Jurassic World - Roar but no awe

SPOILERS OF COURSE FOLLOW

Jurassic World is the fourth instalment in the series which began way back in 1993. As much reboot as direct sequel, it once again tells the story of a dinosaur-filled theme park gone awry. This time however the park is open, operational and filled with 20,000 prey guests. Man of the moment Chris Pratt stars alongside Bryce Dallas Howard.

Jurassic World is breezy and entertaining. It drips in nostalgia. Yet for all its aping of the first film, for all its sly references and call-backs, there is a fundamental void at the heart of it. There is no place for what was a key ingredient in the original – wonder.

It was not the idea of a tourist-thronged theme park that excited us in Jurassic Park [1]. It was the dinosaurs. The film treated them respectfully and the audience responded. Yet Jurassic World seems more interested in its monorail than its ancient inhabitants. Tellingly, the classic John Williams theme is deployed most notably not to revel in the majesty of extinct creatures reborn, but to show off a frankly tacky theme park. It kicks in when the boy is travelling up an escalator.

Because dinosaurs are boring now, we are repeatedly told. Yes, this is a winking reference to audiences apparently demanding bigger and bigger sequels. But how are we meant to feel about the creatures when the film treats them with such disregard? When the newly created Indominus Rex is slaughtering herbivores, the film reaches for emotional impact. A character even cries. But the film has spent the previous hour telling us how boring dinosaurs are, never letting us feel their raw power and majesty. So it is difficult to empathise with the characters’ grief.

Raptor Whisperer

This is not the only time an emotional beat falls flat. Time and time again the film forces moments it has not earned. One occasion sees the two boys leap into a waterfall to avoid the jaws of the Indominus Rex chasing them. Afterwards the elder brother exclaims in amazement that the little boy managed to jump. The pair laugh, seemingly bonding over this moment. Yet at no point has the film suggested the boy especially timid or scared of heights; it is a staging point on a journey we did not know we were on.

Nearer to the finale, we then have a kiss between the two leads. It wants to be an exclamation mark, the inevitable explosion of feelings developed organically over the course of the story.  But the film fails to do that groundwork. Their kiss instead is more of a semi-colon; awkward looking and little understood. Because the film has not earned the moment. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) essentially remains the same one note, not-so-borderline sexist depiction of a woman she always was [2]. And Owen (Chris Pratt) remains hunky Raptor A-Team man throughout. Sure, they are two good-looking people experiencing danger together but that is not enough for a believable romance to blossom.

Not pictured - believable romance

These are pay-offs without set-ups. Shorn of meaning in this way they only serve to lever open divides between characters and audience – if we cannot understand their actions we cannot empathise. And without empathy, the story is reduced to mere spectacle.

Not that the spectacle is entirely effective either.

Oh there are explosions and some good shocks. But each major sequence in this film only makes you realise what a master Spielberg is and just how much he brought to the material in the first two films. Even the imperfect The Lost World has wonder, action and suspense far excelling anything found in this film [3]. Think of the attack on the trailers by the two Tyrannosaurs. Or the raptors in the long grass. Each sequence masterfully built and delivered. Jurassic World however features no such memorable moments.

Its sequences are undermined by inconsistencies in pacing and tone. On numerous occasions frightening beats are punctuated by a return to the control room, where the guy from New Girl is cracking funnies or awkwardly hitting on his co-worker. The control room in Jurassic Park was a tense workplace where people made life and death decisions. Too often in Jurassic World it is a forum for jokes. It is not that the gags aren’t funny – the audience in my cinema laughed – but for me it is the timing of their deployment that is problematic. In suspense films, lighter moments act as pressure valves and can be enormously effective. But hit that valve too often and the pressure never builds in the first place. That is the case in Jurassic World.

Much like its main attraction the Indominus Rex then, Jurassic World is bigger and flashier than its forebears. But there is something unconvincing about it. And I’m not just talking about CGI [4]. This is a film with bite but no soul.

---

[1] Jurassic Park was never going to be a theme park in the Disney-mode anyway – it was a highly exclusive luxury resort with dinosaurs. A great part of the film's appeal for me was that it was secret, hidden away so much that you could almost convince yourself could be happening, or have happened already.

