I enjoy a whole host of films in almost all genres.
Not all these films, to be sure, I come away actually liking, but if I find something to grab onto and am entertained, I can tolerate an awful lot.
There are films that are presented with the bare minimum of plot. You, as a viewer, watch the proceedings and, like the classic Rorschach test, you can figure out -or not!- what the film was about and whether it worked for you or not.
Years ago when I saw the David Lynch film Mulholland Drive, I spent a good hour or so wondering just what the heck I was watching and just where the heck was this film going. Then came a certain scene (no big SPOILERS here, but it was the audition scene) and suddenly it hit me and I understood exactly what Lynch was up to and the film became one of my favorites of his, equal parts hilarious, scary, and heartbreaking.
Mad God one could say, is somewhat in this same general area. We’re given the barest elements of a plot and… is there eventually a point where it all comes together?
Stay tuned.
Directed by legendary special effects artist Phil Tippett (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Robocop, Willow, Jurassic Park, etc. etc.), this film took many, many years to complete. In fact, work started on this film all the way back in 1987 and completed in 2020…!!!!!!
That, my friends, is some dedication.
Employing stop motion, the film is a lush though often dark and grotesque (in the best way, trust me) journey though some bizarre hellscape.
The movie starts with some kind of craft being lowered into this hellscape. The odd creatures on the surface of whatever place this craft is being lowered toward try to shoot it down but fail to do so.
Once on the “ground” the thing within the capsule emerges. He (she?) looks like something from World War I, a draped soldier with a gas mask.
S/He is, for most of the film, our protagonist. S/He carries a map which leads him/her deeper and deeper into this odd world where s/he films plenty of grotesque creatures and scenery.
…but…
We never really know why s/he’s going down there. We never really know, either, where exactly this place is. I suppose one could assume its some kind of hell and, later in the film when s/he reaches a certain point in the trip and brings out an explosive device, I assumed they were there to either destroy this place (which makes sense given how s/he was being shot at when they were being lowered to it at the film’s start) or destroy whoever was in charge of it.
Then, other stuff happens and… I just don’t know, man.
The film is more of a collection of sequences, some quite brilliant, but very little coherent story. Again, it wasn’t until towards the later stages of the film that I even had a hunch as to what our protagonist was up to. But I’m not even sure that’s the case as we go through several more bits and pieces of business and effectively lose our protagonist for a while in some bizarre stuff that I can’t even pretend to understand.
This is a very tough film to grade.
On the one hand, the visuals are mostly quite stunning. This is easily the most accomplished use of stop motion animation I’ve ever seen… even if most of it is dark and grim looking. There is no bright scene(s) offered to counter the hellish landscape we’re immersed in!
On the other hand, the story is…
…I’m going to come out and say it: Non-existent. I’m sorry, but there’s almost nothing here except for a character journeying deeper and deeper into this bizarre hellworld and as a viewer I had no clue what pretty much all of it meant.
Would I recommend the film?
I think anyone who enjoys seeing well done special effects absolutely should give Mad God a whirl. Again, you don’t see such top notch effects every day and these, my friends, are TOP NOTCH effects.
But just be forewarned: There isn’t all that much that ultimately makes sense and there feels like there’s little story told.
Those who want that more than want to appreciate a master effects artist showing off his stuff may want to spend a few minutes with the film and then let it go.
I took a flight and finally had the time to sit (ha!) and watch Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga after somewhat avoiding it.
It’s an odd thing to admit that I was “somewhat avoiding” a Mad Max film because, well, I’m a HUGE fan of George Miller’s Mad Max films.
That is, until Furiosa was released and I read what it was about. Then, unexpected hesitancy on my part.
Let me give a brief backstory about my love of Mad Max films. I first saw The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2) way, waaaayyyy back in the Stone Age when it was originally released and it rocked my entire world. To this day I feel it is one of the very best action films EVER made. I eventually saw the original Mad Max and loved it as well… though it wasn’t quite up there IMHO with The Road Warrior. I also caught Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome in theaters and felt it was one-half of a terrific film but its climax/conclusion didn’t quite click for me.
