Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Director: Graham Baker

Cast: Sam Neill, Rossano Brazzi, Don Gordon, Lisa Harrow

Have I Seen it Before: Never. It’s an interesting byproduct of finding a good price on a movie series box set that I feel obligated to watch more sequels than I had planned to for a movie, but I should probably reserve pontificating on that unfortunate phenomenon until I force myself to watch Omen IV: The Awakening (1991).

Did I Like It: I’m trying to get caught up on some reviews as I write this, and thus the last few minutes of The Final Conflict are playing while I am typing. So, no, I’m not a fan.

Had anyone but Sam Neill played the role of the adult Damien Thorn, the film would have been forgotten beyond the point it already has. Faint whiffs of his solid performances to come* are there, but the film isn’t offering a whole lot else. There’s a lot of talking about how grave a problem the antichrist is, countered by an equal amount of talk from Damien and company about how annoying the Nazarene is.

Not the stuff of great cinema, and that is before we even start talking about how making the antichrist not a little kid anymore reduces the creepiness quotient. The movie is also withholding on the promise of its poster. Neil sits there with the seal of the President behind him, and things would be significantly more dread-inducing if Thorn was the leader of the free world, and not angling very hard to lead some commission with the UN.

At least Jerry Goldsmith pulls up on his scores, and the music here is perhaps a bit unremarkable, but a significant improvement over the orchestral grunts he had to offer in Damien: The Omen II (1978).

*He seems to think he was woefully in over his head when he did a screen test for The Living Daylights (1986), but I think he would have equated himself rather well, and if you think that was easy for me to say at our last opportunity to get Timothy Dalton in the role, you’re wrong.

In The Mouth of Madness (1994)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Porchnow, Charlton Heston

Have I seen it Before: Oh, sure. Oddly enough, my strongest memory of the film comes not from the film itself, but from the TV spots, ominously warning a ten-year-old me that, “In 1978, he scared you with… <Halloween>… In 1983, he terrified you with… <Christine>… His name is John Carpenter. It’s 1995.” Definitely inflamed the imagination, considering that was at a time when I had seen none of those films. Then again, if the ad campaign only served to entrance ten-year-old boys who couldn’t get a ticket under their own power, no wonder the film (yet again, for Carpenter) tanked at the box office.

Did I Like It: The man was ahead of his time, though. This would be right at home with many of the elevated horror films coming out today. No wonder Carpenter doesn’t really want to make films anymore. He’s pretty much already made every kind of film that might be able to get any kind of money behind it*.

Or maybe Carpenter was at exactly the right place and time to make this movie. Between this and <Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994)>, there was a brief moment, just post-proper-Krueger where New Line was willing to embrace meta-horror before the movies really hadn’t even tried to grasp such a concept.

Philosophically, I’d say it’s a good thing that Memoirs of an Invisible Man happened, even if that film doesn’t amount to much of anything. It brough Neill and Carpenter together. Given Neill’s association with <Jurassic Park (1993)>, he was probably able to get any number of films off the ground, and that he was more into the idea of a Lovecraft-infused Carpenter horror picture. He provides an interesting counterpoint to Carpenter’s normal muse, Kurt Russell. It’s nice when Number 1 on the call sheet is an Olympic level asshole, but number 2 becomes your buddy.

My only qualm, and it is a minor one, is that the climax feels alternately cheap and rushed, to the point where the eldritch-y horror of the whole thing culminates in what amounts to a clip show of the movie I just watched. A constraint of budget, or a nervous studio dealing with an auteur who hadn’t had a hit in a number of years**, but I smell a film whose true ambitions for Weird-with-a-capital-w didn’t make it to opening weekend. Somebody ought to write a book about all the films of the early-to-mid nineties that mutated heavily in the editing room. Maybe I should…?

*Other than a superhero film. Could you imagine? Then again, <Starman (1992)> and <Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)> are out there. That probably shouldn’t count.