[2] Much more has been written about this elsewhere. But it is troubling nevertheless and a strange misstep for a modern film.

[3] That being said, I still think Spielberg damaged the series forever with his San Diego ending to the second film. It required subsequent films to exist in a world with widespread public knowledge of the existence of dinosaurs. The sense of mystery, of disbelief-suspending secrecy, was lost.

[4] Isn’t it amazing how well the CGI from Jurassic Park stands up today? Some scenes look dodgy but the combination of practical and computer effect sold the existence of dinosaurs and the park so much more convincingly than Jurassic World.

FURY - Stuck in the mud

Why do we tell historical stories? Why do they interest us? As someone whose favourite films are often historical ones, it is a question I wrestle with a lot.

Of course, no small part is the thrill of exploring another world, strange yet familiar, of us but not our own. That recreation of sights now lost, of people, ideas and technologies faded to dust can certainly be enthralling. But the best and most successful historical films transcend mere spectacle. The characters and situations depicted in them engage with contemporary trends and concerns. It seems paradoxical but it is through this very modernity that the past in these films is rendered the more vivid and convincing.

Without it, we are left asking - why this story, why this production, and why now?

And that brings me to FURY. As ever, SPOILERS follow.



FURY tells the story of an American tank crew in the dying days of the Second World War. At first glance, this seems fertile ground for a story; it contains that oft-suggested ideal mix of old and new. It concentrates on the less-dramatised end of a well-known war and provides a new point of view on familiar battles. You can almost hear the pitch - the claustrophobia of Das Boot with the visceral, exciting action of Saving Private Ryan.

And some things it does very well indeed.

There is a fantastic texture to this film. You can almost feel the dirt beneath your nails, the diesel fumes in your nostrils, the gun-smoke at your eyes. Mud and gore coat the roads, while in the taut, jarringly violent action scenes, you truly feel the force of these metal monsters as tracer bullets scorch the sky and cannon-fire roils the earth.

This is a world defined by beasts of battle, both old and new. The opening shot sees a man ride in horseback towards camera and through what seems to be a graveyard of American tanks. But it soon becomes clear not all the mechanical beasts are dead. The scene ends with a moment of sudden violence and the curt dismissal of the now riderless horse. It was a flesh-and-blood creature that brought us into the scene, but it is a tank that carries us out. The message could not be clearer or more effective.

Unfortunately, for me, other elements in the film are less successful.

Despite the considerable time spent in their cramped fighting station, there is little depth to most of the tank crew beyond their dominant characteristics - the religious gunner, the experienced commander, the callow youth, the violent one, the Mexican driver. To be honest, I struggled to remember their names even while watching the film. Despite generally solid acting performances, the characters never felt real to me, the beats in their relationships rarely surprising as we have simply seen them too many times before. So derivative do they seem of characters in other films, so predictable at times are their interactions, it is difficult to care about them as individuals, fatally undermining our interest in their survival and by extension in the film itself.

The notable exception to these rather generic interactions comes when Pitt's character and his novice colleague (played by Logan Lerman) invade the home of a German woman and her pretty young cousin. It is the film's most effective sequence, with a rare hint of tenderness on display in an otherwise unremittingly bleak picture. The encounter between erstwhile enemies is derailed however by the arrival of the rest of the tank crew, drunk and aggressive after the bloody taking of the town. Humming with barely suppressed sexual violence, the scenes are tenser and more compelling than any other in the film.

This morally intriguing interlude however proves precisely that; tank and film soon roll off to more battles and more bloodshed.

The climax of the film comes in a duel to the death between the crew's stranded tank and an entire battalion of the dreaded SS. Impressively staged though it certainly is, the battle has little impact beyond the visceral shock of bang and gruesome splatter. Despite brief efforts by the film to endow it with greater importance, we know this fight will make no difference to the outcome of the war. Germany has already lost; the only thing that can truly be at stake for the audience is the characters' lives. But, as established, we do not really know most of these men and thus cannot care when they die. The final battle reaches for the emotional deeps, for moments of powerful sacrifice and unlikely deliverance; but by the end the audience is less shedding tears than shrugging shoulders.

