PhantomKnight Goes Spielbergian

All I did was ask where all the white people were, why does everyone always freak out when I ask that?

Spielberg listed his top 20 favorite movies:

faroutmagazine.co.uk/steven-spielberg-20-favourite-films-list/?amp

Guardians has a lot to do with family, so it doesn't particularly surprise me that if he were to respond to an MCU movie, it would be that one.

I am surprised that he didn't pick the one that was about daddy issues though.

Ah The Red Violin. Went to an independent theater with my dad wanting to see Blair Witch.

Ended up seeing that.




Haven't revisited since.

Where is PhantomKnight?

They gave him the wrong dose of the covid vaccination.

Bruh. We’re just waiting for your review of We’re Back: A Dinosaur Story.

I'm waiting for your 2020 top 10.

A sequel to Jurassic Park was inevitable, especially considering author Michael Crichton wrote a follow-up novel himself, and Steven Spielberg seemed all too eager to return to the franchise himself, even having the foresight to include a shot in the first one of the DNA canister in that one being buried underneath a pile of mud, to potentially be unearthed down the road. Well, Crichton had different plans -- not that Spielberg or screenwriter David Koepp much cared, since they ultimately used only small portions of Crichton’s novel for the screenplay. But the story is the first area in which this sequel pales in comparison to the first film. Early on in The Lost World, it’s revealed that there was a second island -- Isla Sorna -- used for the creation/cloning of John Hammond’s dinosaurs before they were transported to Isla Nublar for study and integration into the Park. After an accident on Isla Sorna involving a vacationing wealthy family’s young daughter nearly getting eaten by dinosaurs, control over InGen is passed off to Hammond’s nephew, Peter Ludlow. Ludlow, of course, wants to exploit the dinosaurs on Sorna to secure financial stability and the future of InGen, while Hammond believes it’s important to preserve a policy of non-interference and let the dinosaurs stay and live in peace on the island. For this, he’s hired a team by paleontologist Dr. Sara Harding (Julianne Moore) to go in and document the dinosaurs in their natural habitat. Sara just so happens to be the girlfriend of Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), who after learning she was sent to an island where dinosaurs roam free, hitches a ride with the rest of the team to go in and bring her home safe. Meanwhile, Ludlow is bringing his own team of poachers and wildlife hunters to round up the most valuable assets among the creatures.

It’s a simple enough set up for a sequel to Jurassic Park, but perhaps too simple. I mean, it’s fine, I guess, but one of the mandates with this movie seemed to be to double down on the dinosaur action. Understandable, since sequels naturally need to up the ante somehow, but that’s perhaps the most inherent problem at the heart of this movie. Whereas the original film was so naturally able to balance spectacle/excitement with a human component that, while not exactly nuanced was still compelling, The Lost World can be summed up by one of the lines of dialogue that Ian Malcolm has in it: “Yeah, ‘oooh,’ ‘aaah,” that’s how it starts. Then there’s the running and the screaming.” After a certain point, this movie has a lot of running and screaming, to the point where it starts to feel like that’s all there is to it. Running and screaming that’s the result of characters making the kind of dumb decisions that dumb characters in monster movies usually do. The first Jurassic Park had a sense of awe, wonder and discovery woven into it that really fed into and added to the adventurous tone it was going for, not to mention colorful characters. This movie, however, puts the emphasis more on dinosaur carnage and just winds up feeling all the duller for it.

This can probably be traced back to a letter from a fan that screenwriter David Koepp received after the release of the first film. It read, “As long as you have the T. rex and the Velociraptor, everything else is fine. But whatever you do, don’t have a long boring part at the beginning that has nothing to do with the island.” Lesson to be learned here? Fans don’t always have the best ideas for storytelling avenues. The Lost World indeed takes less time to get to the dinosaur action than the first, but it forgets to establish any real reason to care about anything before it does. Apart from Ian Malcolm, and John Hammond (though he’s a glorified cameo in it), this movie is made up of entirely new characters and with the exception of maybe one, none of them leave any impact; they’re essentially walking, talking dinosaur kibble. Compare that to the first film, where you didn’t want Ian or Alan or Ellie to get eaten, and it’s a definite step down because it robs this film of any true stakes.

Jeff Goldblum still delivers as Ian Malcolm and is the main source of a lot of whatever personality the film does have. The character is believably a little bit more gruff and hardened this time around, but he still feels pretty distinctly Goldblum-esque, as it were, but kept in check just enough. Some may find him too restrained this time around, but he still provides a lot of the movie’s best humor and lines (“How many Saras do you think are on this island?”). Apart from him, though, there is one new character here who’s pretty cool, and that’s Pete Postlethwaite as Roland Tembo, the main big game hunter who arrives on the island. Between the screen presence Postlethwaite has here and the attitude he brings to the character, Roland Tembo is actually the sole memorable new character here. And it’s not so much that the rest of the cast are bad, but rather they all feel like stock characters that lack the charm of the cast from the first film.

