JASON BOURNE: ReTreadstone

Director: Paul Greengrass
Writers: Paul Greengrass, Christopher Rouse
Cast: Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel, Julia Stiles, Riz Ahmed, Ato Essandoh
Runtime: 123 mins.
2016

You were the best of friends with this guy. Over the course of the half-decade-plus when you were in direct contact with him, he always proved a reliable companion, and your bond only grew stronger as you shared new experiences over the years. Eventually you had to part ways. You both knew that no matter how much you intended to keep in touch with each other, life was dragging both of you down separate paths--and that was for the best! You revisited his memory every so often, remembered the good times, but that's it. You've met people like him since, but without the exact balance of charisma and savvy that made him special. You've moved on.

But lo and behold, you'll be in the same area as each other this summer, so of course you plan a visit. You know it won't be like it was, but at the very least you expect to fall into some old nostalgic patterns that would not be sustainable long term, but are gratifying, pleasant, and perhaps even healthy in the moment. Although you have other things more prominent on your mind, you look forward to this meeting. Then you see him, and he's kind of... a shell of his former self. In the intervening years, life has run your old friend ragged. His signature personality quirks are muted to the point of banality, and all of his mediocre traits have spread and taken over. The worst thing that could have happened to this kind of friend has happened. He has become dull.

Such is the experience of watching Jason Bourne, most recent in Hollywood's current Sisyphean trend of perpetual reboots. Having earned the ill will of fans with their 2012 Jeremy Renner-helmed sequel The Bourne Legacy, Universal has desperately scrambled to get the band back together. In this case the band consists of Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, Paul Greengrass directing, John Powell* scoring, and Christopher Rouse editing (plus picking up a screenwriting credit this time), among others. One must be dubious of naked cash grab reboots, but that's a lot of talent. Besides, a movie like this can survive a less than great reboot so long as it delivers on the basic promises of the series in a somewhat satisfying way.

*As best I can tell, Powell is the only individual who contributes really good work to this film.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: Cap Gun

In the weeks leading up to Marvel's next blockbuster juggernaut, Captain America: Civil War, we will be looking at every cinematic iteration of those two warring rapscallions, Captain America and Iron Man.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Directors: Elmer Clifton, John English
Writers: Royal K. Cole, Ronald Davidson, Basil Dickey, Jesse Duffy, Harry L. Fraser, Grant Nelson, Joseph F. Poland
Cast: Dick Purcell, Lorna Gray, Lionel Atwill
Runtime: 244 mins. (25 min. premier and fourteen 15 min. episodes)
1944

The first and most perplexing thing to note about the 1944 Captain America serial is that it has absolutely nothing to do with Captain America. When I learned about the serial's existence, I was fully anticipating a propaganda-heavy war story, especially considering the time in which it was made and released. Instead, we get the story of Grant Gardner, a District Attorney who occasionally dresses up in a red white and blue costume to fight bad guys. Sometimes he doesn't dress up though, and it's just Grant Gardner fighting them. Also, Captain America doesn't have a shield and just wastes people with his pistol. Seriously, Gardner and Captain America rack up quite an impressive body count over the course of this serial, a fact that none of the authorities seem at all concerned about.

To top it all off, Captain America doesn't seem to have any powers, and, hilariously, he just drives around in a regular car. Unsurprisingly, Timely Comics (to become Marvel Comics in the 1960s) was unhappy with Republic's blatant gutting of their character, but Republic's response was basically, "None of that stuff was in the sample pages you sent us, plus we're in production already." Film historians think Republic just pasted the Captain America likeness over a pre-existing project they had in the pipe. Thus Captain America's first onscreen appearance is aggressively non-canonical.

That doesn't make it bad, though. The serial follows Captain America's pursuit of mysterious criminal The Scarab over a 25-minute premier and fourteen 15-minute episodes. In classic cliffhanger serial fashion, each episode ends with Cap in grave danger, to be resolved in the next chapter. These serials are considered to be cinema, but structurally they're really more like proto-television.

DEADPOOL: Funny or Die

Director: Tim Miller
Writers: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller, Brianna Hildebrand, Stefan Kapicic
Runtime: 108 mins.
2016

I have mixed feelings about Deadpool. The character immediately gripped me when I first discovered him in high school. As a friend recently put it, "He defeated a bad guy with a thought bubble. That's the greatest."