And that strikes at the question I came out of the cinema with.

Why? What is the point? What is this film telling us that is new? That war is grim? Nazis bad? That violence dehumanises? We have heard it all before.

FURY has much going for it. But it never addresses the crucial questions - why tell this story and why now? Without answers, this tank film is ultimately just a tin can with the same old ingredients.

And I'm back in the room!

I know you have all been out there waiting, clicking the blog again and again in the vain hope of a new post only to come away disappointed. My apologies. But I'm back now and I'll never leave you again.

It's been a busy year though (yikes, where does the time go?). Much of my time was spent on Raiders of the Lost Art, a drama-documentary series broadcast on the Yesterday Channel over the summer. For those who missed it (no I'll never forgive you), the series dealt with tales of lost, missing and stolen works of art - and I wrote the dramatic reconstructions.

As with any project, it came with its own particular challenges. I love historic settings for my stories. But I also enjoy the leeway "creative licence" allows the author of historical fiction. In this case however, that was far more limited and I was very much serving two masters - scenes had to work dramatically while not straying far from the documented truth of events. After all, this was a documentary, not a fully-fledged drama. Getting the balance right sometimes took a few drafts, but I think we just about got it in the end and I'm pleased with how the final project has turned out.

For a short time it is still available on catch up. Check it out!

But anyway.....

Seen any good films recently? 

Why THE WORLD'S END Didn't Quite Work For Me

Massive fan of Pegg and Wright. Loved Spaced. Loved the previous entries in the "Cornetto" trilogy.

So why didn't I like The World's End as much as I wanted to?

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Shaun of the Dead saw our heroes face off against a familiar foe - zombies. The undead of course are established genre monsters with a well-explored mythology and widely-understood modus operandi -- you get bitten, you become a zombie, you hunger for human flesh. Simple beasties with understandable aims, they create a clear conflict with any remaining humans who are understandably less keen on the prospect of becoming lunch.

Pegg and Wright took brilliant advantage of this previously established world and grafted a superior, distinctly British comedy on top. With The World's End, however, though sprinkling the film with their customary pop-culture references, the writers are effectively building a mythology of their own.

In The World's End our heroes' pub crawl is derailed not by booze but by robots. Only we're told they're not robots. Or maybe they are. They're like robots, but they're not. They are automatons who look like real people with blue blood and eggshell heads. And headlight eyes. Oh, and they want to turn you into a robot. Or they don't. If you're nice, if you keep your head down, they'll leave you alone. I think.

To what end they are doing all this however is frustratingly never clear.













Nevertheless, our heroes have their foe at last. The gang decide on the obvious course of action: continue the pub crawl.

Some of heroes get lost along the way of course. But, disappearing off-screen and unseen, what fate they suffer is again unclear and the snatched attempts to explain on the run never do the job. Without that understanding however there can be no stakes, no fear for survival of the others. Our heroes go from pint to pint, fighting foes who simply re-animate and return to the melee once they are defeated. They are the definition of disposable villains. No matter how well-shot, choreographed and entertaining the action may be in its own right (and it is), the scenes are rendered essentially meaningless as a result.

Eventually, however, our remaining heroes do make it to the last stop on their epic crawl. The World's End. The finale.

But what should see a climactic showdown between well-established opposing forces with clear aims and stakes of failure, is here mostly dedicated instead to exposition, to a final attempt to explain what on earth the point of it all was. It is in fact almost a literal deus ex machina with a god-like disembodied voice descending to wrap up the story. But despite (or even because of) this final barrage of exposition, the explanation never quite hangs together and cannot anyway mitigate problems with roots far earlier in the film.

Had we come into this last act with a clearer understanding of the aliens/robots' aims and methods -- had the plot work been done -- then more time could have be dedicated to what really mattered at this late stage: the story. As it is, Simon Pegg's final cathartic scenes feel forced rather than earned, tacked on rather than integral.