But The Lost World isn’t a total wash. To his credit, Steven Spielberg does all he can from a directorial standpoint. The main thing he wanted to do here was make a darker movie, and he accomplishes that. The whole aesthetic certainly reflects that, with a lot more scenes taking place at night and the dinosaurs being more backlit in those scenes and thus really, fully looking like the monsters that they are. Visually, I can see some precursors to the way Spielberg would film a later disaster film of his, War of the Worlds. He also still crafts some pretty solid sequences here. The real standout for me is the whole T-Rex/trailer sequence, which is honestly a pretty successful piece of suspense, especially in how the tension just keeps building throughout it. And even though by the time the Third Act of this movie rolls around, I’m usually pretty checked out by then, the whole sequence where the T-Rex rampages around San Diego works as Spielberg’s salute/mini love letter to King Kong and Godzilla movies -- an ending that was a last-minute change/switch from the original ending, by the way. Also, Spielberg himself has said that he considers John Williams’ score for The Lost World his own personal favorite that the longtime collaborator has done for one of his movies. I wouldn’t go that far, but I gotta say, watching the movie and hearing the music again, it does have a lot of good themes running throughout it.

To be upfront, though, I wouldn’t call Amistad a bad film. Not at all. There’s actually quite a bit to admire about the movie and some really strong elements on display here. It’s just that those strong elements quickly become overshadowed by some that are...more conventional for a film like this, and not necessarily in the best way. It’s fair to say that this movie left me feeling pretty torn. I first saw it around 2010, I think, and back then, I remember liking it quite a bit. But in the decade since, I’ve seen lots more movies, have become more familiar with the certain tropes of certain genres, and Amistad checks a lot of the boxes that you’d expect a movie like it -- that being a self-important Oscar bait historical drama -- to check.

Historical figures played by big name actors? Check!

Same big name actors as those very historical figures giving eloquent, sentimental speeches about certain ideals? Check!

Saccharine music by John Williams swelling alongside those speeches? Check!

A story that’s mainly about the struggles of black people being framed through the perspective of and carried mostly by white characters? You got it!

But in all fairness, it never starts to feel offensive or anything in the areas I just mentioned. Although it’s hard to deny that the execution of the story takes some of the wind out of this film’s sails (no pun intended) after a certain point. And that certain point, unfortunately, comes fairly early on. As is widely agreed, though, Amistad opens great. It starts with the slaves breaking free and brutally taking command of the ship (which is a hard-hitting and very effective set piece to kick the movie off with, all told) and then shows them trying to navigate their way back to Africa, not knowing that the surviving crew members are in fact leading them straight into the hands of the law. This is about a twenty-minute sequence in total and it’s easily the movie’s best stretch. Spielberg really places you in the middle of the situation and commits to the brutality while also serving to start to develop the African people as actual characters rather than faceless victims.

Then once the slaves are recaptured in America, focus shifts over to the white lawyers who eventually become involved in the trial of the slaves, specifically Matthew McConaughey’s Roger Sherman Baldwin. Now, it’s not so much that the performances from him, Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams, Pete Postlethwaite, etc. are lackluster, but it’s the narrative framing device they’re used as a part of that feels tired and sucks a lot of the energy the movie starts out with. Especially at 2 ½ hours, most of the runtime being spent on seeing old white men debate in court or sit in studies discussing the law gets to feel a little stale not long after the movie starts going down that route. Spielberg would, years later, adopt the same format for Lincoln...but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Here, though, the movie still manages to get a number of strong scenes in here and there, but it’s never as interesting as when it focuses more on the slaves.

To emphasize that point, it’s Djimon Hounsou who really walks away with this movie. He plays Sengbe, the leader of the slaves, and he’s fantastic and injects the film with nearly all of its heart and humanity. The scenes where he and Baldwin are communicating with each other outside of the courtroom are also highlights. But really, it’s Djimon Hounsou who holds this movie together. When the movie’s focused on him and the slaves’ plight, it has a certain power to it that seems to echo a little of what Spielberg was doing with Schindler’s List. The only real sort of eyeroll-worthy aspect in that regard is the “Give us free!” moment from Hounsou, which is the sort of manipulative moment you’d expect from a movie like this. Yet it does nothing to take away from the power of Hounsou’s performance throughout the rest of the movie, nor the effectiveness of how it deals with the slaves’ story in general.

Amistad is one of those movies I watched a long time ago, enjoyed for the most part and have no real desire to revisit. I'm sure I will at some point because there's not a whole lot I remember other than chaining people to a sack of rocks and throwing them into the ocean but I don't think that'll be on my playlist for a long while. It felt like Spielberg was trying a little too hard this time.