Pirates Don’t Eat The Tourists

Last night I saw Jurassic Park 3D, which Univeral is opening on April 5th in 3D, RealD and IMAX 3D. The 3D conversion is very nicely done, although at my screening the 3D went out of register (i.e, you’d see double) if you tilted your head just a little bit to the right or the left. The effects were quite something 20 years ago, of course, and even by today’s standards they’re pretty wallopy. Especially the Stan Winston model work and the close-ups of the T-Rex heads. And I loved the digital sound. Definitely a more intense ride than I recall.

But what happens, of course, is that the 3D doesn’t matter after a while. You get used to it, you sink into it and you’re left with the film itself. And good God, what a shameless Spielberg wank! It’s not just aimed at 12 year-olds — it feels like it was almost written by them. I think I prefer The Lost World, which at least is aimed more at 15 or 16 or 17-year-olds. In Act One there’s an animated cartoon explaining the process of dinosaur rebirth by way of extracting blood from ancient mosquitoes frozen in amber. The tone of it tells you what the filmmakers think of the likely mentality of the average JP viewer. It’s on the level of Sesame Street.

Put aside the visual effects and Jurassic Park is just one cheap amusement-park trick after another. All of it feels cravenly pre-meditated. You don’t “believe” a frame of it. It feels like a movie made for the mall. Everything is fizz and popcorn. To think that Spielberg made the masterful Schindler’s List the same year. If Steven Soderbergh, say, had been persuaded to direct this fresh today, he would do a much, much better job. Spielberg is such a jolt and tingle and spook whore. He’ll do anything to get a rise out of an audience. The problem is that he doesn’t think it through. E.T. was much better written and more carefully made.

The computer screens look so old…wow. I remember those days. And all the actors look so young, it’s amazing. Jeff Goldblum‘s hair is all black and wavy and his face is smooth and toned. Sam Neill looks like he’s in his 30s, like he’s just starting out in life. These days the middle-aged Laura Dern looks agitated and stressed but 20 years ago she was full of that youthly glow. Imagine what Taylor Swift is going to look like in 2033.

The Jurassic Park formula is (a) deliver a big scare or a special effect or a “whoa!” moment, (b) scare the audience by pushing the threat factor to the max while the actors shout and scream and then (c) deliver temporary escape or safety at the very last possible second. And then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat again.

50% of the film is filled with closeups of the actors delivering their Spielberg awe-face or Spielberg terrified face. The dialogue is almost all clumsy or grasping character exposition mixed with hurried-up plot exposition. I was grimacing except for the dialogue by Goldblum and that Australian hunter guy who get skilled by the raptors in Act Three. They’re the only two actors I really liked in the whole thing. So what does Spielberg do with Goldblum, his finest actor and most interesting character? He tears his leg up and makes him lie on a gurney and wince for the second half of the film….brilliant!

Neill is okay but grating at times. Dern is fine. The subplot about Neil getting adjusted to being a dad with the two kids is overplayed to death. I got so sick of watching Samuel L. Jackson smoking half-finished cigarettes I was thisclose to shouting at the screen, “Will you give it a rest with the smokes, Sam?”

Every scary or threatening thing that happens is pushed to the limit before a rescue or an escape occurs. And so much of it is cheap movie bullshit. The shuddering earth impact causing water in a glass to vibrate…bullshit. Dern not paying the slightest attention to a massive brontosaurus-type creature walking 75 feet away while she sits in an open-top jeep, looking instead at a guide book…bullshit. Neill and the young boy dangling below the precariously balanced SUV and managing to yank themselves to right just as it’s about to fall off the concrete wall…bullshit. The SUV about to crash through the branches in the big tree, and Spielberg waiting until the last second before Sam and the kid get out…bullshit. The kid refuses to jump off the soon-to-be-electrified fence and then is jolted off and then recovers a minute later…bullshit. The T-Rex pops in at the last second and basically saves Neill, Dern and the kids from the approaching raptors…bullshit. The T-Rex decides to go right for the lawyer as he hides in the crapper…bullshit.

The raptors in the kitchen is a good sequence. Caring for the sick Triceratops (“sick Tryke”) is a good sequence. But I really hate that grotesque little fat kid in the Montana archeology sequence who claims raptors are like turkeys. If only this kid could have travelled to Jurassic Park with Neill and Dern and then, you know, whatever.

The opening with the raptor being transferred out of an iron cage is cheap and cloying and labored. The greedy obese guy who appeared on Seinfeld…I really despised seeing him again. Richard Attenborough is either smiling way too much — those teeth! — or acting frustrated or peevish or he’s screaming too loudly. He never just settles into a semblance of normal steady behavior.

Jurassic Park is basically a bad movie with first-rate animatronics & CG effects (certainly by the standards of 20 years ago) and some nice atmospheric stuff…a bad movie that made a lot of money.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=509321150 Jason Geyer

    If you take the standout scenes from JP1 (T-Rex, Raptors, a bit of the computer stuff, but just for set-up) and take out the little girl and vince vaughn from JP2, together they’d make an OK movie.

