Face/Off.

Redux #030: Face/Off.

Cast: 

John Travolta (Sean Archer), Nicolas Cage (Castor Troy), Joan Allen (Eve Archer), Alessandro Nivola (Pollux Troy), Gina Gershon (Sasha Hassler), Dominique Swain (Jamie Archer), Nick Cassavetes (Dietrich Hassler), Harve Presnell (Victor Lazarro), Colm Feore (Dr. Malcolm Walsh), John Carroll Lynch (Prison Guard Walton), CCH Pounder (Hollis Miller), Robert Wisdom (Tito Biondi), Margaret Cho (Wanda Chang), Thomas Jane (Burke Hicks), James Denton (Buzz), and Tommy Flanagan (Leo) Directed by John Woo.

Review: 

On June 27, 1997, Face/Off was released into theaters by Paramount Pictures. It was the third feature film directed by John Woo since his move to America from Hong Kong in 1993. You might remember that Woo had been offered several scripts when he decided to make his first with Hard Target (1993), with one of those being Face/Off. The script was a spec script done by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, who were graduates of UCLA Film School. The script was written in 1990, with a concurrence of events inspiring them that ranged from seeing White Heat (1949) to hearing about a friend that had to have their face reconstructed from a hand-gliding accident to wanting to have an action movie where the bad guy was just as interesting as the good guy. The script was bought by Warner Brothers, but perceived similarities to another film in their schedule with Demolition Man (1993) hindered them. However, when the option by the studio expired, Paramount Pictures did acquire it and get the ball rolling to make a movie, which started production in October of 1996. Several drafts and several directors (such as Rob Cohen) went hand in hand with several cast members (it was written with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone in mind) all considered. One key change was the shift from it being set in the future to being set in the present day (which got Woo on board), although the writer's insistence on keeping the original ending (involving an orphan) would eventually win out in test screenings.

Sometimes you need a cat-and-mouse with tremendous talent presences behind it. I must admit that I was wondering just how much the movie would change in my perceptions since I first saw it when I was a kid in the many movies that is strange to admit when you consider the portion that happened to have an R-rating. And yet, over ten years later, I enjoyed this movie more for what it does in spectacle (air, sea, or land) with resourceful invention and timing that also has two fun actors wholly in their own element in basically getting to play two personalities each. It shows Woo at his best in terms of control of being allowed to make what he wanted to show in kinetic action with his distinct touches that make for a roaring 133-minute feature. Debating the logistics of the premise (the first facial transplant occurred in 2005, although it required the same blood type) is missing the point when it comes to how it manages to be executed with the overall result as an achievement of the suspension of disbelief for a movie that sees the key swap after a half-hour has passed by. Travolta basically has had multiple career phases that have seen him excel (and other roles that didn't quite make him look great) in multiple genres since the 1970s, but one generally sees a trying effort from him no matter what the material requires of him to do. He already had appeared in a Woo production with Broken Arrow (1996), but he excels better here with this role in part because he bubbles chaos with grand confidence that pierces through the suburban setting he is cast into for most of his time (since the lead two only share four scenes together). Having to play a narcissist thrown into the life of staid non-hedonism is quite the challenge, but he makes it worth with the right sense of timing, probably best signified by a scene where he casually straddles into a bomb situation and later throws a cheesy line about intercepting the bomb. With Cage, he could not be any hotter in terms of presence and general engagement than the 1990s, so it obviously makes sense that he excels just as well with the different approach he has with this film, one that requires him to play both a man of chaos and a man absorbed in knowing how said chaos came from one mind. In other words: it is like watching a mouse try to go through a maze without touching the corners, and Cage weaves his way through with capable charm that matches Travolta without either chewing the scenery to hinder the other. Allen is the solid soothing presence in the middle of such offbeat charm, which also occurs with Gershon despite having slightly less time to show the withered patience that comes when matched with Cage. Nivola, in only his second feature role, was reportedly inspired for the voice of his character by a documentary that he was obsessed with at the time in Crumb (1995). The supporting presences also do pretty well in setting the balance for parts with our main leads, like Pounder in trying to make this premise seem believable for one second or a heel in Lynch. This works out pretty well in a daring sort of sense for a conniving agent of chaos. 

As a whole, I enjoyed the action sequences in what Woo has managed to accomplish in its arrangement that plays like gun ballet, one that has taken the lessons learned from Hard Target and Broken Arrow with their hero-villain pairings and refined it to the best possible setup and execution. The climax that goes from a church to a boat chase to a fight on the sand is especially a key highlight in well-done cutting and setup, Woo fan or not. One is simply swept away in the enjoyment factor rather than dare to wash it off as something mindless or goofy, and perhaps that is the reason the movie has endured so well after 25 years of release. At least in my mind, anyway, since it certainly ranks as a nice highlight in both its director and its key stars, who each have had plenty of highlights to treasure in the action genre. With heightened senses from cast and crew, Face/Off faces the danger of its premise with ease and precision that has made it an enduring experience of a thrill-ride.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Selma.

Review #1646: Selma.

Cast: 
David Oyelowo (Martin Luther King, Jr), Tom Wilkinson (Lyndon B. Johnson), Carmen Ejogo (Coretta Scott King), André Holland (Andrew Young), Tessa Thompson (Diane Nash), Giovanni Ribisi (Lee C. White), Lorraine Toussaint (Amelia Boynton Robinson), Stephan James (John Lewis), Wendell Pierce (Hosea Williams), Common (James Bevel), Alessandro Nivola (John Doar), Lakeith Stanfield (Jimmie Lee Jackson), Cuba Gooding Jr. (Fred Gray), Dylan Baker (J. Edgar Hoover), Tim Roth (George Wallace), Oprah Winfrey (Annie Lee Cooper), Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Bayard Rustin), Niecy Nash (Richie Jean Jackson), Colman Domingo (Ralph Abernathy), Omar Dorsey (James Orange), Ledisi Young (Mahalia Jackson), and Trai Byers (James Forman) Directed by Ava DuVernay.

