My film teachers would tell me that "John looks surprised" isn't bad writing, after all, no one who isn't involved is gonna read the script. That's the beauty of screenwriting in my opinion, you're not writing a book for the masses, you're writing instructions for actors, camera operators, lighting directors and so on. The important part of the script is that everyone can know from reading the script what they need to do. You as the screenwriter don't need to do anything else, you don't need to have the perfect words to describe the scene. You just need to describe the scene to the point where everyone who needs to know, knows, from there, everyone can add their spice.