    Jurassic Park the book wasn’t very good as a novel, but great as a blueprint for a movie. And they totally gutted it in favor of crap like that animated nonsense and “shots of wonder”.

    Also, David Koepp is one of the worst screenwriters EVER, and yet still gets called to polish up scripts. Or ruin good ones.

    • Raising_Kaned

      Eh, don’t entirely agree about Koepp…he’s a fairly solid scribe, IMHO, and not a terrible director in his own right (Stir of Echoes — despite being overshadowed by the similar Sixth Sense in ’99 — sustained a pretty edgy/ atmosphere throughout).

      Carlito’s Way is pretty damn well-written. The rest of his stuff is mainly big-budget studio fodder, and there’s probably a glass ceiling on how ground-breaking that stuff can ever be.

      I will agree that his best work does seem to be the result of working with a more talented partner (Towne, Crichton, Friedman, Zaillian if that whole Jack Ryan thing ends up panning out).

    • punkedup

      The novel is horrible but breakneck. Although I still would have liked Attenborough’s character to be the cold unfeeling bastid who gets it.

  • MovieSquad

    Soderbergh’s version of JP would have made at most 50% of the gross of Spielbergs.

  • lazarus

    Dino DNA!!

    I rushed to finish the novel right before the film opened and even at 21 years old I was insulted by how dumbed-down the film was. Killing the lawyer but letting the old man live (the opposite of their fates in the book) is cowardly pandering of the worst kind.

    Having said that, it was still a great visual and effects experience, and I saw it four times in the theatre (back when $1 theatres were more prevalent). But it could have been something much greater.

  • what

    Anyone who dismisses the animated sequence in JP doesn’t know shit about storytelling. That’s one of the most economical devices I’ve ever seen in a movie of its kind. Did you want four hours of exposition? And it’s exactly what they would have at an amusement park like this.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=509321150 Jason Geyer

      It’s not the concept but the execution. It’s half assed, much less graceful that a real Disney type ride would have, and hokey beyond belief with that interact with the movie crap. It’s the same type of nonsense as “Dr Know” from A.I. that makes you cringe watching it.

      • Raising_Kaned

        Newsflash: real Disney rides are hokey beyond belief!

  • jackfly

    I can’t believe that I’m taking the troll-bait on this but I think the fact that Spielberg could make something so crowd-pleasing (and you can’t diminish how well this played to audiences) in the same year that he made Schindler’s List *IS* the proof that he was at the height of his powers. How many directors could switch-hit like that effectively in the same calendar year? Not Soderbergh, sorry.

    • Raising_Kaned

      Uh…correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Soderbergh nominated TWICE in 2001 (for Erin Brockovich AND Traffic)? What about the Haywire/Magic Mike combo last year?

      I’m certainly not going to argue that Soderbergh has the inherent populist appeal of a Spielberg — because he clearly doesn’t — but I feel like he’s always done a pretty good job of alternating more overtly commercial ventures (like Oceans or Contagion) with pure passion projects that have a limited audience, at best (Che, Bubble, Kafka, etc.).

  • Mark

    The animation is supposed to be a parody of the kinds of films you would see at an amusement park and, or, the science films that used to be shown in grade school. You totally missed the irony. And most of the bullshit items you mentioned just serve to show that you are not a storyteller and never could be.

    • punkedup

      JW seems like the most literal black and white viewer ever. Any cinephile worthy of their name gets exactly what the educational toon is supposed to represent, it’s one of the most clever things in the film.

  • Joshsleeps

    Thanks for shitting all over my childhood, Wells. Jurassic Park is my generation’s Star Wars, it’s what made me and many others fall in love with film. I was ten years old, and it was the most magical experience of my life up until that point. I still remember so clearly the euphoria I felt when I was leaving the theater, a euphoria I’ve only felt a few fleeting times as an adult. BACK OFF JP, MAN!

  • NephewOfAnarchy

    I didn’t like either of them (was 13 when Jurassic Park came out), but Lost World is truly bad…the only memorable part was Peter Stormare getting torn apart by a swarm of tiny creatures. Otherwise its that movie that had a little girl BEATING UP SOME DINOSAURS USING HER GYMNASTICS SKILLS.

    • Raising_Kaned

      Yeah, Wells’ offhand contention that he thinks The Lost World is superior is just a disingenuous throwaway, really.

      It has a couple of truly awesome scenes (the subplot with Stormare is actually pretty awesome, and — as you note — lends itself to some insanely cinematic moments), but I feel like it gels even less as a whole than the original.

      If Jeff felt the “bullshit” mounting in JP, I would suggest that he never, ever revisit the sequel.

