Having
watched it again recently, I remember loving Hook when I was a kid. With
the benefit of hindsight and fully developed critical faculties, I can only
mostly agree with my younger self. It’s
a big budget, Wizard Of Oz-style
reworking of the classic J. M. Barrie tales and as a concept – the grown-up,
career-focused Peter has forgotten his time in Neverland but must return there
to save his kidnapped children – is genius.
It’s also
classic Spielberg fodder, with the sense of childlike wonder and awe seeping
through every frame, the broken family unit at the forefront, and in Robin
Williams’ Peter Pan, his ultimate man-child: a fully-realised Roy Neary or an
overgrown Elliot. Material and director
seem like perfect bedfellows.
His visual
flair is there to see throughout most
of the film, with some of his usual invention surrendered to the slapstick and
sensory assault, and the massive Hollywood stars on display. The food fight scene remains a wonderful
Spielberg moment; at once a visual treat and an emotional uplift as Pan start
to believe who he is. Likewise, the final
sword fight is loads of fun, complete with a lump-in-the-throat “I believe in
you” moment. Spielberg seems to love
shooting Dustin Hoffman’s titular villain, with neat visual cues and images in
many of his scenes. One shot, of multiple reflections of his preening face,
shows the director asserting some
personality in the face of overwhelming material and cast.
Indeed, many
of the best moments are from Hoffman’s pantomime scenery-chewing. He’s absolutely brilliant; larger than life
in a larger than life movie. But the
film undoubtedly belongs to Williams. Of
the other major stars of the time, nobody else could have nailed the multiple
aspects of Pan’s character: work-absorbed suit taking his family for granted;
fish out of water Pan-in-denial; fully realised joyous superhero Peter Pan,
fully grown but smiling like a child.
Tom Cruise would have played him smug, Kevin Costner too all-American,
Tom Hanks would have played a rehash of Big,
and Nicholas Cage would probably have played him as Elvis. Just thank fuck Jim Carrey hadn’t been
discovered at this point.
Ultimately, Hook suffers from being a product of
the 90s, with the Lost Boys, who feature too many broken-doll clichés (a fat
one, a stuttering one, one dressed like a grown up, weird twins; it’s a
child-friendly commune from a Mad Max
film), are intensely annoying throughout.
The 90s were littered with nonsensical slogans designed to sell t-shirts
(“Cowabunga”, “Don’t have a cow, man”, “Bodacious” et al) and Hook’s screenwriters seem to want to
add gibberish like “bangarang” and “crowing” to the mix. Add skateboarding and the hilariously awful
diet-punk Rufio (Dante Basco) and parts of the film seem dated in ways that
Spielberg’s older fantasy films don’t.
That said, Hook is still loads of fun, thanks to
fully committed turns from the leads, including Maggie Smith, who sells the
mythology with absolute conviction. The
film works nicely as a meta tribute to Williams’ life; a story about a man
whose inner child, his real, true self, is worn away and made hard by exposure
to the real world. Unfortunately,
Williams could never find his happy thought and fly away.
Remember the
scene in Jurassic Park where they
first see the grazing dinosaurs on the island? Every time I see that scene I’m
13 years old again. It’s pure cinematic
magic. Made a time where special effects
envelopes were being pushed with the likes of Terminator 2, The Abyss, and
even Forrest Gump, this could easily
have been all effects and no substance. A
phenomenon on its 1993 release, Jurassic
Park’s power has diminished not even slightly by subsequent quantum leaps
in effects technology. So while the
films still looks stunning for the most part, the real power is in the
performances and those moments that
nobody but Spielberg manages to eke out.
Dr. Grant (a
typically brilliant Sam Neill) and Dr. Satler (a typically brilliant Laura
Dern) see a brontosaurus majestically eating a tree, Spielberg places us
directly in their shoes; we share their awe, their wonder, and their childlike
glee. Spielberg masterfully balances
moments like these (the sickly triceratops, the park gates, the sneezing
diplodocus) with moments of peril and sheer terror. We share their awe, we share their terror.
Having
assembled a brilliant cast, but one less showy and starry than Hook, Spielberg assembles his pieces
around Michael Crichton’s board. The two
leads forming a classic Spielberg faux-family with two cute kids, along with
the effortlessly entertaining ‘Chaotician’ Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) and
idealistic, misguided park creator John Hammond (Richard Attenborough, playing
God). That Hammond is basically God
gives his character a touch in that he’s resurrected the dinosaurs, and also a
nihilistic undertone, given the carnage that ensues because of his actions.
Dr. Grant
has the best arc, the narrative moving him from uncaring child-hater to father
figure. Like most Spielberg heroes, he’s
not quite a hero; an expert, but as scared as one would expect and reliant on
improvisation. Spielberg is back on fine
form here, too: he remembered that monsters are scarier when you can’t see
them; he creates classic moments (tremors on the water, climbing the electric
fence, “clever girl”); and he cranks up the tension like few others can.
Jurassic Park is easily the equal of
his 70s and 80s masterpieces, matching the nerve shredding tension of Jaws with the childlike awe and wonder
of Close Encounters. It’s wish fulfilment gone bad; it’s every
child’s dream played out like a nightmare.