This all sounds damning; it is not really meant to be so. Despite its flaws, I did enjoy The World's End a great deal. The writers have lost none of their ability to craft witty dialogue. There are plenty of laughs and the film nails that certain wistful yearning for the past we can all recognise. But me being a big fan of their prior work, it cannot help going down in my book as a disappointment.

But hey! At least I got a screenwriting blog out of it. 

MAN OF STEEL - Tone deaf

I saw the new we-are-avoiding-calling-him-Superman-as-long-as-possible Superman film last night. Like many others, my expectations before the film's release had been high -- its cast and crew had pedigree and the trailers, drenched in stirring music and imagery, were highly effective.

Then release day came. And the rumblings of discontent could not be missed. It wasn't just from the fanboys. Many reviews were mixed, if not outright hostile.

Expectations duly lowered, in I went... (SPOILERS follow)

...and, in truth, probably enjoyed the film a little more as a result. If only I had done the same for The Phantom Menace.

Nevertheless Man of Steel remained an unsatisfying experience.

Why did it disappoint so? You could just say, "Well, it's not a great film" and, yes, there are some hokey moments¹, eye-rolling bits of meaningless dialogue². and plot-holes aplenty³ if you choose to look for them.

But there's something else at play. And it's do with the central character himself.

Superman...he's just a little bit silly, isn't he?

"He can fly! Yeah, and he's indestructible⁴! I know -- he's super-strong! Oh, oh, his eyes shoot lasers! Yeah! He's an alien, but..uhh, he looks just like us! And he gets his power from the sun somehow! Radiation, that'll do!"

This isn't a character, it is a child's power fantasy that got carried away.

Now, there are seemingly ridiculous premises to be found in many films. I'm not here to poo-poo the occasional stretch or imaginative leap -- it is amazing what an audience will go with after all. But ultimately the more of these unexplained and slightly daft ideas you cram into one story, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the audience's suspension of disbelief.

This is a particular problem for a "serious" take on the subject like Man of Steel.

Man of Steel is not a comic book concoction of zany characters and outlandish sets; it follows the Dark Knight trilogy handbook of grounded design and a recognisably adult world.

Yet this approach sets up a tonal clash at the heart of the film, the "sombreness" contrasting with the intrinsic shallowness and silliness of its main character (and his adversaries). An irreconcilable tension is felt throughout. Moments of dramatic depth in one scene are undercut in the next by the intrusion of characters like the dubiously-goateed Emperor Zurg General Zod, while the insistence on dour reality means the film-makers can never embrace the humour and fun that so endeared the original Richard Donner film to the public.

I was left with the overwhelming feeling of writers struggling against their material. They know Superman is a bit ridiculous⁵. Evidently keen to pull it in another direction, they tweaked some elements, removing, for instance, the belief-shattering notion that supposedly whip-sharp reporter Lois Lane could not notice the similarity between her colleague and the chap flying around in his underwear.

But I am not convinced they went far enough -- to make a serious Superman work perhaps more sacred Kryptonian cows needed to be slain. Would the fans have accepted that however⁶? And after all the changes had been made, would it even be Superman any more?

Man of Steel is by turns snigger-inducingly daft and yawn-inducingly pompous. It also looks spectacular, has some genuinely good acting performances and manages at times, despite it all, to entertain. Above all, however, the film reminded me of an important screenwriting truth, one not even the biggest budget can disprove -- a consistent tone, in which our characters and their actions fit the world in which we place them, is absolutely essential to an effective and enjoyable story.


Footnotes.
1. "The world's too big, mom!" Vomit.
2. "Evolution always wins!" What does that even mean!?
3. Why was Lois summoned onto Zod's ship again for example?
4. Yes, yes. Kryptonite, I know. But that is little more than a nasty allergic reaction to a clumsy plot device.
5. Come on, even his name sounds cheesy -- it's why the film avoids saying it so long.
6. Some are mighty peeved as it is -- "SUPERMAN DOESN'T KILL!"

