The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Everyone is pretty familiar with this common complaint when a book is adapted into a movie: "The book is so much better!"  That's usually a little unfair to the filmmakers, though; screenwriters are forced to essentially create a snapshot of the book to help it make sense in a film format.  Sometimes, though, the book and the movie are different enough to make you wonder just how much "adapting" is taking place and how much "we're stealing the title of your book" is going on.  The Lost World was the first time Michael Crichton wrote a sequel to any of his novels; he wasn't going to write it, but the massive success of Jurassic Park and pressures from his publishing company and Steven Spielberg convinced him to revisit Dinosaur Island.  The book occasionally took a liberal approach to the events in the first novel (Ian Malcom dies in the first book, but is the main character in the second, for starters), but that is nothing compared to the differences between The Lost World and The Lost World: Jurassic Park.  Like what, you ask?  Aside from changing almost every character in the book and splicing in scenes from the first novel, I don't know...maybe a Tyrannosaurus Rex rampaging through San Diego? 

You mean "car flips over to avoid T-Rex" wasn't in the book?

Personally, I don't care about the liberties filmmakers take with their source material, as long as it makes the movie work.  Film and prose are very different forms of entertainment and art, and if huge changes bother you, then stick to your book.  That said, I think adding a citywide dinosaur rampage is a pretty funny detail to add to any story.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park picks up four years after the events of the first film, which is nice, because four years actually took place between the releases of the two movies.  Dr. Ian Malcom (Jeff Goldblum) is asked by John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to join an expedition to his secret dinosaur island.  You see, Jurassic Park was located on Isla Nubar, but Hammond's company apparently kept a back-up supply of dinosaurs on the nearby Isla Sorna, just without any of the safeguards and fences that were so effective **cough, cough** in the first film.  Apparently, the dinosaurs were engineered on Isla Sorna and then brought to Isla Nubar when mature, which doesn't at all contradict the egg-hatching scenes in the first movie.  Like any person sane enough to not eat their own feces, Malcom refuses the kind offer to visit more killer lizards.  Well, he refuses until he finds out that his girlfriend, Sarah (Julianne Moore), is already on the island, getting her research on.  This throws Malcom in a tizzy, since he's familiar with all the running and screaming that inevitably accompany 20th-century dinos, and he leaves for Isla Sorna with an engineer (Richard Schiff) and an environmentalist photographer (Vince Vaughn) and, because this is a family movie despite all the death, Malcom's daughter from a failed marriage, Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), who stowed away on their boat.  When they arrive on the island, it becomes quickly apparent that this is not just a research mission.  John Hammond's nephew, Peter (Arliss Howard), has taken control of his uncle's company and wants to open a new Jurassic Park in San Diego.  He needs to capture some dinosaurs to make that happen, so he brought a few dozen big game hunters with to facilitate his wishes.  Soon enough, both groups find themselves on the wrong side of an island full of angry dinosaurs and it becomes a battle for survival.  Surprise, surprise.

Do not feed the dinosaurs, stupid.

One of my chief complaints with Spielberg movies is that his more special effects-based efforts skimp on the acting.  This time around, Jeff Goldblum is given the starring role, and this might be the most Goldblum-y part of his career; all the awkward poses and odd vocal cadences that you are familiar with are front and center in this film.  Surprisingly, that's pretty entertaining, when given a chance to shine, like he does in the first act of the movie.  Unfortunately, as the dinosaur attacks become more frequent, his dialogue becomes less frequent, and he just becomes another character running from CGI.  Julianne Moore is a capable actress, but I found her character a little annoying in this movie, and that's ignoring some of the colossally moronic things her character does.  It was nice to see a young Vince Vaughn, because I totally forgot that he used to be handsome, or at least less puffy and seemingly without the hangover scowl he's sported for the last decade.  I didn't particularly care for the eco-terrorist/animal rights aspect of his character, but at least he didn't come across as crazy.  As far as the "bad guys" went, I enjoyed Pete Postlethwaite's gruff safari hunter character.  He wasn't in it for the money, but the challenge, and that makes all the difference in a series that points out the dangers of mixing capitalism and extinct species.

The rest of the supporting cast had substantially less screen time, but should be mentioned anyway.  Richard Attenborough, Richard Schiff, and Arliss Howard are all decent enough.  Nobody does a particularly good job, but they propel the plot forward without offending.  Similarly, the brief cameos from the Jurassic Park kids, Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards are surprisingly not annoying.  The ever unlovable Peter Stormare once again plays a bad man in this movie, and he's definitely the most entertaining "villain."  Yes, he's a jerk and deserves whatever he gets, but Stormare is a lot of fun to root against.  Vanessa Lee Chester was far less enjoyable as Malcom's daughter, who is only in the damn movie because she is painfully stupid.  Chester isn't convincing as a daughter in this movie or anything more than a recurring victim.  It doesn't help that her idiotic gymnastic routine is the low point of the movie for me.