The structure of my personality has always been particularly susceptible to metafiction. "Metafiction" is shorthand for any work of art that is within the work of art aware of itself as a work of art. Basically, it's when the characters are allowed to talk back to the reader. The way form can dominate content in metanarrative has great appeal to folks with a structure-heavy mindset. Deadpool was one of my first exposures to blatant metafiction, and it was revelatory. The character was actively recognizing the formal context in which he was placed! He was bringing subtext to the level of text! He was making jokes about the audience's relation to fictionalized characters! It struck me as smart and very, very funny.

After digging into metafiction for my college English thesis, I've come to realize that the most important part of metafiction is not how clever or creative it is, but how well it is able to ground itself in real emotional truth. Vulnerability is the key to any meaningful narrative, and metafiction more than other genres can easily be too clever for its own good. By constantly referencing itself, a story can get caught up in irony to the point that it ceases to say anything more than "Look at how smart I am!"

Please.

Please look at how smart I am.

MOCKINGJAY - PART 2: Capitol Punishment

Director: Francis Lawrence
Writers: Peter Craig, Danny Strong
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Willow Shields, Sam Claflin, Elizabeth Banks, Mahershala Ali, Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Stanley Tucci, Patina Miller, Gwendoline Christie
Runtime: 137 mins.
2015

The real bummer about Mockingjay - Part 2 is how serviceable it is. The first Hunger Games movie had just enough problems that it left me cold, so I was shocked when Catching Fire ended up being one of my favorite movies of 2013. That film is jampacked with memorable characters who are each given a host of personality traits and political affiliations. Then along came Mockingjay - Part 1, a movie which retained all the memorable characters, but mostly had them walk around and talk to each other for two hours. If you can choke your way through my audio review of that movie, you'll hear that I found the actionlessness of Part 1 to be mostly enjoyable. Scenes meandered here and there, but the characters felt lived in, and the movie did some really interesting work with propaganda and symbolism. At any rate, the dullness of Part 1 was supposed to be a necessary byproduct of it being the first of a two-parter.

Now, a year later, we have the final entry, a movie that came with the promise of providing a wham-bang conclusion to one of the most successful movie franchises of our generation, and instead we get... serviceable. This time plenty of stuff happens, to be sure. It's just that nobody seems invested in doing these things. Between Francis Lawrence's workmanlike directing, the screenwriters' straightforward adaptation, and the lead actors' adequate performances, Mockingjay - Part 2 feels like a movie franchise that knows it has ended up one movie longer than it should have been. The franchise has outgrown itself.

CREED: The Bod Couple

Director: Ryan Coogler
Writers: Ryan Coogler, Aaron Covington
Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Tony Bellew
Runtime: 133 mins.
2015

As the Hunger Games saga goes out with a whimper, franchise filmmaking is feeling as tired as ever. We have godawful projects like a Die Hard prequel and a Memento remake to look forward to. We've gotten to the point where Marvel isn't the only intellectual property with a shared cinematic universe; on the horizon are the DC Universe, the Ghostbustersverse, the Universal Monsterverse, the Transformerverse, and the Fast and Furiverse. Even Pixar is hitting us with Finding Dory, Cars 3, Toy Story 4, and The Incredibles 2. We've apparently decided that we cannot let go of our favorite characters from yesteryear. We cling to them, drag them kicking and screaming into contemporaneity, and then either forgive them of their mediocrity because they are familiar, or decry their originality because they are not familiar enough.

Fortunately, as is the case with every regrettable cinematic trend, there are exceptions to the rule. There will always be good filmmakers, after all. We've already seen one long dead franchise revived to stupendous effect this year in Mad Max: Fury Road, and we're hoping for another such rousing success from the impending Star Wars VII. To do that, lightning will have to strike thrice, because Ryan Coogler has already made the second breakout franchise revival of the year: Creed.

A great deal of that has to do with Creed's lack of pandering. Everyone's favorite boxer is back, sure, but not with a wink and a nod. Rocky has no badass moments, and at no point does he even remotely attempt to punch anybody. His heroic journey is quiet, understated, emotional, and personal. Perhaps most importantly, this is not yet another "passing the torch" sequel in which the aging hero takes center stage while beneficently priming the young upstart for his own entry in the future. One of the most crucial story choices Coogler made with Creed was to give Adonis complete agency in his own story. He never denies the call, and he is never propped up by the generosity of others. He seeks Rocky out deliberately, in part because of the old champ's connection with his late great father Apollo--but Rocky doesn't agree easily. He needs to be talked into it, just as Ryan Coogler had to coerce Stallone into coming back for a seventh entry that he originally wanted no part of.