The seductive and deadly peril of mystery

CONTAINS SPOILERS

I saw Prometheus the other night for the first time. Yes, I'm terribly late. What can I say? I was out of the country when it was released last summer and the mixed reviews rather put me off seeing it on my return.

It is a strange film in many ways. Absolutely beautiful to look at of course, as you would expect from Ridley Scott. A talented cast, with Fassbender in particular shining as creepy android David. And it has stayed with me since watching.

But then, I have always had a soft spot for ambitious failures. Not for me, that aloof perfection of the masterpiece. Heroic failure is so much more approachable. It is why my favourite computer game remains Trespasser, 1998's ludicrously ambitious -- and often plain ludicrous -- first person physics-them-up. The makers' reach exceeded their grasp¹. But there is something joyfully human in that shortcoming, in that gap between our dreams and our accomplishments. Ultimately the ambition to straddle that divide has driven human progress through the centuries.

And Prometheus certainly is ambitious, seeking to create a new mythology within the existing Alien world while grappling with complex themes such as faith, creation, life and death.

It just never quite pulls it off. The film leaves you dissatisfied, its tantalising promise unfulfilled.

There are several reasons for this², but I'd like to concentrate on just one -- its use of mystery.

Mystery is of course a powerful tool in our trade. I think every good script needs it. These mysteries can be big or small - why a plane crashed, or why a father resents his son - but they serve to draw an audience in. Presented with an effective unknown, with an intriguing question, they cannot help but theorise about potential answers. When used properly mystery transforms the audience from passive receptors to active participants in the drama.

This is especially important in the first acts of a script, when the heavy lifting of character, plot and world introduction can overwhelm. The treat of an answer promised but withheld sustains us through those pages, both as audiences and as authors.

The first half of Prometheus works fairly well in this regard. The film asks some intriguing questions and we are right there with the scientists in seeking the answers.

But there comes a time when any film must turn from asking "what-the-fuck-is-going on" to explaining "this-the-fuck-is-going-on". Especially in a "mainstream film" like Promethues, the audience expects it and will eventually demand it. But if mystery is simply piled on top of mystery, unexplained event on unexplained event, eventually the audience becomes restless. This is what happens in the second half of Prometheus.

Who were the Engineers? Why did they leave the map for us? What were they doing on this planet? What the fuck is that black goo? And why is space-underwear so weird?

We get no answers. Instead, the film-makers load yet more questions on top, as if the same story engines that had propelled the first half would satisfy in the second. Our heads spin with more unanswered questions.

Why did they want to destroy earth so long ago? Why does that one living Engineer want to complete the mission? What's wrong with Fifield's face? 

Coupled with sketchily explained or simply contradictory character actions³, the second half of the film almost collapses under the weight of this ever-growing mountain of mystery.

This robs the story of its emotional power. Moments such as the death of Dr. Holloway lack all impact -- we do not really know what is happening or why David poisoned him, with the entire process happening too quickly for even any visceral sense of mounting horror to develop⁴. The grand finale, meanwhile, is reduced to mere spectacle, the stakes unclear, the sacrifice of the ship's captain utterly unexplained and utterly hollow as a result.

I recognise that, in taking on these Big Ideas, Prometheus has not set itself an easy task. Of course, philosophical questions of creation and the meaning of life are too grand, too complex to expect a Hollywood film to answer in a neat bow in 120 minutes. And I don't think the audience would have expected any such resolution. But plenty of questions raised in the film were within the film-makers' power to answer and, I believe, should have been.

There were other problems with Prometheus, but they are minor ones in comparison with this failure. It reminds us of an important lesson in screenwriting -- mysteries are certainly powerful story tools but they must be used correctly, for they contain an implicit deal with the audience. We say to them, "You will find out the answer, and I promise it will be clever, interesting and unexpected...but I'm going to need you to watch this first."

With Prometheus, the audience kept their side of the bargain. The film-makers did not.

