Jurassic Park (1993, Steven Spielberg)

Two big things I noticed about Jurassic Park. First, it’s still a superior use of CG. It really shows how digital effects do not get better with technology or budget or whatever; being used by a good filmmaker makes all the difference.

And Spielberg does a fine job with Jurassic Park. It’s an incredibly impersonal film, which the second thing I noticed really showcases. Sam Neill’s protagonist is so shallow, even Bob Peck’s character—who gets no back story—comes off deeper. Some of the problem is with Neill’s performance. He can’t keep his American accent—in fact, at the beginning it seems like he’s supposed to be Australian, but then he starts suppressing it, only to then let it come through. Laura Dern’s character is even more shallow, but she manages to make the character work with her performance. Neill gets better towards the end, when he finally stops whining about not liking kids.

Once the film gets going, it has a fantastic pace. Spielberg’s direction is strongest here in that regard—he knows how to make the film work and does; he also knows how to get good performances out of almost all the cast. Neill isn’t really his fault.

Besides Peck, Jeff Goldblum, Martin Ferrero and Samuel L. Jackson are standouts. Richard Attenborough teeters between endearing and good. He sells his most important scene.

The John Williams score is excellent, the Dean Cundey photography is good (but not singular).

Jurassic Park’s a fine, pseudo-smart popcorn movie.

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001, Brent Maddock)

The first Tremors sequel probably used up all the goodwill the first movie created… and the presence of Fred Ward helped quite a bite. Ward was a lead in the first film–not to mention being a highly recognizable character actor. The third movie opens poorly, with Michael Gross doing something silly under the opening titles, and barely recovers enough to be watchable. I can’t bring myself to call it a film and movie gets annoying after a while, so I guess I’ll just say there are a number of major problems with the production.

Even though it’s from the same producers–one of the original writers even directs–the guy performing scripting duty is severely lacking. He can’t make the jokes work, even with Gross giving some decent deliveries throughout. And besides the dumb things about the script (the flying monsters, the guy making zen observations), there’s also the constant references to the earlier movies. It gets to the point a regular person couldn’t sit down and understand what’s going on, even after expository dialogue tries its best. There were references in the film I had to think about–and I just watched the original a few weeks ago.

The direction’s another defect. Maddock’s obviously composing for full frame television–the whole production was just a backdoor pilot for the Sci-Fi Channel–and the pseudo-widescreen presentation gets annoying all the time. He’s also just not a good director. He can’t do the humor (which is odd, given his screenwriting career). The script doesn’t help things, but Maddock’s responsible for a lot of the one liners falling flat.

The acting is all mediocre, sometimes better. Shawn Christian isn’t much of a sidekick, but Gross isn’t much of a lead, so it doesn’t matter. Susan Chuang’s probably more likable than she should be, given how dumb her character is written. The best performances come from the other first movie returnees–Charlotte Stewart and Tony Genaro. Ariana Richards has some terrible writing, but if she were in it more, the movie would probably be a lot better.

Another problem is how bad the effects get. The monsters are almost all cheap CG and, if they aren’t, there’s a visibly felt sock puppet in use. The music’s awful–I find it incredible Kevin Kiner’s ever worked again.

The movie runs long (there, I called it a movie again) and gets boring in stretches. I don’t think it ever actually gets interesting, but there’s always something moderately compelling about the genre. There’s also the car wreck aspect–watching Michael Gross run around pretending to be chased by cheap CG monsters… it’s mildly amusing.

With a decent rewrite, a little bit more money and an adequate director, it might have been fine. But there’s still the problem of Gross… he’s a TV guy, not a movie guy. Besides the first Tremors, I’ve never seen him in any other theatrical release. His presence as protagonist makes the whole thing immediately suspect.

0/4 ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Brent Maddock; screenplay by John Whelpley, based on a story by S.S. Wilson, Maddock and Nancy Roberts; director of photography, Virgil L. Harper; edited by Drake Silliman; music by Kevin Kiner; production designer, Ken Larson; produced by Roberts; released by Universal Home Entertainment.

Starring Michael Gross (Burt Gummer), Shawn Christian (Desert Jack Sawyer), Susan Chuang (Jodi Chang), Charlotte Stewart (Nancy Sterngood), Ariana Richards (Mindy Sterngood), Tony Genaro (Miguel), Tom Everett (Statler), Barry Livingston (Dr. Andrew Merliss), John Pappas (Agent Charlie Rusk), Robert Jayne (Melvin Plug) and Billy Rieck (Buford).


RELATED

OTHER TREMORS FILMS
OTHER 2001 RELEASES

Tremors (1990, Ron Underwood)

When I first rediscovered Tremors, around 1995, it was on laserdisc. In the 1990s, Universal was one of the finest laserdisc companies, probably the finest. They put out a special edition of Tremors and, remembering that I liked it when I saw it on video (everyone saw Tremors on video), I bought it. Probably from the expensive place next to this movie theater… laserdiscs were hard to find in suburbia. At that time, somewhat due to the mad-love for their laserdiscs, but also because Universal still made generally acceptable films back then, I actually believed Tremors was a willful decision–a film to invoke fond memories of Universal’s 1950s sci-fi films. Tonight, I watched Tremors over It Came From Outer Space, also set in the desert….

Tremors, quite nicely, holds up. Perfectly acted, amazingly well-constructed, it’s a shame the team behind it hasn’t gone on to more. They actually went on to more Tremors, during Universal’s 1990s direct-to-video rush… Sequels that are all right. The first film being made for cheap probably didn’t hurt the following films from being cheap either.

I’ve had Robert McKee on the brain all day, reading him for the first time today, all about the deconstruction of a scene. Tremors doesn’t work like that. It has some scenes, sure, lots of them, but it’s mostly action and it’s almost all in one setting. I’m not going to sit around and pick at it–it’s too good–but, for me, thinking about McKee, it’s interesting. I’m reading McKee for fiction writing and McKee writes for screenwriting. So how come he doesn’t work for Tremors? It is–arguably–one of the more lastingly popular films to emerge in the last fifteen years….

Anyway, if you haven’t seen it in awhile, check it out again. I always watch Tremors after dark, though. Don’t know why, it’s just one of those films that you watch after dark.