As for Spielberg's direction...I've been more impressed.  The man still knows how to frame a shot and build suspense in an action sequence, but this is far from his best effort.  He doesn't get much from his actors this time out and the focus is even more squarely on the dinosaurs than in the previous film.  The special effects look great, that's a hollow accomplishment when there's no depth in your family film.  And, for a "family film," this is a bit gory.  There are a lot of humans dying in this movie, either on screen or implied just off screen.  I get that watching people die by dinosaur is both awesome and inevitable in this movie, but this cast was mostly cannon fodder.  The oddest choice that Spielberg made with The Lost World was the addition of the T-Rex rampaging in San Diego.  It's fun eye candy, sure, but it's also very, very dumb.  And it looks and feels like a completely different (although similarly-themed) film; the cast is narrowed down to three characters, without any explanation, and Malcom has time to shave and shower while he waits for Rexie to arrive?  That just seems unlikely.

Of course, The Lost World: Jurassic Park was never going to be a thinking man's movie.  This is a movie that is supposed to deliver dinosaurs, dinosaurs, and more dinosaurs.  In that aspect, it definitely delivers.  There is a lot more T-Rex action this time around and seeing the little compys and the stegosauruses was pretty cool.  The velociraptors weren't nearly as smart or dangerous in this movie, which was a bit of a let down --- being defeated by a mediocre gymnastics routine will do that --- but that was the only dinosaur-related bummer in the film.  The T-Rex trampling San Diego, while very stupid in terms of plot, is still a fun sequence to watch, if only because it's always fun to see monsters destroying cities.

The T-Rex symbolizes Ken Caminiti's 'roid rage.  Don't do drugs, kids.

While this is most definitely a special effects extravaganza, it still needs to tell a decent story, and that's where The Lost World fails.  It almost feels as if, because the first movie got all the pseudo-science and wonder out of the way, this film was given carte blanche to just have dinosaurs chasing people for two hours.  Instead of a plot with characters that develop, we get Jeff Goldblum delivering Yakov Smirnoff-ish lines, like "Wild goose chase?  This is the only place where the geese chase you!"  On the whole, the dialogue in this movie is terrible, especially when Malcom is talking to his girlfriend or daughter.  Does any teenage girl ever ask her absentee dad to ground her?  I won't say "never," but it's damned unlikely.  And as amusing as I find Goldblum's peculiar vocal tics, the script sometimes has him hamming it up as a lesser Jerry Seinfeld, asking "what is with...?"

Worse than the dialogue is the ridiculously convoluted plot.  Here is a scene where an experienced wildlife photographer and an experienced behavioral paleontologist take a wounded baby Tyrannosaur to fix its leg:

Stupid.

You would think that anyone experienced with wildlife in general and with predators specifically would be a little more careful about kidnapping a baby predator without accounting for mommy and daddy predator.  Of course, the parents come looking for the baby, smelling it with their sensitive noses, and they react violently to protect the child.  Oddly enough, those behaviors are exactly how Julianne Moore's character predicted they would react --- and she still took the baby!  Well, maybe she just couldn't leave an animal in pain, even if it is a genetically engineered abomination of nature that should be extinct, anyway.  That doesn't explain how she and Pete Postlethwaite's hunter character both ignore the fact that her shirt was covered in baby T-Rex blood that wouldn't dry in the humid weather.  This is just after she gets done explaining that the Rex has fantastic olfactory senses, is obsessed with protecting its young, and has increased its patrolling area to wherever its baby has been.  And then everyone acts surprised when the T-Rex comes looking for the bloody shirt.

As much as I enjoy Spielberg as a director, The Lost World: Jurassic Park is too big of a mess to just turn off my brain and enjoy.  I didn't care about any characters, the plot was frequently insultingly stupid, and the dinosaurs didn't bring anything new to the movie this time.  It might have three times the action of the original, but it has an eighth of the story.

The Kids Are All Right

Mark Ruffalo has come full circle for me.  The first time I saw him, in You Can Count On Me, he played a charming and cool (but immature and selfish) brother/uncle that can't quite get his act together.  In The Kids Are All Right, he plays a charming and cool (but immature and selfish) sperm donor dad that has found a niche for himself and doesn't know what to do with the knowledge that he is a father.  Congrats, Mark, your character has grown up a little.

Actually, the story is not really about Paul (Ruffalo); it is about Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) and their two kids, Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser (Josh Hutcherson).  Joni and Laser are half-siblings, with Nic having carried Jules in the womb and Jules having Laser, with both kids sharing the same sperm-donor father.  Life is pretty good for their family --- the kids seem pretty well-adjusted and they have a pretty sweet home in California --- but there are two problems.  The first and most obvious is Joni preparing to leave for college in a few weeks.  The other problem is the stagnant relationship between Nic and Jules; they are becoming a bickering old couple and decades-long problems are starting to make their way into everyday arguments.

