Film Review | Duel (1971)

Considering the near god-like status Steven Spielberg now holds in the world of film directing (a status unconvincingly backed up by his less-than-consistent filmography since the mid 1990s), and following his most recent multi-Oscar-nominated and critically acclaimed work, Lincoln, it's in many ways fascinating to return to the director's earliest work. Before every film he released was an event, and before he could command studios and budgets to his every need, what was Spielberg capable of creating as a young and inexperienced director? Duel, recognised as his first feature film directing credit, may not be perfect, but over forty years since its release it shows his skilled direction in fledgling form.

Despite being a director unafraid to explore a variety of genres, Spielberg has always been best at bringing monsters to the screen. Duel is his first attempt at doing this, and even though the monster here is in vehicular form, echoes of the director's many successes here reverberate through to his later, more well-known works such as Jaws and Jurassic Park. Spielberg effectively and imaginatively transforms the hulking tanker truck into a menacing and memorable behemoth, particularly through his skilled choices of both camera angles and cinematography.

Duel is regularly at its best when focused purely on the truck and its chosen prey, David, played ably by Dennis Weaver. The actor's performance is strong and authentic and especially impressive considering the large amount of time Weaver spends as the only person on screen. Weaver believably sells his character's descent into mental instability and paranoia, questioning his own sanity more and more during the film's first two acts, as well as convincingly building a hero versus nemesis relationship with the truck itself, as well as its perpetually unknown driver. And in terms of pure action, of course, the film offers plenty of entertaining and well-crafted car chases.

Despite its many strengths however, Duel hasn't aged as well as many of Spielberg's other films. The entire scene at Chuck's Diner feels outmoded, hitting the brakes unnecessarily and far too hard after the tense and heart-pounding opening, whilst adding little to the story overall. Spielberg's choice to at times have Weaver deliver David's inner monologue as a voiceover also feels blunt and dated, especially when placed alongside many of the director's more refined choices. The climax too, whilst suitably exciting and adrenaline-fuelled, provides something of a messy and morally dubious conclusion that doesn't satisfy as much as a lot of what has preceded it.

As a directorial debut, however, Duel stands up remarkably well whilst at the same time foreshadowing much of the success Spielberg would have later in his career. It's faults can't be ignored, but they can largely be forgiven due to the simple yet incredibly effective and innovative thrills the director crafts. Duel is the opposite of epic, focusing on a tense and insular story of an average man unwillingly thrown into conflict and danger; it also shows that, even though Spielberg now chooses to surround himself with grand tales, elaborate settings and technical wizardry, he doesn't actually need them to tell a great story.

7/10

Film Review | War Horse (2011)

My anticipation of War Horse was perhaps significantly less than that of many. I haven't read Michael Morpurgo's children's novel, now thirty years old, from which the film is adapted; nor have I seen the acclaimed West End production, perhaps most famous for its intricate and impressive full-size horse puppets and the realistic way in which they are brought to life by those operating them. In fact, the biggest draw of the film for me was Steven Spielberg sitting in the director's chair revisiting wartime Europe once again. Nominated for a multitude of awards, including a Best Picture nod as well as five other Oscars at this year's Academy Awards, War Horse certainly on paper held a wealth of potential to be another Spielberg classic.

Beginning shortly before the beginning of the First World War, War Horse follows the life of a horse named Joey, raised and trained by teenager Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) on his father's (Peter Mullan) farm in the Devon countryside, before being sold to the British Army in 1914 when war breaks out.

Joey's story takes him through a wealth of settings, from his beginnings as an unlikely plough horse in Devon through to wartime France at various stages of the war. It's a journey which allows Spielberg as director to create some beautiful and captivating sequences. The cavalry charge beginning in a French cornfield is particularly memorable, as is the scene which sees a terrified Joey hurtling through both British and German trenches before becoming stranded in the middle of no man's land.

Unfortunately, the cinematography of these scenes can only be appreciated in isolation. Structurally, the film is decidedly unsatisfying, with Joey's story moving too hurriedly from one set of human characters to the next. No sooner do we feel settled in Spielberg's decidedly chocolate box vision of early 20th Century Devon at the start of the film than the director moves us on to a new set of characters. Tom Hiddleston as Captain Nicholls, Joey's next owner, is undoubtedly one of the film's strongest characters thanks to the talented actor's performance, but we simply aren't afforded the time to get to know him well enough to truly invest. It's a pattern which happens again and again until the film's conclusion thanks to the plot's rigidly episodic structure. It's a source of constant frustration: other enjoyable talents such as Benedict Cumberbatch, David Thewlis and Toby Kebbell receive just enough screen time for us to want to get to know them better, before being snatched from under our noses, thereby building up layer upon layer of unsatisfying and underdeveloped character arcs.

