Spielberg's Next - Robopocalypse - zzzzzzzz....

[AndyDursin]

I dunno, between AI, MINORITY REPORT, and movies like I ROBOT not to mention the TERMINATOR films -- haven't we seen this before?? lol.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/new ... ypse_N.htm

[Paul MacLean]

Spielberg is a truly great director, but except for Catch Me If You Can, I haven't cared for a single project he's chosen to direct in probably fifteen years.

[Eric W.]

Spielberg is a truly great director, but except for Catch Me If You Can, I haven't cared for a single project he's chosen to direct in probably fifteen years.

Same here.

[AndyDursin]

AMISTAD was very underrated. That one is worth seeing and pretty much the best film he's made in the post-SCHINDLER'S era for me anyway.

Otherwise, I agree for the most part. AI, LOST WORLD, WAR OF THE WORLDS, INDIANA JONES, THE TERMINAL -- blecccch. I liked CATCH ME IF YOU CAN but really disliked the last half-hour. MUNICH didn't hold up. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is a film I admire for its opening but the story sags as you move through it. MINORITY REPORT I like, but it has a certain "sourness" and edge to it that makes it uncomfortable at times to sit through, as I found on repeat viewing.

He's not the director he used to be, that's the sad reality of it, but directing films hasn't been his main priority in life and he's said as much.

For me, the downward trend started when he began making movies with "Movie Stars" like Cruise and Hanks as opposed to the character actors like Richard Dreyfuss who appeared in his early works; and then when he started working with Janusz Kaminski, for obvious reasons I've discussed at length before.

Even EMPIRE OF THE SUN and THE COLOR PURPLE -- at the time they were made -- basically had nobody in them at all. But that's not he casts and chooses projects anymore. Everything has to have "a star" in it, which is the total reverse of his approach in the '70s. I mean, he resisted the very temptation of casting "stars" like Heston in JAWS and let the project speak for itself. Not so much anymore...

And I think the one project that began this change in his methodology was HOOK. Shot entirely on sets, cast entirely with big-name actors, and very lazy in so many ways. Other than Williams' score and a couple of individual sequences that film really disappointed -- and try watching it now. Utterly dated.

[Monterey Jack]

How many "stars" were in Munich? Even Daniel Craig was pre-007 at that point.

[AndyDursin]

How many "stars" were in Munich? Even Daniel Craig was pre-007 at that point.

That would be the one title out of about a dozen that doesn't entirely qualify...though by that point Bana was on the rise as the "next big thing" after TROY and THE HULK. That his career didn't take off doesn't totally change my point.

[mkaroly]

There are only two films of his I absolutely did not like in any area (directing, acting, Williams' score, etc.) because they felt "forced" and superficial to me (Amistad and The Lost World). Crystal Skull was bad, and I also didn't like 1941, though I can at least tolerate both films (which is more than I can say for the other two). Hook was not good either, now that I think about it (but the music is awesome).

Of his post AI films, the one I have really grown to like is CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, and Williams' best score for a Spielberg film post-AI is THE TERMINAL, in my opinion. It's the only post AI JW score that I consistently listen to. The others are, sad to say, hard to digest for me.

I've seen MUNICH 4 or 5 times and the only scene that doesn't really work for me is the sex scene towards the end...it felt forced and awkward because I don't think Spielberg is good with that aspect of human drama. I like his sci-fi films (even generally WOTW, with those awful scenes with Tim Robbins in it), so despite the uninspired concept, I'd go see this new film opening weekend.

I am not very objective about his stuff. The one thing I will say about Spielberg is that he is very consistent with putting in his "themes" about abandonment, father-child bond or mother-child bond (or lack thereof), importance of family, etc. I definitely agree with Andy in his comments on casting choices- those are good points.

[AndyDursin]

Of his post AI films, the one I have really grown to like is CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, and Williams' best score for a Spielberg film post-AI is THE TERMINAL, in my opinion. It's the only post AI JW score that I consistently listen to. The others are, sad to say, hard to digest for me.