And then, in 2015 and after many years, Mad Max: Fury Road came out and, unlike many, I felt it was a little less than The Road Warrior (still IMHO the pinnacle of Mad Max films) even though the spectacle was arguably greater (some thanks to CGI) and the character of Charlize Theron’s Furiosa fantastic. Thomas Hardy was good in the Max role but felt it was obvious they wanted the character to be older… ie, they wanted Mel Gibson for the role again in his then current age. But it wasn’t a “deal breaker”.
When Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga came out, though, I was torn.
A part of me very much wanted to see what Miller was up to again.
But another part of me wondered: Did this film really need to be made?
You see, prequels are a tricky thing. We already know where many of the characters must wind up. For example, going into Furiosa we knew that the charcter of Furiosa would obviously survive whatever she goes through -minus her arm!- to fight again in Fury Road.
Because of this, any sense of tension around the question of whether she will survive is effectively thrown out the window.
Of course we know she’ll survive.
Thing is, the same goes with many other characters within the movie. Obviously, every character that would reappear in Furiosa and reappear in Fury Road had to survive as well. Using that same logic, any major characters introduced in Furiosa and which didn’t show up again in Fury Road most likely would not make it.
The problem? There goes a lot of the movie’s suspense.
Next up: One of the bigger complaints against Fury Road was that the film had a minimal plot. The characters go out into the desert, are pursued by the forces trying to stop them, make a U-turn, then come back. Fin.
The same cannot be said about Furiosa. This film has plenty of plot and while its all good for the most part, I worried before seeing the film and felt after seeing it that maybe those elements simply didn’t need to be explored.
Fury Road’s “minimal” plot worked so excellently because we had to use our imagination to fill in many of the blanks regarding Furiosa. We had to imagine the extreme traumas the character went through in the past and the moment she first appeared in that film.
Imagination is a powerful thing. I hesitated seeing Furiosa because I felt whatever traumas the character went through leading up to her first appearance in Fury Road were likely much stronger in my mind than anything I would eventually see in Furiosa.
…and this turned out to be exactly the case.
What I imagined was darker than what was presented in that movie and, if I’m being honest, I felt the first acts were especially dull. I enjoyed seeing Furiosa’s mother and the actress playing the very young Furiosa was good but… I dunno.
Things got better when Anya Taylor-Joy appears as a younger Furiosa but even then… again… my imagination simply trumped whatever was on the screen.
Worse, Furiosa has so much plot that you wind up feeling that if they were intent on making this movie, it should have been much, much longer. Events happen too fast -again IMHO- and were presented so much information so quickly that it feels almost like we’re seeing an outline of a story rather than a story in full. Characters thus come and go almost too quickly. A perfect example of this is the segment with Preatorain Jack. It was easily the most intriguing segment of the film but it felt like it came and went a little too fast for my taste and the relationship between Furiosa and him could have used a little more fleshing out.
Now, what is possibly an even more controversial opinion: I didn’t like the way the character of Dementus was presented in this film.
To my mind, he was a little too goofy and never quite as scary as some of the villains presented in the other Mad Max films.
When I saw the original Mad Max, the character of Toe Cutter was terrifying. In The Road Warrior, Humongous and Wez were also quite terrifying. But Dementus, as played by Chris Hemsworth (who I usually enjoy in just about any role) was a little too “goofy”. I blame this, frankly, on George Miller himself. Even when the character went “dark” at a certain point in the film it was as if Miller couldn’t quite show the scary results in full (Note: I’m avoiding getting into too many SPOILERS here).
The effects, sadly, were also something of a let down.
Again, my favorite film of the series is The Road Warrior and seeing those practical effects was incredible back then. I realize over time they may have lost their sting but there’s something about practical effects versus CGI that makes you think about how some of the later is just not quite as “real” and that winds up taking away much of the excitement you may feel with practical effects.
Alas, I felt too much of that when watching Furiosa. There’s one big chase set piece and, frankly, I thought it wasn’t as exciting as most of the others Miller presented in previous films, including the more CGI heavy Fury Road. Yes, he tried to push the limits and give us something new (paragliders!) but… it looked like what it was, a CGI enhanced set piece.
I’ve said a lot of negatives but, ultimately, I have to acknowledge my feelings are likely shaped by those expectations and the fear that I would be let down by the prequel nature of the film.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, had it been completed and released before Fury Road, I suspect would rate much higher in my mind.
As it is, I feel its ultimately a “good” film that truly didn’t need to be made, given we already could perfectly well picture all the tragedy Furiosa likely went through before Fury Road.