**Doubtful, as the head of production at the studio was the screenwriter, although a quick look at IMDB might point to some New Nightmare envy, especially after one of the only films for the studio he wrote was <Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991).>

Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Chevy Chase, Daryl Hannah, Sam Neill, Michael McKean

Have I Seen it Before: Oddly (and somewhat horrifyingly, as it turns out) enough, I’m reasonably certain that this is the only of Carpenter’s directorial efforts (so far… he said somewhat hopefully, while at the same time ignoring The Ward (2010)) that I saw during its original theatrical run.

Did I Like It: I mean, I don’t want to knock a guy like Carpenter while he’s down. But if he were here, I can’t imagine he’d defend the movie. Hell, it appears to be his only directorial effort that doesn’t have his name above the title. Everything here seems like it almost works, which is all the more frustrating. Carpenter making what amounts to a loose remake of <North by Northwest (1959)> is strong enough of a pitch to paper over most problems in most movies. Now that I type this, I think we should all collectively let him just do that. He can do it from his couch. We’re not that picky.

The special effects are a unique blend. We have the pointedly retro, as Chase pulls a pretty eerie echo of Claude Rains unwrapping of the bandages from The Invisible Man (1933), and what I’m pretty sure is some stop motion animation when Chase tries to prove to a camera in an empty room that he is in fact invisible by chewing some gum. It also manage to display some more cutting edge tricks by animating just what happens to an invisible body when it tries to smoke or eat.

And that’s where things start to fall apart. There are few performers that come to mind who are more throughly dominated by their ego than Chevy Chase. Hence, any attempt the film makes to reach for tragedy or pathos in the plight of Nick Halloway have to be immediately undone because in the 90s Chase couldn’t possibly end a film without him successfully seducing his leading lady. He’s not very believable or interesting in the role, and in a trend that was going to come up a lot more as the 90s trudged on for him, he isn’t very funny, either. What else is there? Somewhere in that spectrum had to be where he was aiming.

Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Neill, Laura Dern

Have I Seen it Before: Nope, although after those reviews opening weekend, my speed in wanting to watch diminished more than a bit.

Did I Like It: I’m glad that the movie has bad reviews, because it allowed me to go in with the lowest possible expectations. Is this the worst of all possible Jurassic movies? Almost certainly. Did I have something approaching a good time with it? Also, yes.

Many will complain (and fairly so) that the movie is only barely about dinosaurs, instead cooking up an often convoluted plot surrounding corporate intrigue, the vagaries of genetic research, and locusts. A bill of false goods, possibly, but anyone who has read the original Crichton novel would recognize some ideas brought to their perhaps incredulous conclusion. As I read that preceding paragraph, I’m not entirely sure I’m happy about this direction or not. I’ll only commit to the view that I don’t reflexively hate it as much as others might.

Any film that would give me this much Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) is at least something of a winner. I’m looking in your direction, <Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2019>. The other legacy characters are a welcome treat, but I’m inevitably thinking about a far better film each and every time Neill and Dern share the frame. A film that would have been wall-to-wall these characters might have still been a letdown from previous entries in the series, but the film is at its most alive in those moments.

And that quality is in stark contrast to the lukewarm continuation of Pratt and Howard’s characters that make up the other half of the film. Most of Fallen Kingdom fell out of my head by the time I hit the parking lot, so offering us continuation of those themes never seemed like more than a drag. I honestly can’t remember the Pratt character’s name even now. I want to say Skip Burtman? Something tells me we won’t have to endure a legacy-legacy sequel in thirty years where Pratt and Howard sort out their issues and find golden year happiness.

But do you want to know what really irritates me about the movie? Locusts? I’m fine? Raptor trainer Biff Motorcyclovitz tries my patience on the way to becoming a better adoptive father? I can imagine there might be a fan of Fallen Kingdom who exists and would feel cheated without a third act to that story.

No, I can’t stand the beginning and ending of this movie. In recent years, there has been a trend of “The Ending of (insert movie here) explained” videos on YouTube where some smarmy jag with a Blue microphone* goes over the ending of every big movie and explains it to you, just in case you were unable to wrap your head around the intricacies of a movie geared toward ten-year-olds. They are deeply an unrelentingly irritating. The good news is that there is no need for such a video where Dominion is concerned. Trevorrow and company have included it right in the runtime! A movie is usually in trouble when it has to have a voice over to open and close things (you’ll notice <Jurassic Park (1993)> didn’t need one) but we have no entered the age when we apparently need a Youtube video to tuck is in before and after a movie.

