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rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
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It strikes me that there are certain similarities between JACK and PHENOMENON. Both use relative innocents as their central characters. Both attempt to attract a mature audience. And, most importantly, both offer drama-based alternatives to the relentless action films that have come to characterize the summer of 1996. However, while PHENOMENON failed because of poor scripting, JACK is an unqualified success. If there's going to be a sleeper hit this summer, JACK is a reasonable candidate. This feel-good motion picture is intelligently written and expertly directed -- qualities which many similar movies cannot boast. Cross BIG with FORREST GUMP, and you get an idea of where JACK's appeal lies.
The premise for JACK, although seemingly simple, is riddled with potential problems -- nearly all of which the script not only addresses, but answers without a whiff of condescension. Jack is born when his mother is only ten weeks pregnant. The doctors are immediately aware that something strange is going on. Eventually, they arrive at an explanation. The child has an internal clock that's ticking four times faster than usual. So, by the time Jack turns ten, he appears like a 40-year old man (Robin Williams).
Until the fall of his eleventh year, Jack has been taught by a tutor (Bill Cosby). But, after careful consideration, his mother (Diane Lane) and father (Brian Kerwin) agree that he should give public school a try, despite children's' propensity for name-calling and finger- pointing. So, one morning, Jack ventures into Nathaniel Hawthorne Elementary School to meet his fifth grade teacher, Miss Marquez (Jennifer Lopez), and his classmates.
The script for JACK, credited to James DeMonaco and Gary Nadeau, is a well-balanced mix of drama and comedy. It's rarely maudlin, and manages to be affecting without heavy-handed manipulation. The film has an excellent grasp of what it's like to be in fifth grade. Jack endures all the painful isolation of a "different" child, but, gradually, as he makes friends (by dominating schoolground basketball games and offering to buy PENTHOUSE magazines), he begins to fit in. It's perhaps an idealized vision of elementary school, but there are enough aspects of reality not to jolt our suspension of disbelief.
One of the most difficult issues JACK has to deal with is the title character's rapid aging. If he looks like he's forty at ten, that means he'll be lucky to live past twenty. When his teacher asks him what he wants to be when he grows up, Jack's answer is succinct and poignant: "Alive." Mr. Woodruff, Jack's tutor, describes him this way: "You're a shooting star amongst ordinary stars... A shooting star passes quickly, but, while it's here, it's the most beautiful thing you'll ever want to see." The movie never shies away from confronting Jack's mortality.
Robin Williams is entirely believable as a ten-year old. He has all the mannerisms and vocal inflections perfected -- whining when he doesn't get his way, pulling at his shirts, adjusting his pants, and so forth. It's almost as if he regressed back into childhood for the duration of filming. (Then again, has Williams ever really grown up?) The only recent movie where an adult so perfectly emulated a child was BIG, and, indeed, JACK has much in common with the Tom Hanks feature, both in terms of subject matter and broad audience appeal. Williams brings a lot of humor to his portrayal, but, with Francis Ford Coppola in control, the comic's eccentricities are kept carefully under reign, and this results in a near-perfect performance.
The supporting cast is surprisingly solid. Diane Lane, Brian Kerwin, and Fran Drescher are not known as strong actors, but each is equal to their secondary roles here. Bill Cosby, playing a fifty- something man with a lot of child inside, steals several scenes. Jennifer Lopez has a touching moment where she is forced to turn down Jack's offer to accompany him to a school dance. And Adam Zolotin is good as Louis, Jack's best friend.
JACK has something to offer just about everyone. It's good- natured, funny, heartwarming, and capable of being viewed on more than one level. Children will relate to JACK differently than their parents, although, with its "soft" PG-13, the film isn't for the very young. With the release of COURAGE UNDER FIRE a few weeks ago, and now JACK, this summer's theatrical options are brightening. For Robin Williams, don't be surprised if his name is mentioned early next year when Academy Award Nominations are given out. JACK deserves that sort of recognition.
