JURASSIC PARK

(Steven Spielberg, 1993)

Here is one of the oddest blockbusters Spielberg has made; a mix of compromise and genius which soars in parts and limps along in others.
The first act is all exposition. Characters are introduced - and by the standards of the modern event film, these characters are finely drawn, with actual personalities and motivations before dinosaurs mean that there is only one appropriate motivation: survival. The cast, composed mainly of grown-up character actors, certainly helps. That is another quirk of this film, produced when the summer blockbuster season was only about a decade old and still establishing its own rules; the cast seems relatively ancient. If this was made now, chances are the principals would all be in their late teens or early twenties. But here we get Sam Neill in the Harrison Ford role as the reluctantly dashing palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant, Jeff Goldblum as the awkwardly witty refusenik mathematician Ian Malcolm and Laura Dern as paleobotanist Dr Ellie Satler. The supporting cast is filled out with classy character faces like Samuel L Jackson and Bob Peck, and they handle much of the expository heavy lifting, telling us all about the Island, setting up the carnage to come.
Spielberg balances out all the maturity on show with two children at the centre of the story. They are Billionaire Richard Hammond's (Richard Attenborough, distractingly trying a twee, almost comic Scottish accent) grandchildren, come for a preview ride around his amazing new attraction; a safari park where genetically engineered (cloned, in effect) dinosaurs replace standard animals. The trio of doctors are there for the same experience, but their visit coincides with a terrible storm and an attempt to profit from some corporate espionage by a disgruntled employee which deactivates power - and electrified fences - at just the wrong moment.  Dinosaurs - including a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a pack of terrifying, cunning Velociraptors - are now on the loose, and any mammals in the park are fair game, including Dr Grant, on the run through the tropical forest with the two kids.
The exposition is such a demand here that Spielberg even sets aside five minutes to have the Park itself deliver it. We witness the educational part of the tour, wherein a cartoon character gives a presentation on how the dinosaurs were created. Through all this, it's hard not to grow impatient. We want to see the dino-mayhem we know is coming, and these scenes don't create tension, they just set the scene efficiently.
The effects, though a little dated, remain stunningly impressive, and Spielberg uses them with a sense of organic storytelling and timing that is possibly his greatest gift as a filmmaker. He integrates the cgi superbly, giving us glimpses of dinosaurs before a sweeping awed shot allows them to dominate the frame, John Williams' euphoric theme rising up as audience and characters are joined in a sense of wonder. And then, he begins to up the tension in the first scene depicting the T-Rex. That is a masterly construction of suspense, beautiful choreography of elements and terrific direction which has lost none of its power to thrill, terrify and amuse. And Spielberg is one of the few directors capable of crafting scenes which do all three at once. It is testament to his skill that he is able to make a film aimed squarely at families so scary; there is no gore here, but the chase and stalk scenes are genuinely tense and gripping, especially once the film ramps up in its last act. In that portion of the film, the Velociraptors take centre stage, and there is much Jaws-like suspense as the children (especially) hide and flee. In these scenes Spielberg feels fully engaged. You can almost feel his mind working, figuring out the best ways to drag audiences wherever he wants them to go, and the cuts and compositions are incredibly consistent in their skill and quality.
It's just that so much else feels so rote; where Jaws feels tight and measured in its pacing and timing, Jurassic Park feels slack and flabby. Individual scenes thrill and crackle, but the film bumps along awkwardly, some of its character beats too blatantly inserted as if in response to preview screening comments. The most interesting character - Goldblum's hilarious oddball - disappears halfway through and is rarely seen thereafter (the sequel seems aware of this, positioning him as the lead character). That is a structural flaw the film fails to repair; it peaks with the T-Rex sequence, and while the Velociraptors are fun and frightening, they don't quite match the impact of that cinematic monster or that awesome scene.
Even then, the whole thing rather peters out into a bit of an anticlimax, and it may be relevant that Spielberg made Schindlers List - a far more personal film - in the same year, stretching even his formidable talents.

THE HUNTER

(Daniel Nettheim, 2011) Julia Leigh's superb, evocative novel upon which The Hunter is based does a fine job in balancing the demands of a thriller with a finer sort of literary character study. Her protagonist empathises with the beast - the supposedly extinct Tasmanian Tiger- as he finds its tracks and follows its progress across the vast, beautiful Tasmanian wilderness. He has been sent to capture it, to take DNA samples, by a shadowy corporation, and he stays with a local woman and her two small children. Their father has disappeared in the same wilderness, and as he spends more time in the area, the Hunter finds himself developing feelings for the widow, the children, and his quarry. Nettheim's film doesn't change any of that. The hunter here, played by Willem Defoe with a haunted, hunted quality which resonates beautifully with the material, softens gradually to the two children who seem to trust and like him immediately. Frances O'Connor is less well-defined as their mother, though her optimism and gentleness is attractive in a world portrayed as beautiful but cruel. The other locals are all threats, from Sam Neill's snooping family friend to the environmentalists hired to find the Tiger for themselves and the local loggers, who threaten and intimidate the outsider. Defoe has an outsider quality - with that cranial face, those big teeth and those hooded eyes he sometimes seems more Orc than man - which makes him perfect for this role, and he is very good here. The major element of the books success the film is unable to recreate is his internal shift from purposefully business-minded to sympathy with the Tiger. We see him track it and see it through the eyes of te small boy, who draws pictures of the creature, but that is not enough to really communicate any change in him. What it does get right is the paranoid tension that grows throughout the narrative. The hunter finds signs that he is being watched and followed. He finds traces of the missing man, who may have been his predecessor in the hunt. He feels a presence in the trees. Nettheim makes sure that the many lovely shots of man in stunning landscape carry a sinister, brooding charge, and the spectacular country make his job an easy one in this regard. His film is a slightly arty, nicely paced and visually stunning quasi-thriller which is, for all it's strengths, never quite as memorable or gripping as it might be.