Agree totally Michael. I love THE TERMINAL's score.

In fact, THE TERMINAL is one of John Williams' best works since the mid '90s, and I agree, it's one of two Williams scores he's written this decade I listen to frequently -- THE PATRIOT being the other. I do like the early Potter scores (the first two), but in terms of his Spielberg output, a lot of Williams' scores this decade are depressing, brittle and not very thematic. THE TERMINAL is one of the few scores he's written for a Spielberg film I've really liked this decade. Certainly the movie is kind of meh, but THE TERMINAL's score is really old-fashioned, romantic Williams -- something we have not heard in a long time, sadly.

Funny though -- as a movie -- I like 1941. A lot in fact, and certainly a lot more than any of his recent misfires. At least 1941 has some brilliant production design, cinematography, a few funny scenes and Williams' great score. It's excessive and not all of it works, but man, it's a lot more watchable than KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL and WAR OF THE WORLDS. Those are simply depressing. and have very few redeeming features IMO.

I think HOOK, if viewed now, is up there as one of his worst films. It's so over the top, manufactured and lazy. A few nice scenes, a good Williams score, but the film should've been a musical, and half of Williams' themes were supposed to be songs (or were written as songs back when, what, it was supposed to be a live-action musical, no?).

[mkaroly]

I think HOOK, if viewed now, is up there as one of his worst films. It's so over the top, manufactured and lazy. A few nice scenes, a good Williams score, but the film should've been a musical, and half of Williams' themes were supposed to be songs (or were written as songs back when, what, it was supposed to be a live-action musical, no?).

Definitely agree here. What ruins the movie for me is the whole concept and execution of the Lost Boys (whatever they're called). The Neverland set at times looks like an overdressed skateboard park...skateboards! UGH! The whole film looks too soundstage-ish, artificial, and dated. Also, I was never sold on Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman and their acting in this one. It was all just so...staged? Uninspired? Studio? I don't know, but after reflecting on this I have to agree that it is one of his worst films. It's too bad we couldn't see it as the musical is was perhaps intended to be.

[Paul MacLean]

I've seen MUNICH 4 or 5 times and the only scene that doesn't really work for me is the sex scene towards the end...it felt forced and awkward because I don't think Spielberg is good with that aspect of human drama.

Munich I've seen twice. It's a very gripping film, and I consider it and Catch Me If You Can his best work of the previous decade -- in terms of storytelling technique at least. But Munich's potency (and credibility) suffers bit, since it never really takes a stand on the incendiary issues raised by its own subject matter.

And that sex scene was ludicrous!

[AndyDursin]

love the Spielberg talk! For all the griping, he's still my favorite director, but hasn't made a lot of movies I really admire in some time.

For me MINORITY REPORT is superior to both CATCH ME IF YOU CAN and MUNICH (the latter by a wide margin) -- at least it's much more suspenseful, though it still has some "ewwww" kind of elements in it (but not as many as AI, which is a film I positively dislike on a number of levels).

The MUNICH sex scene didn't work...in fact I had trouble figuring out what Spielberg was trying to say with that film on the whole. It has its moments of power, and it's well directed, but frankly it left me very cold and detached from a narrative and dramatic standpoint. A bit convoluted, overlong, unfocused -- a movie I respect, but don't particularly like, if that makes any sense. I think Spielberg was extremely concerned about the political aspects of the material so he tried not to adhere to any one point of view, but in so doing, really divorced the audience from being emotionally engaged. At least that's how it came across for me.

MINORITY has some crackling good sequences in it -- it's not great, and it's overlong, but I think from a directing standpoint it's probably the best film he's made in the last 10 years. I did like AMISTAD and think it's vastly underrated.

I liked 2/3 of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN but the end for me failed to work. It just fizzled out, but the beginning and middle portions of it were quite engaging -- which made the conclusion all the more disappointing.

