A Portrait of Michael Crichton (2001 Video) User Reviews

Portrait? Sounds classy

[TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews · 5/10 · 1 March 2009]

This is the second featurette on the DVD of The Andromeda Strain, the other being a making-of. This is Crichton, in one interview, occasionally intercut with clips from the movie, and still material. He talks about his early writing career, med school, worrying what the professors would think of him if they knew he was, or was trying to be, an author next to learning to be a doctor. Extra attention and focus is of course paid to and placed on the film, and the novel behind it, and the latter being turned into the former. It's all informative enough, if not necessarily terribly interesting, unless you want a brief history of how he started putting words on the page. He doesn't go into very much detail about other works, nor concepts or such. This is little more than an extended commercial for the feature, really. I would wager there are more interesting and thorough biographies, and that they might even hold actual analysis. If one only watched this and his appearance in the behind-the-scenes production on the disc, they would not get a very positive view of him. I recommend this to fans of the man, I suppose, and not sure who else. 5/10

Michael Crichton: The Weak Link in Michael Crichton Movies

[charlytully · 6/10 · 4 May 2009]

I've always wondered about the unevenness of quality in the films produced based on the writings of novelist Michael Crichton. Some, like JURASSIC PARK (1993), are passable. Others, including ANDROMEDA STRAIN, have positive reputations, but when you see them they seem tedious and vastly over-rated. It's easy to say that STRAIN director Robert Wise is no Steven Spielberg (JP). But many hack directors have turned out entertaining flicks given a good story to work with. Well, this 12-minute featurette produced for the 2001 STRAIN release on DVD gives Crichton enough rope to hang himself. He admits going into medical school just for the money he thought becoming a doctor would yield ("I'd heard only 200 people in the U.S. were able to support themselves by writing, but I discovered medical schools churned out 6,000 new doctors every year" in the mid-1960s). He admits dropping medical school like a hot potato as soon as he made some money writing. "I did no research for ANDROMEDA STRAIN," Crichton goes on to confess. "I made up all the extensive bibliography and footnotes," based on books which were figments of his imagination. It is more a comment on the gullibility of the American public, and the desperation of Hollywood for any new idea that even SOUNDS good on paper, that Crichton raked in as much dough as he did. "When I saw the movie version of ANDROMEDA STRAIN, I was shocked," Crichton confesses. "I realized I had never taken the time to actually try to VISUALIZE the (Wildfire) lab when I was writing the novel." I'd give STRAIN a rating of 9-out-of-10 for the state-of-the-art special effects and opening scenes above ground, but as soon as the quartet of lead scientists reaches Level 5 of the lab, the movie runs out of steam because Crichton provides paper-thin characterizations and Wise's producers were too cheap to hire a screenwriter up to the job of fleshing them out (it's not enough to just steal an epileptic fit from Hitchcock's MARNIE). Furthermore, STRAIN is totally true to Crichton's vision, which sacrifices substance for style at every turn.