After months of wan comedies and workmanlike dramas – typified, respectively,
by the recent While You Were Sleeping and Kiss of Death – the
arrival of pulse-pounding summer potboilers comes not a moment too soon. Bruce
Willis, put on your undershirt and go to work. One could argue endlessly about whether American films over the last several
months or so are charting a decline in terms of pleasure delivered. Many of us
who love film in the sense that we respect and admire good craftsmanship,
vision, and originality have come to accept the indisputable notion that a
significant portion of industry “product” is just that – something to put on
the shelves for consumers desiring a specific and known item within the can.
When we see previews for Free Willy II, we don’t well up with hopeful
expectation. We know beyond certainty that this is a film plainly calculated to
draw the audience who thought the first Free Willy was a great movie and
that it will be a well-crafted rehash of familiar plot lines, characters, and
dramatic conflicts.
Such is the nature of sequels, and there are many sequels. But the malaise
goes beyond that. Consider what Premiere magazine writer John Richardson
said in a recent rant in The New Republic:
“…the dreary sameness of all the erotic thrillers and buddy-o-matic action
epics, the dispiritingly endless stream of sequels and remakes and Disney
comedies. So many movies feel cobbled-together these days – action films like
True Lies and Patriot Games are so distended by their set-piece
action sequences that the rest of the movie feels like filler.”
Time magazine’s Richard Schickel, who is by no means anti-Hollywood,
concludes his review of a recent film with this: “How nice to come out of a
mainstream American movie feeling that you’ve been treated as an adult. And how
rare.”
Well, much of that is part of another story. For one thing, not many of the
forthcoming summer films are striving to treat audiences as adults. And it’s
really not so important that they do. What would be nice is if the films
treated us as if we were intelligent – that’s what the best summer films
from Jaws to The Fugitive have done.
On that score, this observer has come to believe that summer films do at
least
as well as any other cinematic genus. Granted, there is a particular kind of
moviegoer for whom escapism holds no allure. I know – and you probably do, too
– a handful of people who wouldn’t be caught dead at something like Die
Hard or Cliffhanger, even though both of these actioners were smart,
funny, thrilling. For these few, the pleasures of the sassy dialogue in The
Fugitive or Alan Rickman’s smarmily erudite villain in Die Hard are
lost amid the shootouts, car chases, and explosions. I say they’re missing out,
because the best summer movies come as close as any other to exploiting the
medium to the fullest – visually, intellectually, emotionally.
The point of reference here just has to be Jaws – Steven Spielberg’s
second theatrical feature and still his best. The film’s manifold brilliance
includes much more beyond the terrific chemistry between the wry, effervescent
Richard Dreyfuss and the taciturn Roy Scheider; a gripping story (altered from
the novel just so much to introduce surprise, without marring the substance);
excellent shotmaking; an unforgettable turn by Robert Shaw as the township’s
resident barnacle; and the now-signature John Williams score.
Jaws is a mass-and-class entertainment, a true work of popular art.
Can’t tell now if anything this summer will match the artfulness of Spielberg’s
film, but some of the many offerings between now and the end of August offer
honest hope.
It would be a mistake to hope for a masterpiece in Die Hard With a
Vengeance, but the casting of Samuel L. Jackson and Jeremy Irons in key
roles for this third installment in the Bruce Willis buttstomp series is very
good news. It will have to be better than Die Harder, the
second.
In Casper, producer Spielberg returns to his duties as a recycler of
popular culture. (Last summer it was the dismal Flintstones.) When he is
at the top of his game producing family crowd-pleasers, the results are films
like Poltergeist, Back to the Future, and Arachnophobia –
films that might not have been so good without his involvement.
Congo, due in June, presents a distinguished pedigree. The book is by
Michael Crichton (Coma, Jurassic Park, Disclosure), the director
is Frank Marshall (Arachnophobia, Alive), the screenwriter is John
Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck). Quite a combination.
By far, the most promising mainstream offering of the season is Apollo
13, due June 30. This is the true, harrowing story of how three astronauts
came very close to being left dead in orbit as a result of a freak loss of
oxygen. The script is by Texans Bill Broyles and Al Reinert, Reinert being an
expert on Apollo matters as director of For All Mankind. Tom Hanks,
Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris, and the underrated Bill Paxton form the core of the
cast. Cause for anxiety: director Ron Howard. Howard is no ham-handed
numbskull; his many years in the business as both actor and director have given
him a sure sense of rhythm, dynamics, and shotmaking. But too many of his films
betray a lack of critical judgment in storytelling (Willow,Backdraft, Far and Away). But with a great cast and a good script
(which we’ll presume he has here), perhaps setting up the shot and getting out
of the way will be good enough.
This article appears in May 19 • 1995 and May 19 • 1995 (Cover).