At the urging of her brother, Joni contacts the sperm bank to contact their sperm daddy.  Being a pretty laid-back quasi-hippie, Paul is agrees to meet the kids.  Pretty soon, they are spending more and more time together, which adds more friction to Nic and Jules' relationship; since they are (not surprisingly) very liberal parents, they theoretically support the kids meeting their bio-dad, but in practice he's an unexpected monkey wrench in their last few weeks with Joni.

While considered a comedy, I would argue that this is a drama that gets some humor out of intentionally awkward scenes.  So don't walk into this expecting a lot of laughs.  The film, co-written by director Lisa Cholodenko, seems to cherish real-life moments that tend to make me cringe.  People without good singing voices singing Joni Mitchell at the dinner table?  Check.  A teenage boy making the idiotic decision to rummage through his parents' bedroom for some pot to smoke and instead finds sex toys and porn?  And then he decides to watch the porn?  Great job, kid, you're scarred for life and it's your own damn fault.  Whatever the situation, it is generally pretty awkward and uncomfortable.  And how does a progressive gay couple give their son the most redneck name in the world?  Laser?  Seriously?  Ten bucks says his middle name is "Tag."

The acting is the film's strong point.  Mark Ruffalo can play a believable California stoner in his sleep and, while this part was kind of a retread for him, this reminded me that he can actually be a pretty endearing actor to watch.  Julianne Moore was also good as the similarly unfocused Jules; I thought she captured the confusion of love and passion well.  I was expecting a little more from Annette Bening, given all the accolades she has gotten for this movie.  She was fine as the uptight parent and the condescending lover, but I didn't see this part as anything spectacular.  All three gave subdued, realistic performances.  Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson were good too, but neither really has a moment where they really shine as performers.

I am beyond thankful that this movie treated Jules and Nic as a couple and not a gay couple.  There were no speeches about how theirs might be a different kind of family, but a family nonetheless.  There was no homophobia in the movie.  The kids are, indeed, mostly all right.  The cliche Lifetime movie plots are nowhere to be found in this film.

So, what are we left with?  This is a movie about a couple that has hit a rocky patch in their relationship.  Unfortunately, I didn't buy Nic and Jules as a couple.  I get it, they're not at their most lovey-dovey right now, and opposites attract and all that, but I didn't see much chemistry between the lead actresses.  Individually, their performances were fine, but together I was unimpressed.  I feel like a jerk suggesting this, but I think the most noteworthy thing about this movie is that it treated homosexual characters like people, instead of as stereotypes.  As such, this movie seems more timely than actually good to me.  I wanted to like this movie more, but Nic was an unappreciative bitch and Jules chose to rebel in the least convenient way possible.  I sympathize with their situation, but without seeing more of what makes them supposedly work as a couple, I was never invested in seeing them save their marriage.  And that means that this story never quite fulfilled the promise that its acting made.

 ***UPDATE 2/24/11***

After I posted this, I realized that I had forgotten to mention the conclusion of the story.  One of the strengths of this movie is its realism.  Even if you don't care about the characters (like me), the story itself is very believable --- and that's nice to see, coming from a concept that could have been a Farrelly Brothers movie (just a guess at their title: Sperm Daddy).  Yes, the conclusion to Paul's part in the story was pretty low-key, but it felt right.  The same goes for end of Jules and Nic's story.  Some questions are left unanswered, sure, but that's okay in a movie that is trying to feel like real life.  Now, if only they had convinced me that Nic and Jules were a good couple, and this movie would have been pretty good.

The Fugitive (1993)

Here is how I imagine The Fugitive came to the big screen.  Tired with the high expectations that come with making high profile sequels and adaptations of best selling novels, and bored with award-winning directors, Harrison Ford wanted to see if he could make a flop in the 90s.  "Get me that guy who actually liked working with Steven Seagal," he probably demanded, "and make sure the story is absolutely ridiculous --- maybe a film adaptation of The Mod Squad?  I was on that show once, you know."  And that's how it definitely (maybe) came to be: Harrison Ford starred in a movie by Andrew Davis (director of Above the Law and Under Siege, and was probably working on a title like Middle of Mayhem), the big screen adaptation of the long-running 1960s show, The Fugitive, where he will spend over two hours chasing a one-armed murderer.  The result was a box office smash and seven Academy Award nominations.  I would not have guessed it, but Harrison Ford didn't make bad movies...well, for another year or two, anyway.