Curiously, all the "fun" escapist films he's made are the ones that I really dislike. Hated WAR OF THE WORLDS, hated CRYSTAL SKULL (pains me to even type the title), hated the last half of THE LOST WORLD -- it's like "you can't home again." All of them just failed spectacularly.

[mkaroly]

I've seen MUNICH 4 or 5 times and the only scene that doesn't really work for me is the sex scene towards the end...it felt forced and awkward because I don't think Spielberg is good with that aspect of human drama.

Munich I've seen twice. It's a very gripping film, and I consider it and Catch Me If You Can his best work of the previous decade -- in terms of storytelling technique at least. But Munich's potency (and credibility) suffers bit, since it never really takes a stand on the incendiary issues raised by its own subject matter.

And that sex scene was ludicrous!

I agree. I think MUNICH was less of a political film and more of a large-scale commentary on the issue of the mother-child/family themes in his films. That sounds really goofy (and it probably is), but I viewed it in that context....he has the choice between two families....Israel (the "motherland") or his own small family unit. To gain one he has to forsake the other (sort of). He leads a group of men on the task and is the leader ("father") of that group; he works with a family operated business that supplies him with explosives, etc. He discovers that his enemies have families, kids, etc. Again, I thought it centered more on that than any political themes, which would explain why he never addressed the deeper issues.

[AndyDursin]

I agree. I think MUNICH was less of a political film and more of a large-scale commentary on the issue of the mother-child/family themes in his films. That sounds really goofy (and it probably is), but I viewed it in that context....he has the choice between two families....Israel (the "motherland") or his own small family unit. To gain one he has to forsake the other (sort of). He leads a group of men on the task and is the leader ("father") of that group; he works with a family operated business that supplies him with explosives, etc. He discovers that his enemies have families, kids, etc. Again, I thought it centered more on that than any political themes, which would explain why he never addressed the deeper issues.

That's probably why the movie didn't work for me. It's like he diffused the political aspects of the material, and didn't go into the deeper issues, which left the film being really toothless and detached. And it has all kinds of odd aspects, like the sex scene, which is probably the singular greatest "WTF" moment in any Spielberg film (along with Haley Joel Osment eating spinach or whatever it was in AI and then being tossed to the bottom of the pool; truly horrific moments I have no use for ever seeing again).

[Paul MacLean]

I agree. I think MUNICH was less of a political film and more of a large-scale commentary on the issue of the mother-child/family themes in his films.

But to make a film which deals with such a subject like the Israel/Palestinian conflict -- which is still very much an incendiary issue to this day -- is by definition a political statement.

Again, I think the film is exceedingly well-made (well, except for the sex scene...and Januz Kaminski's cinematography, which looks like a 16mm student film) but for a movie that purports to tell a "true story" it takes a lot of liberties with facts, and it tackles a complex subject rather simplistically.

Debbie Schlussel wrote a negative but perceptive review of the film, and brought-up an interesting point about the sex scenes in particular:

Are the lives of the innocent Israeli athletes so worthless, that the scenes in which they are murdered by Palestinian terrorists must be interspersed with the self-doubting Mossad agent having sex? How would Steven Spielberg like it, if a loved one was shown being bludgeoned, in between scenes of a law enforcement official bouncing up and down on top of the agent’s naked wife?

Her entire review can be seen here:

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/859/muni ... formation/

While I thought the film was cinematically better-made then she did, I can't argue with her points about the film's truth-bending.

[mkaroly]

Interesting review. I knew the film played with the facts and I was not seeing a "true story" as it really happened. I say this respectfully, but I think she was expecting too much from him. While I enjoyed MUNICH as a film which further developed typical Spielbergian themes, admittedly his neutral stance (at least that's how I felt after watching the film) was unexpected and puzzling.

Sounds like everyone hated that stupid sex scene...and with good reason!