So once again, this is not another stab at diversity that sees the new blood taking a backseat to the old familiar white guy. Both Coogler and Adonis are young, black, immensely talented, and succeeding against all odds. For Adonis, his success is surprising because of his lack of formal training. For Coogler, his success is surprising because frankly, any young person of color's success as a director in the Hollywood system is still astonishing at this point. That's part of what makes Coogler one of the most exciting new voices in film, period.

THE INCREDIBLES: The "I" in Team

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. The Incredibles is one of my favorite superhero movies, and makes a case for being the most entertaining of all Pixar's output.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Director: Brad Bird
Writer: Brad Bird
Cast: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Spencer Fox, Jason Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Brad Bird
Runtime: 115 mins.
2004

Only just now am I realizing that The Incredibles is the only Pixar movie with a single credited writer/director. Typically these movies have at least one co-director and a laundry list of story and screenplay contributors. Bird taking the reins unsupported on the entire creative process is unheard of for such a collaborative organization, but I suppose it's thematically in keeping with the message of the film.

The Incredibles, after all, is a story of Supers. Following in the medium-shattering footsteps of Alan Moore, Brad Bird takes time to set up a world in which superheroes are popular, potent, and praised by police and populace--only to shatter that world with a government edict that makes superheroism illegal, told in slick newsboy-style spinning newspapers and black and white clips. Thereafter we jump ahead to today, and find that our hero Mr. Incredible has become regular old Bob, wage slave at an insurance company and lackluster family man at home. His wife Helen (Holly Hunter), the former Elastigirl, is desperately trying to keep their marriage alive by putting the past firmly in the past. This includes heavy restrictions on their children Violet (Sarah Vowell) and Dash (Spencer Fox); they are never to use their powers in public. Life is dull for Bob, but this all changes when his secret latenight heroism sessions with old friend Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) transition into something more involved when he receives a secret message about a secret mission from a secret source.

CASINO ROYALE: A Fragile Instrument

Spectre, the 24th entry in this 53-year-old franchise, is soon upon us. As such I will be spending this week rehashing the Daniel Craig Bond movies in preparation. First up is Casino Royale, the reboot that sparked a Bond pop culture resurgence.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Director: Martin Campbell
Writers: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis
Cast: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Wright
Runtime: 144 mins.
2006

Casino Royale is a reboot of an everchanging character. I'm no Bond expert; I've only seen one non-Craig Bond movie (Goldfinger), but I've read Film Crit Hulk's book about the franchise. It's clear that while Bond maintains certain signifiers and character traits (he dresses well, uses his own name, beds the ladies, etc.), each iteration of the character has been fluid in how exactly Bond's character is played. Some interpretations have been more debonair, some more action oriented, some more comedic. Even within actors' arcs the tone of each film swayed drastically between grounded intrigue and out there absurdity. Here we are decades later, and in returning to Bond's first mission Casino Royale tasks itself with answering the auspicious and difficult question: Who is James Bond?

Seconds into the film Casino Royale stakes its claim and makes its statement of intent in two beautifully intercut black and white scenes. These are Bond's first two kills, one of which leads to the other. The second kill is suave, witty, and stylish. Bond is waiting for the double agent as he enters his office. Bond has emptied the bullets from the gun in his desk. Bond is always in control. This is a classic James Bond scene.

Meanwhile, Bond's first kill is like nothing we've ever seen in this franchise. Craig strides into a nasty overlit bathroom with a sense of cold purpose, and he starts a brawl brutal beyond the likes of which we are used to in a PG-13 movie. Faces are smashed and bloodied, mirrors are smashed, stalls are smashed, toilets are smashed, sinks are smashed. Even the most solid edifices are breakable in Bond's new world. This scene has nothing to do with the elegant, efficient combat of former Bonds. Here Bond is, as M (Judi Dench) later calls him, a blunt instrument, and the scene takes great pains to communicate the great pains involved in this line of work. This perfectly executed fight lets the audience know that this isn't your grandpa's James Bond anymore. Casino Royale shares responsibility for creating modern studios' fixation with the "gritty reboot," but at least in this case it was entirely called for, as a healthy dose of realism was something that Bond desperately needed to keep his character fresh.