      • DimitriL

        I agree with your point about the awesome scenes – in fact, I’d argue that The Lost World has a couple of the best scenes/moments ever to appear in a shitty movie. The raptors and the long grass scenes were worth the price admission – and showed how the film could’ve been a classic.

  • http://allsortsofposts.wordpress.com/ AHB

    I still remember watching JP and coming out awed the effects and the last act … and that is why I went back to see it.

  • Raising_Kaned

    That sure is a lotta bullshit!

    Look, I don’t necessarily disagree with JP being an extremely flawed blockbuster, but — as usual — your hyperbolic exasperation here isn’t doing you any particular favors.

    You seem to be spending an awful lot of time breaking down the flaws of the actors and human performances. Which is all well and good until you come to accept the realization that this is a… DINOSAURS IN A THEME PARK MOVIE! That is what people paid their five ’93 bucks to see, and by God, they got it.

    The flick mostly delivers on that front, I think. If you want to nitpick the connective tissue or the character development, I’m not going to stop you because you’re right. It’s not quite as good as it could have been (whoever implied below that combining the best elements of this and JP2 would result in a bulletproof classic is spot-on).

    But the film has at least two breathlessly extended setpieces that just flat-out DELIVER — the T-Rex attack on the jeep at night, and the Raptors in the kitchen sequence. Just great, iconic stuff where your boy Spielberg is right in his wheelhouse laying out the exact geography of the sandbox and then just teasing the audience with every single inch of it.

    “Believable” or not, I also don’t think you’re giving the subversiveness of the ending quite enough credit. In the end, the kids aren’t rescued by technology (in fact, in one of the more interesting subtexts, that’s something that betrays the characters time and time again), or even our own spieces. No, it’s the mighty randomness of the CIRCLE OF LIFE that saves the day — and this was a year before Disney spelled it out (in a much less interesting way, I might add) in The Lion King.

    And the effects were AMAZING back in the day — please don’t discount the drawing power of this. Considering that it’s 20 years on, and the CGI here doesn’t look terribly dated (although, admittedly, there are a lot of scenes cloaked in darkness for a reason) — when there are movies released now where the computer stuff looks antiquated a mere months later — is quite the testament to Winston, his crew, ILM, and — yes — Spielberg himself.

    So, basically, while I don’t believe JP is quite on the “commerce-becomes-art level” of Star Wars, Raiders, Jaws — or even BTTF, T2, or TDK — either, I still think it’s pretty goddamn good.

    And it will endure so long as there’s not a definitively more entertaining release centered around dinosaurs (have you ever SEEN Carnosaur or Raptor Island?? It could have been so, so, sooooo much worse, trust me…). Because 12 year-old boys always have, and always will, love the fucking things.

    • Mark74

      Well said Kaned. I came on here to have a rant at Jeff but you’ve ticked all the boxes nicely.

  • DiscoNap

    The troll is strong. This is you trying too hard.

  • Ray Quick

    The cut at the beginning of LOST WORLD from Camilla Belle screaming to Goldblum yawning on the subway is maybe the best edit in Spielberg history.

    • Mark74

      Yep, I remember laughing in the cinema at this, not out of derision but the sheer brilliance of it.

  • Stewart Klein

    Jeff, feel free to borrow the term “bubble of bullshit” that I coined in the previous Oscar Poker thread, if you want to change the title of this post.

  • http://twitter.com/Jim_Goodwin James Goodwin

    The Lost World is in no way, shape or form better than Jurassic Park. The Lost World is an *appalling* movie – one of the shittiest sequels ever churned out to satisfy a marketing demographic. Also Bob Peck is British, not Australian.

    • Mark74

      The T-Rex/mobile unit/cliff interface was a staggering setpiece though. Just watch that and then compare it to anything JJ Abrams, you’ll get an idea of how low blockbuster standards have fallen over the past 15 years.

    • Mark74

      The twin T-Rex/mobile unit/cliff interface setpiece with Toby from The West Wing is staggering though. Just compare that to any setpiece from a JJ Abrams movie to get an idea of how low blockbuster standards have fallen over the past 15 years.

      • Eloi Wrath

        All new comments system, same old MarkJ. Hatin’ on Abrams, professionally.

        • Mark74

          Why don’t you defend his setpieces and use of form Eloi? Then we might get a conversation going, instead of just your lazy ‘witticisms’.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1329069668 Brian Bouton

    “Imagine what Taylor Swift is going to look like in 2033.”

    That would put Amy Adams at 59 years old and way too old to play Lois Lane.

  • zantetsupowaa
  • http://twitter.com/zachheltzel Zach Heltzel

    Hopefully this is the first and last time anybody compares Laura Dern to Taylor Swift.

  • Eloi Wrath

    Jurassic Park is the greatest film ever made.

    This is D-grade Wells trolling. You can tell he doesn’t even believe what he’s writing. “Will you give it a rest with the smokes, Sam?”

  • Brian Neuls

    Jurassic Park has one of the strangest jump-cuts in blockbuster history.