25. “The Terminal” (2004)
Straight-up romances and comedies have always been Spielberg’s blind spots (the former has never really worked well for the director —think “Always”— while he’s stayed away from out-and-out comedies since “1941”), so it’s no surprise that his sole romantic comedy “The Terminal” is one of his least successful films. Starring Tom Hanks in patronizing, Borat-ish holy fool mode as an Eastern European forced to take up residence in an airport when his country collapses into civil war while he’s mid-flight, the film’s never especially funny and never especially romantic (bar a sweet sub-plot between Diego Luna and Zoe Saldana, arguably giving the best performances in the picture). In fact, it fairly drips with treacly, unearned sentiment: even Stanley Tucci struggles as a half-assed villain. And what’s most notable is that, while the content is firmly within the director’s wheelhouse, the style never is; it’s as anonymous and bland as… an airport terminal, with the director seemingly more interested in trundling round his expansive set than in putting his stamp on the material. By the end of a terribly indulgent 128-minute running time, you feel like you’ve been stuck in the airport as long as Hanks’ character, and are just as keen to go home.
24. “Amistad” (1997)
On the occasions when Spielberg has released two movies in a single year, they usually take the pattern of one studio movie for the masses and another artier affair for the Academy. In 1997, he delivered a rather unsuccessful double: “Jurassic Park” sequel “The Lost World” and later “Amistad,” the (barely) visual equivalent of a really boring history lesson. Based on an uprising on the Amistad slave ship, the movie’s heart is in the right place, and the actual uprising set piece, which takes place in the middle of a savage downpour in which the raindrops look like bowling balls, is one of Spielberg’s most overlooked moments of pure visual spectacle— it’s violent, bracing and thrillingly beautiful. But the rest of the movie is dry and out of touch, and for every stroke of casting genius (Anthony Hopkins as John Quincy Adams, the introduction of Djimon Hounsou), there is another that doesn’t work (Matthew McConaughey). It’s one of those movies about the black experience where all the heroic figures are white, and in which Spielberg was trying to make a serious movie about a serious subject, but he actually ended up marooned between condescending and dull (and, at 154 minutes, painfully overlong).
23. “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” (1997)
Diminished returns, by way of Spielberg. Adapting only the bare skeleton of Michael Crichton’s slim thriller sequel, the Bearded One suddenly seemed like a different filmmaker. Since “Jurassic Park,” Spielberg had won massive acclaim with “Schindler’s List” and was thus possessed of a darker-tinged view of humanity. Appropriately, “The Lost World” is loaded with characters who are vain, stupid and needlessly wasteful, many meeting absolutely horrific ends, and was assigned a PG13 rating. Action sequences and suspense set pieces do not disappoint in the raptor-heavy sequel, but the heart of the first film is gone, not least because having a disillusioned Ian Malcolm as the hero (and we love Jeff Goldblum!) means humoring his endless cynicism and following a tired subplot about the daughter he abandoned. All that can be forgiven, until Spielberg swings for the fences and tacks on a fourth act that finds the T-Rex arriving on the mainland, where suddenly the tone shifts to erratic comedy, perhaps to soften the un-PG-13 visuals of humans being torn limb from limb. As such, suddenly our star dinosaur has the sneak attack abilities of Batman, and we’re forced into a cheap “Godzilla” knock-off, maybe the least advisable final moments of any film in Spielberg’s body of work.
22. “The Color Purple” (1985)
Spielberg’s first “serious” film “The Color Purple” is sort of like a cross between the Spielberg-produced “The Help” and the Spielberg-directed “War Horse,” only not nearly as charming as the former and almost as sentimental as the latter. Based on Alice Walker‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning story, the film follows the life and trials of a young African American woman in the early 1900s facing every imaginable variety of oppression. While actors like Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey and a revelatory Whoopi Goldberg (in her debut film role) put in respectable performances, most of their characters are one-note caricatures. So despite Goldberg’s endearing turn as the subjugated protagonist Celie, the overstuffed ‘Color Purple’ tests patience with an overwrought tone, a bloated 2 1/2 hour running time and an Africa-set second act that desperately wants to convey a sense of Historical Importance. Ultimately an expansive story of struggle, race and hardship with a few strong notes, Spielberg’s first real foray into drama often feels like it’s been churned out by the affected Oscar-bait generator, and Hollywood would only further enable his overblown, tearjerky tendencies by nominating it for 11 Academy Awards —it won none.
21. “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984)
…or: what happens when you make a movie while your two creative principals are going through divorces. First conceived as a film set in China, only to see authorities denying producer George Lucas access to filming locations, it was re-conceived as an old timey ghost story set in an English haunted house. Having suffered through the ordeal of “Poltergeist,” Spielberg nixed the ghost castle idea, and he and Lucas decided on, um, whatever the hell “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” is. Largely set in India, the film introduces a number of moth-eaten clichés and features splashes of shocking violence, particularly when a cult leader rips the beating heart out of someone’s chest —it must have been this scene in particular that led to the creation of the PG-13 rating. It does contain a couple of dynamite moments (the opening musical number/melee, the mine cart chase), but the overall tone is sour (human sacrifice and child slavery are two of its sunny concerns), while the attempts at comedy are crippled by Indy’s new companions; shrill Kate Capshaw and irritating child sidekick Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan). It lacks the jovial frivolity of some of their previous films, seeming like a two-hour exploration of why Lucas and Spielberg really needed a hug.
You wanna explain how the Sugarland Express in the top 10 tho
Amistad is an amazing movie. It needs to be WAY higher! Minority Report is way too low as well.
Great list. But it should be noted that Jeffrey Boam is the only credited screenwriter on Last Crusade. I’m sure Tom Stoppard worked on it but you should have mentioned that his work is uncredited.
he is uncredited, but Spielberg has gone on record saying “he was responsible for almost every line of dialogue in the film”
I like this list. You can flip flop a few movies here and there and I enjoy the sentimentality of Speilberg’s films a bit more perhaps but He’s one of the greatest at his craft of all time. He may not be everyone’s favorite but you can’t deny what he’s put out there. I really have to see Schindler’s list. I just never got around to seeing it and I really should.
WHAT are you smoking? Last Crusade better than Jurassic Park? And enough already of the tedious fashion of all journalists these days eager to appear right-on and distance themselves from Temple of Doom when, be honest, it was the most fun any of us ever had in the cinema when we were kids. You take its felicities with the times: it’s still a spectacular entertainment. If that doesn’t undo the list’s credibility, putting A:i ahead of anything does. Kubrick deliberately sold Spielberg a ringer with that hokey baloney.