Mon, Nov 22, 1999

: Civil Action

Author: Jonathan Harr (book) and Steven Zaillian

Director: Steven Zaillian

Slow paced, empty drama. Narrated by star John Travolta, it sets itself up to be the Casino of personal injury lawyers, with John lecturing us on his skills and virtues. The movie has some decent performances (I liked Robert Duvall and William H. Macy was terrific), but overall it leaves you as void as a dud lottery ticket. The story sets itself up for drama, but nothing happens. It’s not really that predictable, but it feels like it is (which is some ways is worse). Supposedly in the end Travolta’s character is reformed, but he’s so one dimensional to begin with, it’s impossible to tell. Not worth a $3 rental. Watching my cat groom himself is much more entertaining.

Topic: [/movie]

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: Timeline

Author: Michael Crichton

As a Crichton fan, I pre-ordered this from Amazon so I’d get a copy as soon as it was published. Once again, Crichton pulls a Jurrasic Park: we’ve got a huge corporation run by a renegade billionaire genius with an insane plan, radical technology breakthroughs that strain credibility to the limit, and of course, everything goes horribly wrong. In retrospect the story is much simpler than it appears while you’re reading it. It’s basically time-travel, with adventurers getting stuck in the past. Unfortunately, that’s all it is. The mastermind’s plan isn’t revealed until the very end, and believe me, it’s even lamer than a dinosaur amusement park! (What is it with Crichton and entertainment? He seems to think all multi-billion dollar technology breakthroughs will simply lead to a new entertainment medium. Very bizarre. I think the guy needs to see a shrink!) Still, the adventure’s a good one: it’s exciting, dramatic, and interesting. I liked the characters, and I was relieved that none of them did anything superhuman or absurd to get out of a fix. Crichton’s writing style is quick and easy, but he has a horrible tendency to break his chapters into dozens of shorter subchapters, most of which are just a few paragraphs long. I guess he figures this increases tension, but it’s merely annoying. Reminds me of students who triple space their three-page essay to make it the required five. Lame and artificial. There are also some obvious flaws that gives the feeling this book was a bit rushed toward the end. For instance, in one spot, a character’s walking on a roof beam which is “six inches wide.” This is too wide and too easy for the brute chasing her, so she moves to a narrower one: “This horizontal rafter was only a foot wide; he would have trouble.” Huh? It’s been a while since I’ve been to measurement school, but in my day six inches was less than a foot! One other thing that bugged me: a key part of the plot is the battery-operated time machines only have enough power to last for thirty-seven hours. For that section of the book, Crichton uses the amount of time left (i.e. “11:01:59”) as chapter titles. Of course, the stranded adventurers can’t quite get everything together to escape and thus the countdown trickles down, not to minutes, but literally seconds, before they can escape. Frankly, that’s ridiculous. I understand the need to increase drama with the element of time, but what kind of scientist can predict, down the second, how much life is left in a battery? Batteries are probably the most unreliable, unpredictable technology we’ve got! Crazy, thoroughly dumb. Crichton’s an excellent researcher, and he’s got a decent grasp on technology, but his stories sound like, well, like a non-novelist doctor wrote them. If you’re a Crichton fan, go for it. Otherwise, wait for the movie (which won’t be as successful as Jurrasic Park, but it should be okay).

Topic: [/book]

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