WHY DON'T YOU PLAY IN HELL?: Mankind's Greatest Achievement

Director: Sion Sono
Writer: Sion Sono
Cast: Fumi Nikaido, Jun Kunimura, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi, Hiroki Hasegawa, Gen Hoshino, Tomochika, Itsuji Itao, Tak Sakaguchi
Runtime: 129 mins.
2014 (USA)

Where to begin?

Why Don't You Play in Hell? is about a squad of childhood filmmaker friends called the Fuck Bombers, led by a charismatic figure whose goal in life is to make one truly great piece of cinema that will resonate for generations.

But Why Don't You Play in Hell? is also about a young actress who is running away from her responsibilities, trying to find her place in the world, and committing twisted acts of violence against those who get in her way.

Then again, Why Don't You Play in Hell? is actually about two rival yakuza gangs whose leaders are both obsessed with the aforementioned actress. They come to blows over this obsession, and to resolve old rivalries, and to make one truly excellent movie.

More than anything though, Why Don't You Play in Hell? is about a strange toothpaste commercial that knits the plot, characters, and themes together into a satisfying whole.

What I'm trying to tell you is that Hell? is a movie that deliberately defies any sort of concise and sensible summary, so I'm going to stop trying.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION: Roguish Charm

Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Drew Pearce
Cast: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames, Alec Baldwin, Sean Harris
Runtime: 131 mins.
2015

Mission: Impossible is a minor miracle of a modern action franchise. Much like the Bond films, M:I has maintained a commitment to old fashioned stuntwork. Even more impressive is Tom Cruise's manic insistence that he perform these insane stunts himself. The fifty-three year old megastar has weathered the sands of time and the fickle whims of the viewing public by maintaining a pressing desire that you and I should enjoy his movies, no matter what. It's easy for an actor to become withered and cynical after years of being churned through the Hollywood system, but Cruise has a vitality only matched by a younger Tom Cruise.

The unquenchable enthusiasm of perennial producer and lead actor Tom Cruise is certainly one of the primary forces that has transformed Mission: Impossible from a series of convoluted spy capers that exist only for the setpieces into a series of engaging spy capers that exist only for the setpieces. That doesn't sound like as much of a compliment as I intend it to be.

LEON THE PROFESSIONAL: She's Always Buzzing Just Like Leon

Director: Luc Besson
Writer: Luc Besson
Cast: Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman, Danny Aiello
Runtime: 110 mins.
1994

Never before has my enjoyment of a movie been so utterly depleted by a soundtrack. Starting with the second or third scene, I began to notice how much the impact of every moment was thwarted by the music propping it up. It's like a sociopathic nine year old watched the movie, was forced to write down four word descriptions of every scene, and that was all the information composer Eric Serra had with which to score this film. We are treated to a buffet of saccharine strings, balanced by a healthy dose of cliche Italian music, rounded out by a sprinkle of cliche Asian music for no particular reason. The score repeatedly made me feel bad any time I considered investing in a scene. The movie wants to be a slick thriller with heart, but the soundtrack belongs to a bargain bin knock-off of The Sopranos.

The rest of the movie is not all that bad. We have professional immigrant hitman Leon (Jean Reno) who primarily kills his quarries by being somewhere above them when they think he is somewhere in front of them. We have young Mathilda (Natalie Portman*) who has lost her family and is hellbent on revenge, so she tries to learn the business from Leon. And we have career dirty cop Stansfield (Gary Oldman), the perpetrator of the killings, who is really more of an explicit mobster than a crooked enforcer of the law. When dead bodies pile up around him, he gets interrogated by fellow officers, but then he just screams that he's busy and goes away.

ANT-MAN: Smalling with Style

Director: Peyton Reed
Writers: Adam McKay, Paul Rudd, Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish
Cast: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Pena, David Dastmalchian, T.I.
Runtime: 117 mins.
2015

[Ant-Man is notorious for its behind the scenes history and drama. I'm not going to tackle any of that right now because it's overdone, and because I want to treat the movie well enough to criticize it based on its own merits and pitfalls--what is on the screen above all else.]

Ant-Man is not an especially well-written movie. I want to set this notion on the table and dine upon it first, because I'll have nicer things to say later on.