Still, I would recommend the film to Mad Max fans but with those reservations.
So I’m flying back home and, having seen Till Death (you can read my review of it here) on my way to my destination, I’m looking through what I’ve downloaded and decide to watch the 2020 Leigh Whannell written/directed film The Invisible Man on the way back. I enjoyed Mr. Whannell’s 2018 film Upgrade quite a bit and wanted to check out The Invisible Man for a while now and decided it was time.
What I didn’t realize is that Till Death and The Invisible Man are, thematically anyway, films that can be described as “the husband from hell and the harried wife who has to somehow survive them.“
Here’s the movie’s trailer and, like Till Death, it gives a taste of what you’re in for without giving away everything:
In The Invisible Man, we start off introduced to Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss, quite good). She in bed next to her husband Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen, also quite good) but, we find, is in the process of escaping his high tech -and clearly very expensive- home.
She’s terrified of Adrian and the audience soon finds out why: In the process of escape, Adrian reveals himself to be prone to violence (I won’t get much more SPOILERY than this) and, even when she’s finally freed of him, Cecilia fears he will find her and enact his vengence on her.
I’m loathe to give too much more away. Going by the trailer, I will say this much: Adrian appears to have committed suicide and then things get stranger as Cecilia fears her ex has somehow figured out a way to make himself invisible and is now after her… and her friends.
As I said above, both Till Death and The Invisible Man are films that focus on a violent, devious, and dangerous husband who wants to “get” his wife and I was genuinely struck by how both films follow through on this premise quite well.
The Invisible Man, after a somewhat slow burn introduction (the only very big negative I would give to the film… maybe I’m getting impatient in my advanced years), takes off in delirious and interesting directions. Like Till Death, the film does feature several surprises and also some necessary suspension of disbelief (I’ll give one here as I did with Till Death: Didn’t Cecilia wonder why the dog was healthy when she saw him the second time?!).
Still the suspense is quite good and the story is meaty and treats the audience with respect without dipping into silliness.
If I have any real big negative, its only the fact that I somehow stumbled onto seeing these two films and wound up comparing them to each other because their initital premises are so very similar.
The Invisible Man is clearly the more fantastic of the two films and was also the one that featured a larger budget but Till Death gets points for knowing what it’s going for and getting there quick.
Still, you can’t miss with either film.
That is, if you want to see husbands from hell going after their wives… who turn out to be far more resourseful than the asshole husband thought they were!
A year or two ago, maybe a little more, I was looking through the VUDU (now Fandango) digital movie sales and found the 2021 Megan Fox movie Till Death listed among those available fairly cheap.
I must confess: I wasn’t necessarily interested in buying the film but, as I do, I checked out the reviews and… they were for the most part quite positive. Anyway, bottom line is the price was right and I figured “why not?” The film sounded interesting enough so I figured I’d give it a whirl…
…welp…
As with all entertainment things I buy, they get into a very long line before I finally have a chance (if ever!) to get to them. Long story short: I was taking a flight somewhere this past week, looked over the movies I had, downloaded several, and when the plane was taking off to my destination, I decided to give Till Death a whirl.
And I was glad I did.
First, though, here’s the movie’s trailer which, thankfully, doesn’t give everything away…
Megan Fox is Emma, a woman who when we first meet in the opening minutes of the film is ending an affair she’s having. See, it is her anniversary and while she is clearly very unhappy in her marriage, she is also honorable enough to realize having an affair is no solution either and realizes it’s time to end things. Now, just to add a little more context and without getting too SPOILERY, it is revealed later in the film that Emma knows her husband Mark has been having affairs as well. Their marriage is truly on very shaky grounds.
Anyway, after this, the audience meets Mark (Eoin Macken, wonderfully creepy from his first scene on) who seems contrite and claims he wants this anniversary to be one where they finally put all the negatives from their marriage behind them and become a true couple.
And if you think these two one-time lovebirds do just that in the course of this film, then you haven’t been paying attention and you certainly haven’t seen the above trailer!
I’m loathe to give away too many of the movie’s story details, but suffice it to say that rather than taking Emma to an isolated romantic retreat where they can finally start the process of healing their relationship, Mark brought her to an isolated, diabolical death trap he has devised. And once the proverbial shit-hits-the-fan and the movie gets going, Emma quite literally is in a fight for her survival against seemingly impossible odds.