By : James Berardinelli
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Source:
rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
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Once upon a time, Francis Ford Coppola was one of the most revered directors in the world, the creator of classic films like THE GODFATHER, THE GODFATHER PART 2 and THE CONVERSATION, part of an American renaissance of the 1970s which included names like Scorsese, Spielberg and Altman. Then came films which politely could be called ambitious failures -- ONE FROM THE HEART, THE COTTON CLUB, TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM -- and mixed critical reception for his third GODFATHER film and BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA. It has been four years since DRACULA, more time to wonder if Coppola could once again summon that special something. What he has summoned instead is JACK, a frustrating patchwork of slapstick and sentimentality in which almost everything feels forced.
JACK begins with expectant parents Karen (Diane Lane) and Brian Powell (Brian Kerwin) receiving an unexpected surprise at a costume party: Karen goes into labor, despite being only ten weeks pregnant. However, the baby she delivers appears to be full-term, leading doctors to conclude that he has a genetic anomaly which causes him to age four times faster than normal. Indeed, when Jack Powell (Robin Williams) is ten years old, he looks like a forty year old man, and is kept at home to be instructed by a tutor (Bill Cosby). But Jack longs for the company of other children, and finally his parents allow him to enter the fifth grade. Naturally, he is treated as a freak by his classmates, but when he is accepted by a boy named Louie (Adam Zolotin), Jack begins to learn what it means to have friends.
At least that's what I think he learns. One of the reasons JACK feels so muddled is that it is a film without a clear sense of who its vibrant character is. In films of this type, where someone who is "different" teaches those who are "normal" some Valuable Life Lessons(TM), the main character usually isn't that character, but rather the catalyst who inspires others to change. Those others might be Jack's classmates, who come to accept and even to love him, and Louie gets a heartfelt and inspiring speech to share those feelings. At other times it appears that Jack is supposed to be the character who is meant to change; he too gets a heartfelt and inspiring speech. Diane Lane doesn't get a heartfelt and inspiring speech, just plenty of heartfelt looks to tell us that she is learning to be less protective of Jack. There is no law which states that only one character in a film can change, but we have to know with whom we are meant to identify, and Coppola spends so much time being heartfelt that he fails to provide a definite protagonist.
That leaves JACK as a message film in which there is no clear message. According to Louie's speech, it is that we should all remain kids at heart; according to Jack's speech, it is that we should live each day to the fullest. JACK will quite naturally inspire a great deal of comparison to 1988's BIG, but BIG was a pure fantasy which never felt the need to underline its lessons. Coppola and screenwriters James DeMonaco and Gary Nadeau try to incorporate scenes of boys-will-be-boys playfulness (and who among us hasn't been initiated into a club by lighting our bodily gases or eating disgusting food mixtures), as if to tell us "we're just having fun here." That might be easier to accept if they hadn't also overwhelmed simple moments like Jack calculating his mortality with the uberdramatic voice-over, "What do I want to be when I grow up? Alive."
JACK's ace-in-the-hole would seem to be never-quite-grown-up Robin Williams in the lead role, but there is something about his performance which feels uncertain. Admittedly it is an extremely challenging part -- he's playing not just a 10-year-old, but a maladjusted 10-year-old -- but Williams more often seems to be acting like a 6-year-old, just a step away from the baby-talk character he often used in his stand-up comedy routines, while his 10-year-old co-stars often act like they're 16. Williams is a sharp, quick-witted performer, and he always seems to be struggling when he's asked to play whimsical (remember TOYS, or BEING HUMAN?).
Coppola certainly knows how to make a good-looking film, with some clever touches like shots of Jack's light-up sneakers. But JACK usually comes off as sentiment without sense, and comedy without a foundation. Once upon a time, Francis Ford Coppola appeared to know all there was to know about making movies. Now, he doesn't even seem to know JACK.
By : Scott Renshaw
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