FOOTNOTES
1. This is not a tortured joke about the game's famous arm interface.
2. Unattractive and under-developed characters, clumsy exposition, on-the-nose dialogue and inconsistent or unexplained character motivation all let the side down at various points.
3. I am not the first to note this by any means, but the secondary characters Fifield and Millburn particularly suffer from this incoherence. The former declares himself either a money-obsessed mercenary, or a geologist there for the love of rocks depending on the scene, yet his actions never seem informed by either of these traits. The latter meanwhile is a biologist who in one scene sees no interest in the first ever discovery of alien life, and then just a little later in the film fearlessly grapples with a clearly dangerous squid thing with predictably disastrous results.
4. Besides, the guy was kind of a dick anyway. Who really cared when he died?

Margaret Thatcher and the Power of Myth

I was out at dinner last night with perhaps the one man in the country who had not heard that Margaret Thatcher had died. The group had managed to avoid the inevitable discussion until then, distracted by the complexities of the Chinese menu and the terrifying presence of the waitress watching our every move. I was relieved. It was not a conversation I had particularly wanted. It was a pleasant evening. We all have different political views. Why spoil it?

We managed to hurry the conversation on without incident, but it got me thinking about old Maggie and the reaction to her death. The media wheeling out their long prepared obits and pull-out specials. The children on Twitter asking “Lulz, whose this Tatcher?” The paeans of praise from the right. And of course the vitriol from certain quarters of the left.

In some parts of the country they held parties to celebrate the death of a frail 87 year old grandmother who left office nearly a quarter of a century ago. Classless, petty and demeaning, of course, but hardly unexpected. What I have always found interesting when it comes to Thatcher is that some of those expressing the strongest opinions were barely alive during her premiership. Many are the children of comfortably well-off middle-class families. Where does this deep well of hatred spring from?

Perhaps they were particularly engaged toddlers, imbibing Marx with their mother’s milk.

Or perhaps there is more to it. I don’t much like Gordon Brown. I think he did enormous, lasting damage to the country and was not a particularly pleasant man to boot. But I won’t be dancing a jig when he dies.

This Thatcher hatred goes far beyond her policies.

“Ding dong, the witch is dead”

We cannot escape the obvious. The character of that hatred is defined by her sex. They call her “hag”, “bitch” and worse beside. What makes some left-wing activists, self-described feminists, scourges of misogyny and the imperial patriarchy worldwide pour such scorn on the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?

Part of the answer I believes lies in the power of mythology, especially on the young.

For them, Thatcher is not just a politician vehemently disagreed with. She is the wicked witch. She has been transformed from a flawed human being into a caricature, a fairy-tale villain. A mythic archetype of the evil mother.

And myths are powerful, almost primal things, as we story-tellers who have read our Joseph Campbell know. Myths play a crucial role in the development and continuation of a society. But they can also shortcut the critical mind, engaging instead on another, alluringly primitive level. This has destructive potential.

Perceived and entirely imagined crimes are laid at Thatcher’s feet. To some, it seems she is guilty of sweeping a post-war collective utopia aside and replacing it with a hard-nosed world of walk on by. It is easy – and downright fun – to hurl abuse at her. She has acquired the comfortable aura of myth. She is barely human. Easier to revile, easier to attack.

In fact, many of those toasting Thatcher’s demise seem to have no deeper an engagement with her than they have with the Evil Step-Mother in Snow White. It is a reflex, a knee-jerk of disdain, a panto boo of a reaction.

The right is guilty too of course in its own way. To many in the Conservative Party, Thatcher is the paragon of all virtue, the Iron Lady, the titan which the current political crop can only fail to match. She is the mythic perfect leader of pure ideology.

This happy mythologising essentially forgoes any messy and turgid discussion of the time’s wider political and economic context, of human error or feeling. Lost among it is the remarkable, flawed and, yes, human figure, who inherited a dire mess of a country, made hard choices, made mistakes certainly, and yet changed Britain profoundly.

This myopia is dangerous. Unambiguous, unthinking hatred satisfies but is an ultimately corrosive force. Margaret Thatcher the woman is dead. But in truth she had long since decoupled from Margaret Thatcher the Myth. Perhaps her death will eventually herald a more thoughtful, genuine engagement with her eleven years as Prime Minister. But somehow, I get the feeling that alluring myth may stick around a while yet.