I’m certain there are many people who saw this film featured Megan Fox and were instantly turned off by the idea of watching her star in any film and therefore are unwilling to give Till Death a shot but… you’re missing out.
While the film isn’t “perfect” and there are a couple of moments where one has to use the proverbial suspension of disbelief (such as how Ms. Fox’s wonderful makeup stayed on so well through the whole ordeal…!), Till Death is a more than competently crafted thriller that delivers several surprises along with the life and death struggles of Emma.
As for Ms. Fox, she’s quite good as the harried leading lady who is quite literally fighting for her life from the fifteen-minute mark (or thereabouts) of the film until its end.
A stylish, suspenseful work that, at least for me, is an easy recommendation.
Way, waaay back when Dr. No, the first James Bond movie, was released in 1962, it was a hit and launched the then new action/secret agent genre. A year later and in 1963, Sean Connery returned to the role for From Russia With Love. And a year after that, he would return for the third time in what many consider the best of the early Bond films, Goldfinger.
For those living in a cave the last few decades, the movie’s trailer:
This was the Bond movie that first really pushed the idea of spectacle and it was mostly done by giving Bond a tricked out car, the famous silver Aston Martin DB5 and its many gadgets…
This weekend and for whatever reason, our local iPic theater was playing Goldfinger and we decide to give it a look. I’ve seen the film several times before but not recently so I was curious how I would react to seeing it again, this time on the big screen, and if it would show its age.
Well, I won’t keep you in suspense here: I felt the film did show its age. But having said that, it was expected.
Considering the way “spectacle” films are nowadays, Goldfinger comes off as at times almost tame in its bigger action sequences yet the story is what makes the film sing.
For Goldfinger is a film that puts you in bond’s shoes regarding what the villain is up to… and often Bond -and the viewer- don’t know quite what the hell is going on.
The movie starts with Bond finishing off a mission before heading to Miami Beach and brushing against Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe, quite good as the spoiled yet devious titular villain). Goldfinger, we find, has somehow been smuggling (you guessed it) gold from country to country, taking advantage of the exchange rates to make out like a bandit… and England isn’t too happy about that. They’ve tried to figure out how he does it but so far haven’t and Bond, afterwards, is assigned to figure out what he’s up to.
I’ve skipped a few details because I don’t want to get into SPOILERS but suffice to say Bond winds up finding himself in great danger the closer he gets to Goldfinger. More importantly, he realizes Goldfinger has some kind of sinister master plan in the works and must use his wits to stay alive long enough to both figure that plan out and thwart it.
Again, the action sequences may be lacking to modern audiences but the general excitement, and mystery, regarding Goldfinger is the engine that keeps this film going. The cast, beyond Connery’s Bond and Frobe’s Goldfinger, is also to die for. The almost ethereally beautiful Shirley Eaton has a small role at the start of the film as Jill Masterson. Honor Blackman is cool and sexy as (don’t know how they got away with it) Pussy Galore. And then there’s Harold Sakata as Oddjob, the first -and perhaps the best!- of the very fearsome henchmen Bond faces during his decades of adventures.
So while as an action film Goldfinger may not thrill quite as it did when first released and if you can forgive one sequence many modern eyes view as “rapey”, recommending Goldfinger is a no-brainer.
So as I was flying to go see my daughter, I had the time to see a film in my vast (and sadly mostly unwatched) digital movie library. The film I chose to see is the 1972 thriller starring Barry Newman and based on an Alistair MacLean book, Fear Is The Key.
Here’s the movie’s trailer:
I’m a fan of Alastair MacLean’s works. There have been some really, really good films made of them, including The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, and Ice Station Zebra.
There have been clunkers as well and this one, I have to admit, I was unaware of until it was pointed out recently to me.
So I purchased a digital copy of the film and, on the flight to my daughter, I watched it.
And it proved to be an enjoyable, if somewhat low budget and (especially those who are familiar with the works of MacLean) somewhat predictable thriller.
Here’s the thing about MacLean’s stories (SPOILERS FOLLOW): Often things are not quite what they seem. The stories are often pulpy action romps featuring “professional” men’s men and full blooded women who may -or may not- have their own agendas.
Thus the opening act of Fear is the Key didn’t really “fool” me and while it was very exciting I kinda knew we were being fed a bit of misdirection.
