C+ | A primatologist and a communications scientist team up on a mission into an African nature preserve. Directed by Frank Marshall Starring Dylan Walsh, Laura Linney, and Ernie Hudson Review by Jon Kissel |
Michael Crichton was one of the first popular novelists that I dove into as an adolescent. His blend of the highly technical, embodied in pages of genetic code in Jurassic Park, flattered my intelligence while his graphic depictions of velociraptors’ penchant for disemboweling sated my bloodlust. Crichton’s ability to do both made him extremely relevant to mid-90’s media, from the blockbuster success of Jurassic Park to his creation of ER. Future adaptations of his books like Sphere, Rising Sun, Disclosure, and The Lost World would fail to replicate those earlier successes, and the same holds true for Congo. Though a financial success, Frank Marshall’s adaptation is a bit of a joke, lampooned on bad movie podcasts for its interspecies sexual chemistry and gonzo finale. For mid-90’s globe-trotting adventures that got rented from the video store for sleepovers, it works well enough. There’s plenty to appreciate from a well-cast flick that pushes the boundaries of a PG-13 rating.
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The classic monsters of early Hollywood were at first treated as figures of fear, but the intellectual property machine soon put them on a double-bill with comic actors like Abbott and Costello. A comedy duo pratfalling away from the wolfman is music to a studio executive’s ears, making synergistic cash from two distinct pieces of content. Many decades later, Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy goes back to the early-century well for plot and name recognition, takes inspiration from the swashbuckling dual pistols and loud punches of Indiana Jones, and sprinkles in some Abbott and Costello characters, all while making Universal studios very happy with the piles of gold it generated. By far the best thing Sommers ever did, The Mummy turns its leads into stars while operating as one of the best blockbuster period adventures since the aforementioned Indy punched Nazis and chose wisely. This deft balance of action, comedy, and horror is summer filmmaking at its breeziest and most entertaining.
Two late-century blockbuster filmmaking trends clash in Joe Johnston’s The Rocketeer. Combining the WWII-era preview serials that inspired Indiana Jones with comic book stories like Batman and Dick Tracy, The Rocketeer is uniquely situated between genres. As a mid-tier action director, i.e. the kind of guy who directs the third Jurassic Park movie after Spielberg’s established the first two, Johnston might’ve made his career on The Rocketeer. With the marketing power of Disney behind it, things should’ve worked out better than they did, as The Rocketeer goes in for a modest landing and the would-be franchise only has its one entry. Johnston’s film presents this outcome as neither justified nor tragic, allowing for the possibility of future entertaining Nazi-punching sequels but not so accomplished or rousing that their loss is a blow to cinema. The Rocketeer is a fun throwback to American can-do unity and earnest adventure filmmaking, but it’s fine that lead Billy Campbell didn’t become a household name.
In another of those coincidences of studio groupthink, three adaptations of the Pinocchio story landed on streaming services in 2022. A Pauly Shore-starring Russian knockoff languishes on Amazon Prime, Robert Zemeckis continues his CGI beclowning with a critically panned version on Disney+, and Netflix flexes its quality control muscles with Guillermo del Toro’s version. By far the best received, Del Toro’s stop-motion film is a serious contender for a Best Animated Film Oscar, especially in a year when Disney is dragging its feet. However, Del Toro’s pet interests and style don’t work with a script that’s stuck between irreverence and historical trauma. Combined with sloppy plot mechanics and a refusal to take advantage of the storytelling elements dropped in the viewer’s lap, Pinocchio lifelessly flails around for unearned emotional power. This might be the best version of this story that came out in 2022, but when Zemeckis and his non-union Russian equivalent are the competition, that’s not much of a compliment.
Iconic gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s most well-known work is a series of dispatches from Las Vegas, published piecemeal in Rolling Stone before being assembled in the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. As he and his companion Dr. Gonzo trip acid and observe the goings on at a dirt bike race and a law enforcement convention, Thompson watches what will come after the deflated and defeated 60’s and suffocates whatever remained of his optimism in a hedonistic drug binge. The decades-later film adaptation is taken on by Terry Gilliam, a director with a taste for satire wrapped in the comedic genre-bending of Monty Python or the sci-fi delirium of Brazil, and stars two actors unafraid of heightened eccentricity in Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas loads itself up with assets and zooms off onto the desert highway, giving this viewer his sought-after historical trending and root causes within a package of druggy psychedelia and splayed-leg acting. |
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