The story mostly follows charming everyman Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) who also happens to be a cat burglar and father to a small girl. His daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) is in the custody of Lang's ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer) and her policeman boyfriend Paxton (Bobby Cannavale). Scott isn't a lost cause; everybody loves him, even the bosses who fire him, but Maggie forbids him from seeing his daughter until he pulls his act together and starts ponying up on child support.

Meanwhile, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) is trying really hard to keep the technology he secretly invented many years ago--a suit that allows you to shrink to the size of an ant--out of the wrong hands. Those oh so wrong hands belong to Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) who is about to have his own breakthrough with a weaponized shrinking mass producible suit he calls the Yellowjacket. So it is that Pym sets the pieces in motion for a heist, and he knows the perfect guy for the job.

JAWS: Ocean Craft

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb
Actors: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton
Runtime: 124 mins.
1975

Spielberg was the Trojan Horse through which the studios began to reassert their power.
-Peter Biskind

Scene: a watercraft, floating in the ocean. Despite Brody's warnings, Hooper dons his scuba equipment and dives into the water to investigate an abandoned fishing boat. This vessel without a captain must have been attacked by the great white shark that has been causing trouble in the small island community of Amity. As Hooper sinks beneath the waves and approaches the boat, the audience also has a sinking feeling. Surely this would be the ideal time for the shark to attack? Hooper is totally vulnerable in the water. We mentally berate him for attempting this investigation while the boat's hull comes into view. A large chunk twice as big as a human head is missing. Hooper stares into the blackness for a while, sees nothing... but discovers an enormous tooth lodged at the edge of the hole. He examines this tooth and begins spinning about in the water, looking over both shoulders, making sure nothing unsavory is approaching. We become nervous, but we see nothing. Nothing but a close-up of that black gaping hole, the only place from which the shark surely cannot emerge. We hold the shot for a few moments... and a waterlogged human head bursts into frame, accompanied by a drastic musical sting. Hooper panics and lets the tooth drop into the depths of the ocean.

I've just described one of the most sublime jump scares I have ever encountered. If you haven't seen the movie, I hope That doesn't ruin anything for you, but the truth is even folks who have seen Jaws countless times can't help but jump out of their shoes when they see this part. I describe it so minutely not because I think I can recreate the experience in any meaningful way, but because I wanted to illustrate all of the tiny details that contribute to making this scare work. Everything in this scene is constructed to play our expectations like a fiddle. We know something scary is going to happen in the water. We have a precise series of expectations during the scene, each of which is foiled in turn. We think the shark will show up? It doesn't. We think something will pop out of the hole? It doesn't... yet. The discovery of the tooth puts us off the scent. Hooper's flailing puts us off the scent. The pacing puts us off the scent. Then, finally, much like the cold-blooded titular menace itself, the film pounces on us when we are most vulnerable. This is superb genre filmmaking at its crackling best. This is vintage Spielberg.

JURASSIC WORLD: Incoherentus Rex

Director: Colin Trevorrow
Writers: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly
Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Irrfan Khan, BD Wong
Runtime: 124 mins.
2015

Other reviews in this series:

Jurassic Park
The Lost World
Jurassic Park III

This week I've been posting reviews of the Jurassic series and refining my theory that the unifying theme of the franchise is that each movie functions as a metacommentary on its own existence. Not only has this been a fun discovery, it has also pushed me towards a deeper (or at least more forgiving) perspective on the sequels.

Jurassic World continues the cursorily self-aware tradition of the previous films. In this sequel, appearing twenty-two years after the original and fourteen years after the last entry, the theme park is finally open. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) is running a tight ship. She's calculating, efficient, and has to deal with her two nephews for the weekend! She abandons them though.

Attendance numbers spike whenever the genetics team, led by Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong), cook up a new attraction, so they've created the biggest baddie of them all, Indominus Rex. To nobody's surprise but the characters', the Indominus Rex escapes and begins wreaking dramatically pertinent havoc on the park. It's up to Owen (Chris Pratt) and his raptor buddies to save the day.

JURASSIC PARK III: Cheerful Disrespect

Director: Joe Johnston
Writers: Peter Buchman, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor
Cast: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Tea Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Mark Harelik, Laura Dern
Runtime: 92 mins.
2001

Other reviews in this series:

Jurassic Park
The Lost World
Jurassic World

Having not seen the movie in years, I fully expected Jurassic Park III to be the low point of the franchise. After all, this is the first Jurassic Park film not directed by the legendary Steven Spielberg. How could it possibly stack up?