Again, I’m trying not to be too SPOILERY here so I’ll just leave it at that!
What follows is a fascinating story involving the search for …something… deep on the ocean floor and a lead character played by Barry Newman whom we’re not entirely sure what he’s about.
One could say some of the action at the very start of the film was excessive but I thought it was entertaining enough to kick start the film wonderfully before settling into a more of a thriller.
Again, I don’t want to get too SPOILERY but if you’re into MacLean’s works and adaptations into film, this is a nice one to add to the list. It may not quite be up there with the trifecta of Guns of Navarone or Where Eagles Dare or Ice Station Zebra (IMHO the three best of the best ones) but its a great way to spend an afternoon… or in my case, a flight!
Film noir arguably first began with features released in the 1930’s. Influenced at least visually by the stark -and very stylish!- black and white imagery coming out of some of the great German films, one could look at Fritz Lang’s M (1931) as a prototype of what became the film noir crime feature. The US remake of the film, released in 1951 and also titled M, was a surprisingly good remake and if one doesn’t consider the Lang film noir, there is little doubt the American version is noir through and through.
One of the biggest stars of the noir movement is Humphrey Bogart. He would appear in several noir films, perhaps most famous of them being The Maltese Falcon (1941). Dead Reckoning is another fascinating Bogart starring noir and feels an awful lot like a lighter version of The Big Sleep (1946), which starred Bogart and Lauren Bacall and which was released the year before Dead Reckoning.
The Big Sleep was based on Raymond Chandler’s classic first Phillip Marlowe novel and benefitted tremendously from the charisma between the two stars (who would marry). Dead Reckoning, unfortunately, doesn’t have quite that literary backbone to prop it’s story up though I thought Lizabeth Scott did a great job as the love interest/possible femme fatale (a role very similar to that of Bacall’s in The Big Sleep). In fact, so similar is Scott to Bacall that there’s at least one sequence where she’s dressed so similarly to something I recall seeing Bacall in that I actually thought they snuck her into the movie somehow…!
Anyway, this would be Scott’s first “big” role and she did well with it. Bogie was also quite good and displayed his usual charisma… though I admit it felt like he wasn’t doing too much heavy lifting in the role. He did well but it wasn’t Bogie in Casablanca or The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon… but it was Bogie and that alone is sometimes good enough!
The story? Bogie and an army buddy are escorted post haste following the end of WWII from their hospital (they were injured in combat but to look at both of them they seem mighty healthy to me!) to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor. Bogie says it was all his partner’s actions and that he was just there for the ride, but when his partner realizes he will be photographed and become a media darling, he bails.
Bogie searches for him and tries to unravel the mystery of why his friend would suddenly want to disappear from the face of the earth and that leads him to his partner’s real name and home town… and a mysterious murder which he may have committed and an old flame (guess who) who may or may not hold secrets of her own along with a casino owner who has ties with then modern (now old time) mobsters.
What secrets will Bogie uncover and whodunnit?
Watch and find out!
Anyway, I recommend the film to anyone interested in delving into 40’s era film noir. It’s a decent film that certainly tries hard to fit into the Chandler mode and, while it doesn’t quite reach that lofty level, it is an entertaining work.
Yes indeed.
…Yep…
Ok, I can’t stop there. But to talk more about this film I’m going to have to get into SPOILERS so… you’ve been warned!
Still there?
Ok, here goes.
Sometimes it feels like the writer in me is ruining all manner of entertainment that involves a story being told. For example, when I reviewed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny a few days back, I noted that the film felt like it had a story that was being worked on as the film was being made. How else to explain odd bits like Antonio Banderas in what amounts to an almost wordless cameo role and one of the main characters seeming to be originally written as perhaps a femme fatale (just scroll to the previous review and it will all be clear!).
Watching Dead Reckoning, I felt those same issues rearing their head.
Again, I enjoyed the film and felt it was worth recommending even though it felt like the film’s makers were endeavoring to imitate a Raymond Chandler type story and not quite hitting the mark.
The story, as I noted, involves Bogie and his partner being transported like royalty to Washington to receive, they find along the way, a Congressional Medal of Honor for their valor in the battlefield. Bogie’s partner bails because clearly he does not want his face all over the papers and Bogie becomes a detective and pursues his friend, whom he finds had an alias and might have been responsible for a murder in his hometown and before he enlisted and got away from the U.S.