We really don’t.

*As a smarmy jag with a few Blue microphones myself, I feel justified in that assessment.

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Director: Joe Johnston

Cast: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola

Have I Seen it Before: I saw it in the theater… I think I’m still waiting for the final reel of the film to be delivered.

Did I Like It: Which brings us to the big question. Jurassic Park (1993) is the most Spielbergy of all the Spielbergian films. The Lost World (1997) was a pleasing enough diversion in which all of the key players felt like they were asleep at the wheel. The later movies (Jurassic World (2015) and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)) are engaging enough legacy sequels made by a creative team who clearly has an abiding affection for the source material. 

This film, however, sticks out like a sore thumb, or a thumb chewed off by a compy, or whatever dinosaur metaphor strikes your fancy. I like director Joe Johnston; The Rocketeer (1991) is one of my favorite movies. He’s been handed table scraps, here, though. The movie looks cheaper, with the CGI not aging as well as it does in the original movie (The Lost World had the same problem, but both films are saved from the absolute dregs of a Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)) and story being thin enough to drive an SUV through.

By all indications, that story underwent a lot of last-minute changes. The script as written was thrown out right before production in favor a much simpler search and rescue storyline. Problem is, so many of the set pieces had already been storyboarded within an inch of their life. Thus the movie ends up trying to be two different movies, neither of which have anything resembling the spontaneity of anything resembling the human experience. One might think I’m being unfair thinking that a movie about dinosaurs meant to goose the numbers on action figure sales needs to feel authentically human, but when I can’t get over the fact that it is spectacularly divorced from the people making it, it bears mentioning.

This doesn’t even cover the fact that the movie doesn’t so much end as simply stops, with our heroes reaching the shoreline and the Marines and Navy are ready with Operation Deus Ex Machina. I liked spending some time with Dr. Grant again, but this isn’t the movie anyone would have hoped for.

Jurassic Park (1993)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough

Have I Seen It Before?: I mean, I’m a child of the 90s and I like movies. How would I have gotten through my life without this movie?

Did I like it?: It’s only gotten better over the years.

I came to a revelation during my recent review for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). With this film, Spielberg exorcised most of the populist impulses that had made his career. Sure, you have this film’s sequel, The Lost World (1997), and the aforementioned fourth Indiana Jones film, but those both seemed like chores Spielberg relented to, rather than films he was that interested in making. Double that sentiment for Ready Player One (2018). Perhaps he was indulging a return to form with the animated The BFG (2016), but I’ll let you know when I get around to seeing it.

But what a valedictory run this is. Every element works and became the standard for blockbuster movies to the present. The special effects have mostly not aged in over 25 years. I say that, but what I mean is that the physical effects (mostly by Stan Winston) still look like real things, which will keep this film working decades from now. The leading-edge computer images fare a little less well. Large tableaus of dinosaurs interacting with (read: eating) each other work pretty well, but any time ILM uses their tools to venture into the undiscovered country of the close-up, or if their sprites and polygons deign to interact with humans, the seams begin to show. It’s hard to be too critical of either Spielberg or the movie for this, as they were trying things that had never been tried before. However, with the knowledge that George Lucas saw this film and decided his own technology had finally elevated to the point where he could go back and make his long-gestating Star Wars prequels, well… the judgment of movie history might have

My wife points to this as John Williams best score, and I’m at a loss to argue the point. I’m also at a loss to come up with a theme that Williams has written since that was as memorable as the march he concocted with this movie. Everybody behind the scenes was going for broke here, it seems.

And yet the thing I am most tickled by during this, quite possibly my 100th viewing of the film—are the non-tech questions. The movie may be peak-Jeff Goldblum, and even when his character, Ian Malcolm, is vacillating quickly between smarm and snark, one can’t help but be amused by him. The movie might have worked had it just been him, and if Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) had gone for that, it might have been a lot more satisfying.