Imagine my surprise when I had a blast with Jurassic Park III. It's streamlined and willfully stupid--the perfect antidote for The Lost World's cynical gloom. Not only that, but the film fits beautifully with my ongoing theory about the franchise's self-awareness.

THE LOST WORLD: Metasequelitis

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: David Koepp
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, Vince Vaughn, Richard Schiff, Vanessa Lee Chester, Richard Attenborough
Runtime: 129 mins.
1997

Other reviews in this series:

Jurassic Park
Jurassic Park III
Jurassic World

It was as if Spielberg threw up his arms and yelled, "Alright, you want more dinosaurs? YOU'RE GETTING MORE GODDAMNED DINOSAURS."

I called Jurassic Park a metapromotional movie, and if that is the case, then The Lost World is certainly a self-reflexive sequel about sequels. The movie begins with John Hammond (an increasingly feeble Richard Attenborough) explaining to a cynical cranky Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) that Isla Nublar is not the only island with dinosaurs on it. There's another one called Isla Sorna, and the dinos there are flourishing in the wild. Having given up on his capitalist aspirations, Hammond simply wants Malcolm for a team intended to observe and document the animals in the wild: a team that includes photojournalist Nick Van Owen (Vince Vaughn), weapons expert Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff), and paleontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), who happens to be Malcolm's girlfriend... and also happens to be on the island already, without his knowledge. So he is strongarmed into returning to his worst nightmare.

Once the team arrives on the island, they find they are not alone. Nefarious corporation InGen has sent an enormous squad--led by big game hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite) and prissy businessman Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard)--to pillage the island, capture dinosaurs, and transport them to San Diego. This plays out as an extended action sequence that involves many jeeps, many fancy guns, and many species of dinosaur being brutalized as our heroes watch through binoculars from an outcropping. The heroes function as an audience stand-in for the scene, watching the perverse spectacle play out in front of them with stricken looks on their faces. In this moment, Spielberg's metacommentary couldn't be clearer: You wanted a sequel because you loved the wonder and majesty of Jurassic Park, but the serialization of a self-contained story can only violate the wonder of the original. The spectacle is captured and caged by greedy capitalists, all for the benefit of a viewing audience.

JURASSIC PARK: A Paradigm Shift

Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Michael Crichton, David Koepp
Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, Wayne Knight
Runtime: 127 mins.
1993

Other reviews in this series:

The Lost World
Jurassic Park III
Jurassic World

I must admit upfront, it would be impossible for me to craft anything close to an objective review of Jurassic Park. Released in 1993 (my birth year), this is on the short list of films that have been omnipresent in my life, having grown up with an older brother who worshiped Crichton and Spielberg both. I must have seen it dozens of times, and when a piece of art saturates your childhood, you can't help but sink into every piece of dialogue and camera shot as if it represents how the movie inevitably must be.

All that is to say, I love Jurassic Park with all my heart, but I have a poor idea of exactly how proficient the movie is. Part of that is me, but stepping back to take a look at the film's history makes one realize just how much of that has to do with Spielberg's artistry, both within and without of the film itself.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD - Furiouser and Furiouser

Director: George Miller
Writers: George Miller, Brendan McCarthy, Nick Lathouris
Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton
Runtime: 120 mins.
2015

The current age of Hollywood has been defined by the resuscitation of long dead intellectual properties. Film producers have been picking through the elephants' graveyard of defunct franchises in an effort to find bankable properties that have preexisting brand recognition. The idea is that if we recognize a string of words in the title of a new product as something familiar that existed ten or twenty or thirty years ago, that's free advertising. It's treading water. It's safe.

So we've been given the dubious gifts of humongous updated versions of Robocop, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Star Trek, and The Evil Dead. Coming down the pipeline are new Jurassic Park, Ghostbusters, Terminator, and even National Lampoon: Vacation updates. Not to mention the impending annual release of Star Wars film after Star Wars film.

These safe choice reboots elicit little more than a shrug from folks with the slightest degree of better judgment. Dipping into the pool of nostalgia just because it is relatively risk-free never produces anything worthwhile. The businessmen at the top do this because the built-in fanbases will bring in enough $$$ to turn a profit on these films regardless of quality. They aren't passion projects. They're where passion goes to die.

I can't wait for the Full House reboot.