This is all interesting stuff but the main point of the film is to get Bogie and Scott together. Scott’s character, it turns out, was the murdered man’s wife and Bogie’s friend’s supposed girlfriend. Scott’s character later clarifies that he loved her but she never quite loved him. Bogie’s friend’s fate, too, is revealed shortly after Bogie begins the investigation and suddenly there’s more skullduggery going on in the quaint town…!
Anyway, the film soon introduces us to a few characters, including a casino owner with mob ties and his henchman as well as a Police Detective who is always one step behind Bogie.
But the crux of the movie’s plot is the question of whether Scott’s character is a “good girl” or secretly a “femme fatale”.
Based on the way the film unfolded, I felt those behind the cameras had no clue which way to go there and, in the end, flipped a coin to determine whether she was good or bad.
The fact is within the film there is no real logic about Scott’s character and the shifts regarding her grow rather silly. When first introduced Bogie is highly suspicious of her and is constantly “testing” her to see if she is good or bad. She seems to pass the tests… that is until something happens that arouses Bogie’s suspicions and we’re off to the next set piece and the next “is she or isn’t she?” setup.
Towards the later stages of the film Bogie’s character seems convinced she is bad and has him accuse her of this or “prove” she isn’t. Bogie’s character forces her to call the police and tell them what really happened a few years back with regard to her husband’s murder. She admits to shooting him but claims it was in self-defense and that the shady casino owner is holding the murder weapon over her head for blackmail and… sheesh. She tearfully picks up the phone, calls the police, and is about to make her confession when Bogie hangs the phone up.
He says something to the effect that he had to push her to the limits to prove she was good, the implication being that she’d good.
Only problem is that the film still has some fifteen or so minutes to go and we wind up (I told you there were SPOILERS!) finding out that Bogie’s character isn’t a very good detective because -suprise and holy whiplash!- the final minutes prove she’s indeed a femme fatale.
Her comeuppance is a car crash leaves her on the verge of dying but still looking awfully beautiful in the hospital bed. Bogie gets to see her that one last time and says nice things to her as she passes away.
Yeah, the writer in me felt the conclusion was a last minute invention and almost certainly tacked on.
It is what it is…!
Oh, and one very fascinating thing about this 1947 film: Bogie’s character is a paratrooper and he talks about saying “Geronimo” before jumping out of the airplane.
The other characters in the film are oblivious to this term and I found it incredibly fascinating that at this point in time, again 1947, the “Geronimo” followed by jumping out of an airplane was something seemingly not known by the general public.
Perhaps this movie was the one that made the public aware of this?
First, sorry for the dearth of posts. Been incredibly busy of late with all kinds of things and, if I’m being honest here, I don’t know if in the next few months I’ll be able to post like I did when I was really cooking. I’ll keep trying, though…!
Now, on to the latest, and we have to assume last, Indiana Jones film featuring Harrison Ford. Here’s the movie’s trailer:
When it was announced Harrison Ford would return one more time to play what is probably his most iconic role (even above his Han Solo from Star Wars, IMHO of course!) there was excitement, at least from me.
I still recall going to see the original Raiders Of The Lost Ark (before it was retitled to Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark) back when it was originally released back in 1981. It’s hard to recall today, but both Harrison Ford and director Steve Spielberg were not the icons they would become. I firmly believe this movie made Harrison Ford an upper tier actor, which he held for decades and, it seems, only now in his twilight years is relinquishing.
But Steven Spielberg, also, wasn’t as huge a name at that time, either. Sure, he had the hit releases in Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but he had just released 1941 which was a box office and critical failure. But the release of Raiders, followed by the mega-hit E.T. The Extra-Terrestial the next year, erased any worry he might be a flash in the pan.
There were three Indiana Jones films that followed the first, and in my opinion none of them were as good as the original. Temple of Doom proved too grim and claustrophobic. The Last Crusade is beloved by many fans but though I feel it has some great sequences, I can’t say I like it as much as others do. Still, I feel it is the second best of the Indiana Jones films, and that includes the one I’m about to talk about. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls I felt also had some really good sequences but boy did it have issues with its concluding act. Audiences, however, seemed really turned off by it and, especially, the infamous “nuking the fridge” sequence in the opening act.