Review: 
"You know, the thing that I was really interested in doing with the film is making King more than a catch phrase, more than a holiday, more than a street name in a black neighborhood, more than a stamp, more than one speech. I mean, I wanted him to be a man, a living, breathing man."

It's interesting to find a new voice for film, particularly when it comes to ones that took their time to march forward with their own stories to tell. Ava DuVernay grew up in California, but during her summer vacations, she would travel down to her father's childhood home in Alabama, near the city of Selma. The experiences spent with her father, who had seen the marches from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, would prove a lasting influence. She studied at the University of California, Los Angeles in English literature and African-American studies, but her first career interest was in journalism. It was not long before she shifted into public relations, for which she would work in for a few years. She made her first venture into film with a 2005 short (Saturday Night Life) before making her first documentary with This Is the Life (2008) and her first theatrical effort with I Will Follow (2010). The film was written originally by Paul Webb, although DuVernay would do uncredited re-writes during production. The original director in mind was Lee Daniels, with Oyelowo (who starred in DuVernay's second film, Middle of Nowhere) having to lobby for years to be considered as star, with intentions of casting Liam Neeson and Robert De Niro as Johnson and Wallace before DuVernay came in.

At any rate, what we have here is a fairly stirring film. It runs on the energy to stir emotion about a story it wants to tell involving a march for freedom that came not from one man but from many that came from various backgrounds with their own parts to play. It is pressure that matters most here, one that shows the drive for the vote as a collective. It is the fury of being counted after years of being stepped on that viewers will likely see through the lens of the present alongside the past, where literacy tests fading away don't mean an easy aftermath. If the accuracy is to be debated, at least one can't say the film doesn't have the vision to look like a crisp period piece, right down to shooting on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Oyelowo manages to step forward and does well with strength for a tough task at hand with making King out to be more than just an icon heard on old tapes. He carries the film along with calm measured patience, one who we can see as the main face of a movement with no long doubt or thinking of him as just the entire landscape. In other words, what we have is someone with aspirations to go with flaws just like someone you would know without being relegated to biopic sticking points. Wilkinson does just as well on the other side of the film's line of focus, having his own presence of immeasurability, one that mixes with Oyelowo in the struggle for the right to have others be heard going through the game of policy. Ejogo goes well for her part in soothing measurability in time usually spent paired with Oyelowo, a pillar of strength in her own ways that fits well for the first portrayal of C. King on film (Ejogo had played the role 13 years prior in a production for HBO in Boycott, which dealt with the Montgomery bus boycott). Others stick out in their own ways, such as a persevering Holland or with James. Appearances by Stanfield and Roth stay with the viewer after they leave the screen, for varying reasons.

The strange thing that arises from the dialogue might be the fact that I did not realize that King's speeches were actually under copyright, for which that meant the script had to dance around that with re-spinning of dialogue (Dreamworks and Warner Bros at the time had been given a license for those speeches for a biopic...in 2009, and a decade has passed with no biopic). As one might expect from a historical film, there was a bit of wringing with some of its aspects in depicting certain moments, with the debate being discussed probably just as much as the lack of award nominations for the film as a whole. With a moment like Selma that still had some of the players (both in the march and less connected) still alive, this is particularly interesting, such as the statement from Andrew Young, who stated that most of the film was true while having quibbles with the portrayal of the relationship between Johnson and King. Consider the statement made by DuVernay, who felt that she is a storyteller, not a historian when it comes to a film that isn't a documentary. Honestly, sometimes a film can still be great even if it isn't 100% to the point, such as the case with Malcolm X (1992), which had its own omissions and composites within artistic license (Lee's vision of Malcolm X might as well correspond to a statement DuVernay made involving history being interpreted though the lens of one who reads or experiences it). Quibbles over the portrayal of civil rights moments is nothing new, as noted with films such as Mississippi Burning (1988), for example. But hey, does it count for the film if it speaks to things about King's life that I didn't know beforehand (such as Mahalia Jackson being called by him to sing to him)? Maybe it is an indictment of what we know and don't know from studies in school when it comes to folks like James Reeb or with Jimmie Lee Jackson. There may be many Bloody Sundays, but that doesn't mean it is easily forgotten, particularly when it is one that can be seen on your screen with your own eyes. In that sense, the film does fairly well for itself in generating tension and deep curiosity for the events of 1965 in what happened then and what has happened since then, one that organizes itself with flourish in 128 minutes of events and pace that mostly hits the mark. It isn't a perfect film, but it still manages to do well enough for itself in gripping entertainment to pull a punch where it is still needed now.

Next Time: Closing time comes for Black History Month on the movie side, for which we end with Fences.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: Goal! The Dream Begins.

Review #146: Goal! The Dream Begins.

Cast
Kuno Becker (Santiago Muñez), Alessandro Nivola (Gavin Harris), Stephen Dillane (Glen Foy), Marcel Iures (Erik Dornhelm), Anna Friel (Roz Harmison), Tony Plana (Santiago's father), Kieran O'Brien (Hughie McGowan), and Sean Pertwee (Barry Rankin) Directed by Danny Cannon.

Review
This is an unusual choice of a film to watch, but I ended up watching it, so there ya go. Anyway, the film doesn't really have much to differ from any sports film (this actually being the first one here reviewed). The acting is standard, not doing much, even for a Touchstone film. The soccer playing is allright, but this film isn't really motivating or useful. It's decent, but it isn't much after that. Countdown to 150: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4...

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.