But what about reboots that see the original creators return to the franchises they birthed decades ago? Surely there is some merit in this, surely the passion can be rekindled? Unfortunately we have seen this a few times, and we have let ourselves be excited, only to have the rug pulled from under us. George Lucas returns to Star Wars in 1999. Steven Spielberg returns to Indiana Jones in 2008. Ridley Scott returns to Alien in 2012. Crushing disappointment after crushing disappointment after crushing disappointment.

Everything mentioned above is what Mad Max: Fury Road is not. Now let me tell you what Mad Max: Fury Road is.

STARGATE: A Galaxy Near Near Away

In which Kurt Russell teaches an alien human how to smoke.

Director: Roland Emmerich
Writers: Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich
Cast: James Spader, Kurt Russell, Jaye Davidson
Runtime: 121 mins.
1994

Only after I started watching Stargate did I realize how complementary it was to Christopher Nolan's new blockbuster film event, Interstellar. Both feature humans traveling through wormholes to the far reaches of the universe. Both are directed by men known for their summer popcorn bombast (though Roland Emmerich wouldn't enter the cultural consciousness in a big way until his next movie, Independence Day). They're both... did I mention the outer space stuff?

I've run out of similarities so soon because, for all its flaws, Interstellar is a movie with heart, soul, and an artistic vision. Stargate is a movie with three independent fight scenes all taking place in the same poorly designed, Egyptian-themed, paintball-esque corridor.

Going into this movie, I didn't realize that it was the source material for the decently popular decades-spanning television franchise that included the shows Stargate SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, and Stargate: Universe. It makes sense. A world in which we humans have discovered a centuries-old wormhole device that allows us to dial in to different destinations in the universe--the premise of the Stargate movie and the subsequent shows--would provide much fodder for syndicated entertainment. Indeed, the only part of the movie worth anything at all is the initial anticipation of what will be found on the other side of that portal. Emmerich is in a hurry to do away with that wonder. The characters enter the portal and nobody seems all that impressed by the alien world they have discovered, nor is it all that impressive. However, I'm guessing wonder plays more of a factor in the television show. It's always nice when folks can rip a good idea from the clutches of fools.

NOAH: An Ark of a Different Color

In which the Bible gets weird.

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Writers: Darren Aronofsky, Ari Handel
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Watson, Jennifer Connelly, Logan Lerman, Douglas Booth
Runtime: 138 mins.
2014

Noah could have gone one of two ways.

It could have catered to its Christian audience, presenting a souped up but conservative Noah narrative that would please the religious crowd and hopefully nab the sad group of Russell Crowe fans that remain loyal. In other words, it could have gone the way of God Is Not Dead, a fundamentalist narrative about the triumphs of faith that was released around the same time as Noah, and is of course laughably inept from a filmmaking perspective. But it makes the Christian audience happy. I don't mean to pick on Christian movies, fundamentalism in general makes for bad filmmaking: we need only look at the recently released conclusion to the Atlas Shrugged trilogy, which is apparently one of the most embarrassing excuses for a movie trilogy to ever be ejaculated onto the populace.

Alternately, Noah could have abandoned the Christian (and Jewish, though I can't imagine they would mind nearly as much) audience by taking loads of silly liberal liberties with the Noah narrative, in an attempt to appeal to the sort of folks who get excited about a Hercules movie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Fundamentalist Christians would have become this film's enemy, going on crusades about how the Hollywood machine has tainted Truth yet again. Most others would have ignored it as a version of Evan Almighty that didn't pretend to be funny.

I let Noah slip under my radar because I wasn't interested in watching either of those possibilities. I made a mistake. It turns out Noah is a PG-13 action movie that doesn't fall into either of the above categories. It falls into a category of its own. It is like nothing you've ever seen before.

A lot of people called it bad. Everybody called it weird. I call it confusing, exciting, beautiful, and tremendously uneven. I don't understand what it all means, but I have a review to write, so I'm going to pretend.

THE IMPOSSIBLE: It's Tsuna-me, Not Tsuna-you

In which Ewan McGregor kisses things for 50% of his screentime.

Director: J. A. Bayona

Writer: Sergio G. Sánchez

Cast: Naomi Watts, Tom Holland, Ewan McGregor, Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast

Runtime: 114 mins.

2012

Before I start the review, I should give you a comprehensive recap of this movie. Pay attention, it's going to be complicated:

This "true story" follows a British family vacationing in Thailand during the tsunami of Christmas 2004, and their efforts to find each other in the aftermath of the disaster.

That's about it. Now onto the review!