After an evening spent attending a black tie event for the medical community, Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) arrives home to find his wife (Sela Ward) injured and dying on the floor.  She is not alone, though; Kimble struggles with her assailant, but is ultimately unable to detain him.  He learns one thing about the killer, though: he has one prosthetic hand.  Apparently, "It was not me, it was the one-armed man" is not terribly convincing to the Chicago police, although I'm sure the obvious signs of a struggle in the house, the lack of an obvious break-in, and Mrs. Kimble's generous life insurance policy were also factors in Richard's arrest.  Apparently, Kimble has the world's worst expensive lawyer, because he is found guilty of first degree murder and is given a death sentence, all on circumstantial evidence.  At this point, you might think that this will be a film dedicated to the appeals process of convicted felons.  But look at the title; it's not The Convicted, it's The Fugitive, as in "at large."  While taking the bus to death row, some of the other lucky convictees try to escape, which leads to the bus turning over on its side.  Good news, bad news, guys...most of you survived the accident, but the bus is now on a train track with a train heading this way.  Kimble barely escapes, rescuing one of the prison guards in the process, and finds himself a relatively free man.  What does a wrongfully accused man do in this situation?  Well, it's not like he can have anything tacked on to his sentence --- they don't have an extra crispy sentence --- so he goes on the lam, hunting down the one-armed man.  At this point, the US Marshalls show up to hunt down the fleeing fugitive.  Lead by Deputy Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), they perform some of the most competent police work you will ever see in a movie where the hero is not a cop.

Here are some reasons why this is a ridiculous movie:

• The score.  Rarely do you have such bombastic music dramatizing such subtle things.
• Obviously, the one-armed man thing.  Who hires a hitman with a unique visual characteristic?  What, were all the assassin albinos busy?
• A successful doctor killing his wife to benefit from her life insurance policy.  Really?  How much research would it take for the police (or Kimble's lawyer) to discredit that as a motive?  "Hmm...he must have wanted to get even richer!"  Possible, yes.  Likely, no.
• The circumstantial evidence.  Granted, this was made in 1993, but this sort of "proof" gets discredited within the first ten minutes of an ordinary CSI episode.  How about the lack of Mrs. Kimble blood in any area of the house where the struggle took place?  That took me all of ten seconds to think of.  I would hope his lawyer could come up with more.
• The hair and beard.  Are you really going to tell me that a respected doctor who looks like Han Solo is going to let himself look like this?  Especially a married man?  Unlikely, at best.
  

  

  Laugh it up, fuzzball.  And get off my lawn!

Now, just because a movie is ridiculous doesn't mean that it is bad.  The direction is pretty straight forward and, aside from the scenes at the train tracks and the dam (both of which still stand up today), this isn't a special effects movie.  It's more of a thriller than anything else, and Andrew Davis does a good job allowing the audience and Kimble to unravel the plot together.  The performances are, for the most part, solid.  Harrison Ford is as good as ever, even if his "I'm going to jump" grimace is suspiciously similar to the look an old man makes before shouting at kids to get off his lawn.  Tommy Lee Jones steals the show as the prickly Deputy Gerard, a feat all the more impressive when you consider just how sympathetic Richard Kimble is; you have to be a pretty awesome character to get away with not caring about the main character and still be likable.  The rest of the supporting cast serves its function with several decent to mediocre performances, but nothing embarrassing.  Jeroen Krabbe plays a doctor friend of Kimble well enough, but he reminds me of a European Chris Noth in this film (just an observation, not a critique).  Joe Pantoliano, Julianne Moore, Sela Ward, and Jane Lynch all have noteworthy bit parts and Andreas Katsulas plays the evil one-armed man.  Nobody does a bad job, but nobody really does a good job, either.  I guess that's okay, since it lets you focus on Ford and Jones.

This is a pretty good good movie with a few very memorable action sequences.  Did it deserve a Best Picture nomination?  Personally, I doubt it.  Tommy Lee Jones did deserve his Best Supporting Actor Oscar, even if he did beat out a very deserving pair in Ralph Fiennes (Schindler's List) and Leonardo DiCaprio (What's Eating Gilbert Grape?).  I was surprised to find that the aspect of the film that kept me from loving it was not the plethora of mediocre performances --- they served their parts well enough, but were still kind of blah --- but a few lapses in the plot.  This is a convoluted story, but I expected Kimble to make smarter choices to evade the law.  Yes, he dyes his hair to change his appearance, but that dye washed out after one scene; I would have thought that the man would have wanted to keep changing his look, especially after Deputy Gerard catches a glimpse of his beardless face.  And the scene where Kimble cross references a list of one-armed men with people in prison --- how does a wanted fugitive walk into a prison without a back-up plan, in case the random one-armed man he wants to see isn't his wife's murderer?  Still, those are relatively small complaints in an otherwise entertaining movie.  It's too ridiculous (and too serious about being ridiculous) to be great, but it's still a good time.