15. “The Adventures of Tintin” (2011)
Since a lot of Spielberg’s work in the 2010s can be accused of stolidity and creaky dustiness, it’s good to remember that there’s one film that has the opposite problem. The delirious madcap mo-cap kids film “The Adventures of Tintin,” based on the beloved Belgian comics by Herge, basically kicks off in a high gear and doesn’t let up until its breathless end. The plot is little more than an excuse for a series of chases and riddles, featuring several set pieces that are straight from Spielberg’s ‘Indiana Jones’ playbook, though even further liberated by the whirligig, physics-defying possibilities of mo-cap technology (a particular North-African-set chase involving a thieving falcon is so inventive and endless that it might make your ears pop). And while the discomfort of seeing human faces rendered in CG slightly remains, the technology has mostly caught up to that, and in any case Spielberg wisely packs so much action in that there is scarcely time to register facial reactions. And the performers, though heavily disguised, are wonderful —Daniel Craig seems to be having fun finally as the baddie, while Andy Serkis‘ Captain Haddock is a scene-stealing delight, as he is in the comics. Blistering barnacles!
14. “Minority Report” (2002)
Tom Cruise stars as John Anderton, the head of a Pre-Crime unit in a futuristic Washington D.C. in charge of preventing criminals before they act, thanks to the visions of three imprisoned “pre-cog” psychics. This was the first of Spielberg’s films dealing with the War On Terror — it’s a theme that has resurfaced in almost all of his post-millennial contemporary works, more than any blockbuster director of the era. Anderton ends up on the run when the pre-cogs envision him committing murder and smoothie super-agent Colin Farrell becomes cat to his mouse. To his credit, Cruise gives Anderton an angry, unlikeable edge that keeps the audience on their toes as to whether he’s capable of cold-blooded murder. However, the original Philip K. Dick story is skeptical of the Pre-Crime system, but there’s a palpable sense that Spielberg wishes it worked, which gives the film a slightly fuzzy prioritization of ends and means. Sometimes playing like a hardboiled noir, other times as a grotesque body-horror, and still others as a slick tech fantasy, Spielberg packs an awful lot into “Minority Report” —perhaps a little more than the thought-experiment premise can logically handle.
13. “Empire of the Sun” (1987)
This project was originally intended for David Lean to direct and for Spielberg to produce, but the pair fell out and Spielberg took over the reins of this adaptation of J.G. Ballard‘s memoir of his childhood in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. The film performed disappointingly both commercially and critically and failed to pick up any major Oscar nods, which is a shame; it’s certainly the best of his 1980s run of dramas and is perhaps the closest thing to an underrated picture in his oeuvre. While the director can’t resist adding a nostalgic sheen (it all seems like fun and games up against “Schindler’s List”), it’s for the most part his darkest, most complex film up to that point and is laudably unsentimental, particularly in the depiction of John Malkovich‘s Fagin-like mentor (one of the actor’s earliest and very best performances). There are set pieces and images that can compete with anything in the director’s canon, and among the numerous great child performances he has coaxed, Christian Bale‘s central turn stands tall, carrying an entire film on his skinny, 13 year-old shoulders. The film is certainly flawed, but is also the first true sign that Spielberg might have been able to take on tougher, more serious source material with great success.
12. “Munich” (2005)
A recreation of the retaliatory terrorist attacks carried out after the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Spielberg’s “Munich” sees Mossad agent Avner (Eric Bana) leading a group of men on a crusade across Europe to avenge their fallen brethren. The first half of the film is a series of gripping set pieces, as each mission unfolds on rain-slicked streets (Janusz Kaminski shoots everything in a harsh glow devoid of the grain that defined his late-period collaborations with Spielberg). The weight of the killings and the paranoia as the hunters inevitably become the hunted weighs heavily on the second half, and Bana gives a well-modulated performance in which he becomes more defeated with each passing assassination (or attempt). Sadly, we then arrive at That Sex Scene, where Avner’s long-awaited reunion with his wife is consummated alongside flashbacks to the Olympic massacre: an ungainly, overwrought union of passion and pain that wrongly offers catharsis when the message is supposed to be that violence knows no end, a sentiment emphasized by nothing less than a shot of the still-standing Twin Towers. Touches like these, however well-intended, keep the otherwise thrilling “Munich” from ranking just a bit higher in the Spielberg pantheon.
11. “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” (2001)
Easily the most misunderstood film of Spielberg’s career, this picture famously began life as a project for Stanley Kubrick, adapted from the short story “Super Toys Last All Summer Long.” But that Brian Aldiss story makes up only the first act of “A.I.,” where David (a chilling Haley Joel Osment) deals with the crushing realization that he is not a real boy. The rest of the film then twists through a futuristic wasteland where man has turned against machine. It’s a notable departure from Spielberg’s other works, distinctly flavored with a sense of melancholia and themes of faith: while David’s mother is instantly self-flagellating as she leaves her terrified would-be son in the forest to die, David’s own faith remains unshaken as he learns the truth about his lineage. Spielberg argues that it’s human to be disillusioned, but he does honor the moony-eyed hopefulness of his protagonist with an (appropriately?) artificial happy ending. To this day, the film remains the most divisive work in Spielberg’s filmography, representing the end of his sunnier sci-fi optimism and the beginning of a more cynical outlook, and perhaps as a result, while the tone is uneven and rather awkward, it’s still a very sincere attempt to grapple with weighty questions.
