First-time director Jan de Bont scores with the summer action hit Speed (A). An elevator freefalling thirty floors is but a prelude to a speeding bus that can’t slow down through Los Angeles’ morning rush hour or else a bomb will detonate. Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are appealing as the young leads, and Dennis Hopper is subversive as the scheming villain. It’s an adrenaline junkie’s delight as smart characters prepare for each unbelievable hazard of a particularly hard drive.
Director Tony Scott’s film of an early Quentin Tarantino script, True Romance (D+) is unfortunately a misguided, mean-spirited action film that raises issues about a violent world without any rational backing or compelling message. It’s as if there’s an irony on the screenplay page that just didn’t translate to how Scott chose to direct it. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette don’t register in the leading roles in an aimless story about drug runs and double-crosses. The great supporting cast has its moments though including the ever-intriguing Christopher Walken as one of the villains and Brad Pitt as a stoner roommate who hilariously rarely leaves his sofa.
Keep your distance from Rowdy Herrington’s Striking Distance (D+), a bloated, boring, self-conscious action flick about a burned-out Pittsburgh cop (Bruce Willis) on the two-year trail of a serial killer. Willis seems to be sleepwalking through this one. Some of the stunts are original; but for the most part, you’ve seen it all before.
Philip Kaufman’s very boring Rising Sun (D) is a slow-paced mystery set in a high-tech world lacking humor and emotion. As detectives investigating the brutal murder of a woman found in the boardroom of a Japanese-owned company in Los Angeles, Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes deliver tired lines with very little charisma.
Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive (A+), based on the classic TV series of the same name, completely delivers on its intriguing cat-and-mouse premise and is a chase from start to finish. Harrison Ford proves he still has the chops to be an absorbing action hero, and Tommy Lee Jones injects solid comic relief as his tenacious foil.
Director Sydney Pollack’s film adaptation of John Grisham’s bestseller The Firm (B-) is a rather tepid thriller that nearly misses its mark with lazy pacing, boring piano music (it sounds like the opposite of “page turner”) and empty-suit acting by Tom Cruise. Luckily the pacing picks up, and it can at least be characterized as a template for the “man joins firm and finds himself over his head in scandal” type movie. Coming off the mega-flop Havana, it is clear Pollack isn’t taking too many risks here, and fortunately he casts Gene Hackman as diabolical head of the law firm and the zany Gary Busey as a private investigator. There are few films Hackman doesn’t improve. Cruise is joined on the domestic front by the equally bland Jeanne Tripplehorn. When his character learns his law firm isn’t all he was promised, it’s a race to the finish to get to the closing credits.
Director John McTiernan serves up a straight-down-the-middle sentimental actioner and pleases no one in the summer flop Last Action Hero (C-) in which a young movie fan enters the screen, reverse Purple Rose of Cairo style, to pal around with Arnold Swarzenegger on some lame product placement laden adventures. A muddled tone, an uncertain target audience, flat action sequences, poor special effects and an absolute void of dramatic structure and human chemistry are but some of the hazards in the way between the movie and your entertainment. There are two pretty thrilling stunt sequences, but it’s hard to stay too thrilled when the cloying duo of protagonists is mugging and plugging.
Steven Spielberg has always been fascinated with the wonders of childhood, the perils of technology and the gulf between reality and fantasy. Once again, in the summer mega-movie Jurassic Park (B+), he opens up a mysterious childhood treasure chest to unleash the demons within it. In the film he proves most kids have a certain wide-eyed interest in dinosaurs, and adults will exploit such unknowns if given the chance. After Hook, Spielberg is thankfully back to formula form. The story is essentially an island theme park of dinosaurs re-created in modern day like a high-end zoo — and that turns out to be a terribly bad idea. The effects are great, many sequences highly suspenseful and the characters are almost all dull and underdeveloped (especially Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Richard Attenborough). Jeff Goldblum thankfully provides a bit of comic relief. This is a theme park ride and a sequel franchise unspooling before your eyes.
Elvis in Blue Hawaii. Madonna in Shanghai Surprise. History has not been kind for pop superstar cross-overs into film, but Whitney Houston actually lifts director Mick Jackson’s The Bodyguard (B-) into an often stylish and engaging romantic adventure with music. Paired with a stoic Kevin Costner as her protector, Houston capably plays a souped-up version of herself in a dusted-off Lawrence Kasdan script that is mainly a big excuse to get to the love sequences and the songs. See it for the iconic songs such as “Queen of the Night,” “Run to You,” “I Am Nothing” and “I Will Always Love You.”
This time intrepid travelers Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd go way back in time as Robert Zemeckis concludes his trilogy in the Western milieu. Back to the Future Part III (B) restores charm and personality to the franchise by introducing a new love story between Lloyd and a feisty townswoman played by Mary Steenbergen. Many of the time travel tropes are still a hoot, and the director stages some delightful action sequences especially involving the series’ famed vehicle and a locomotive of the past. The film is a fun and fitting conclusion to a series that sets the standard for time travel adventures.
Director Robert Zemeckis returns to his time-hopping characters to make it a trilogy with an overly complex Back to the Future Part II (B-). Doubling down on the conventions of time travel itself, rather than exploring the emotional undertones which made the original film so special, this movie blasts both into the past and into a dystopian future to further complicate the life of its paradox-challenged protagonist, played again with relish by Michael J. Fox. While it’s neat to see the film’s iconic town besieged by futuristic conventions, the effects often look clunky and unrealistic. Jettisoning into events from the first film is more fun, mainly from the good will of seeing the familiar. This time around, the adventure excels without the resonance of the journey being all that personal. Christopher Lloyd is again a delight as the hero’s boon companion who misses most cross-generational references. The film gets points for ambition, but ultimately the art eclipses the heart.
Adding to the charm Harrison Ford brings to the heroic role, Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (A) layers in a flashback sequence with River Phoenix as Young Indy and introduces an inspired casting companion: Sean Connery as Indy’s dad. The two Joneses go on a quest to find the Holy Grail (before the Nazis get it, of course!). The family dynamic helps make fresh what might otherwise feel like a retread. We get exotic locales from Italy to Jordan and a highly sentimental set of sequences as father-son bonding and bickering become a major part of the equation. Since Indiana Jones was always Spielberg’s James Bond type franchise, the pairing of Indy with the original 007 is a great casting excavation. It’s a triumphant send-off for a trilogy of outstanding action films; I’ll try to forget that a misguided follow-up happens many years later.