Tonally, the film ranges from the stark realism of the battle scenes, to the heavy-handed sentimentality of much of the final act, to - perhaps least satisfying of all - the ill-advised and amateurish humour generated by a meeting between a British and German soldier in the middle of no man's land, united in their desire to help the injured Joey. In the end, War Horse ends up as a film which never manages to develop fully, and doesn't have a strong or consistent enough script to prop it up. With a running time at least half an hour too long and a host of British talent that deserve meaty roles to sink their teeth into, but end up with extended cameos at best, it's a film which ultimately puts style over substance. Aside from a few directorial flourishes from Spielberg, War Horse ends up as a shallow and mediocre melodrama.

5/10

Film Review | Super 8 (2011)

Super 8 is resplendent in its Spielberg credentials. Honestly, why shouldn't it be? When you've got one of the most successful men in the film industry executive producing your film, you'd be a fool not to make the most of it. Except Super 8 doesn't just make the most of it, instead going beyond paying homage to Spielberg's earlier work (think pre-Schindler's List and you're about there) to jam-packing the film so full of stylistic and thematic references to other films that writer and director J.J. Abrams too often seems to forget to put in any of his own film.

The story is straightforward enough. A group of school friends growing up in small-town USA in 1979 set about making their own movie. Sneaking out to film at a ramshackle train platform one night, the group witness a catastrophic train derailment bizarrely involving one of their schoolteachers driving onto the tracks. It soon becomes apparent that that's not the only unusual thing about the crash as the U.S. Air Force soon make their presence felt as well, as strange occurrences become more and more frequent in the town.

The film does have a lot going for it, not least the performances of the young actors. Child actors can often make or break a film for me, either proving such a fresh and pleasing talent that they alone become reason enough to see it, or grating so badly they detract from the film's overall success. Thankfully the group of young'uns heading up Super 8 firmly avoid falling into the latter bracket. In fact, their collective performance is what makes the first half of the film so enjoyable. Standing out slightly more than any others are Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning (younger sister of Dakota) who play Joe Lamb and Alice Dainard respectively. The companionship that grows between these two throughout the film is wonderful to watch, and whilst Courtney's portrayal of a pre-teen boy who has recently lost his mother is at times a little too understated to feel genuine, the chemistry between him and Fanning in bringing Joe and Alice's relationship to life is palpable and impressive in such young performers. Fanning throughout shows immense potential to become a future star.

Despite his intent to make a film paying tribute to Spielberg, it is often when Abrams is being most true to his own style that the film shines. The derailment of the train and subsequent crash sequence is spectacular, done without the grandiose nature of Emmerich or the mindless busy mess of which Michael Bay can't get enough. Abrams makes it authentic yet fantastical and always captivating, reminiscent of the brilliant plane crash scenes seen in another of his creations - the television series Lost. His handling too of the scenes in which the extra-terrestrial attacks is also very tight, providing genuine jumps; Abrams expertly controls the precise moments at which the alien lets rip, as well as how much of the attack we actually see.

Super 8 is also beset with flaws, however. After crafting a heartfelt opening act and, for the most part, a well-crafted sci-fi mystery with touches of horror for the second, the film unfortunately wanders into less inspired territory for its final act. Things seem to shift almost entirely from inhabiting an ordinary world where extraordinary things are happening to a highly cinematic world of sudden character shifts and drop-of-a-hat action sequences. Perhaps Abrams was hoping to kick things up another gear or two for a stunning climax, but it just makes the final thirty minutes or so of the film sit uncomfortably at odds with what's come before it, denying the audience the type of payoff they were undoubtedly hoping for.

As stated previously, however, the greatest problem with Super 8 is also the element that at times provides some of its greatest strengths, namely its referential nature to not only Spielberg's work and style, but also other movies outside his canon of work. You will notch up nods to The Goonies, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, as well as Stand By Me, Alien and even Cloverfield, a film to which Abrams himself is linked through production duties. Whilst Abrams at times invokes these spirits of the past with panache, giving his film an air of quality and heritage, more often they return to haunt his picture highlighting just how it often has very little of its own to say. The alien presence is a prime example. Those who've seen Cloverfield may find themselves experiencing more than a little déjà vu, to the point of anticlimax. Abrams also invites us to empathise with the creature in the way Spielberg did nearly thirty years ago with E.T., but this is easier to do before actually meeting Super 8's extra-terrestrial. Somehow I just didn't feel too inclined to emotionally attach myself with an alien after seeing it feed on human beings, apparently without discretion.

Ultimately, Super 8 does a lot of things right, but these in the end are regularly competing with errors too large to ignore. Whilst there is a great rite of passage story for at least one of the young protagonists in there, it becomes clouded by an unnecessary shift to a clichéd action style and Abrams obsession with alluding to other cinematic works. Ironically, if he hadn't tried so hard to emulate his executive producer, Abrams may have got closer to what Spielberg at his best does to perfection: great storytelling his own way, where the action is never placed above the heart within the story.

6/10