Which brings us to Dial of Destiny. Steven Spielberg, who perhaps after four Indiana Jones films had had enough of that particular genre, bowed out and for the first time someone else directing an Indiana Jones film: James Mangold. He’s been a generally good director in my opinion, with some of his most recent films being Ford vs. Ferrari and Logan.
At the very least, and given the theme of Logan dealing with an hero dealing with his twilight years, it appeared the franchise was in good enough hands.
I wanted to see Dial of Destiny in theaters when it was released and even after some of the early reviews were mixed. But, as is unfortunately too usual these days, I simply didn’t find the time to see the film. The film wound up doing very badly at the box office and was one of the bigger flops of the year.
Reviews were generally mixed, as they were early on. There were those who liked the film quite a bit and felt it was a good conclusion to the Indiana Jones saga even though Last Crusade and Crystal Skulls both attempted to be concluding stories. Hell, Last Crusade even had Indiana Jones and his father (played by Sean Connery) quite literally riding off into the sunset!
So, finally, let’s get to Dial of Destiny…
I’ll try not to get into too many SPOILERS but there will be a few here and there and I’ll try to point them out as best as I can.
The movie begins with an extended sequence featuring a younger Indiana Jones on a mission behind Nazi lines. The “de-aging” of Harrison Ford is pretty good for most of the sequences but not spectacular. Hollywood is getting better at the process but there’s still improvement to be made.
The sequence is ok but watching the CGI action effects makes me realize how much I miss the practical effects presented in Raiders. Unfortunately, using these CGI effects seems to make directors go “bolder” with the action sequences but frankly they become cartoonish and not very believable. There’s a bit with Indy riding a motorcycle where this was a little too obvious. There clearly was no motorcycle, no actual Harrison Ford, and the scenery around them was also CGI.
It’s becoming tougher for me to be invested in these action scenes when they’re so clearly computer generated bits.
Anyway, we’re introduced to Indy’s partner Basil Shaw and the two are seeking to retrieve the legendary Spear of Destiny (not to be confused with the Dial of Destiny) which Hitler feels has some mystical power which will, in these waning days of WWII, lead to victory.
In the course of trying to retrieve this relic, Indy and Shaw realize the relic is fake but there is a very real one -or rather one-half of one- among the looted goods: The Dial of Destiny. Another character, Dr. Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), also realizes this is the real deal but at the end of the sequence, Indy and Shaw have the device and we fast forward to…
New York, 1969.
A very old Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford was around 79 when filming this movie. He is now 81) awakens to find the news of the first Moon landing but he doesn’t care all that much. He’s grumpy and his life is apparently unwinding as we get a glimpse of divorce papers between Marion and he.
He goes to the University for his final lecture before retiring and there a mysterious woman seems to know much of the material he’s lecturing. She also knows about the Dial of Destiny and its maker, Archemides.
Indy heads to a bar after the retirement party, not too keen about his stage in life, and the mystery woman shows up. She states she’s Helena Shaw, daughter of his one-time partner Basil. She also states that she wants to find where Indy and her father threw away the half of the device, which she states they did in a river shortly after they recovered it.
This part of the film, I have to say, shows me that the movie’s script was a work in progress and I‘ll get into that in a moment.
The bottom line is that Indy and Helena wind up forming a very uneasy alliance and travel around the world in search of the second half of the Dial of Destiny while on the run from Dr. Voller, who is still around and determined to get the device.
What does he seek? Is Helena good or bad? Will Indy triumph in the end?
Well, what do you think?! 😉
What we have her is a decent enough action film that unfortunately and as I stated above relies on perhaps too many CGI stunts that simply look like in the real world they could never work.
But the movie’s biggest flaw is that I’m convinced the film was being worked on from a story standpoint up to the very end.
How else to explain the appearance of Antonio Banderas in a role that, frankly, any other actor could have done? He literally has five minutes of screen time and barely says anything memorable before he’s gone. Mads Mikkelson’s Dr. Voller is about as one note as you can get. He is this understated villain who is simply there and never gets any powerful scene to strut his stuff, so to speak.
But perhaps the biggest artifact to find which proves the story was a work in progress is the character of Helena.
When first introduced and as I mentioned above, she tells Indy about how they tossed Dial into a river and Indy asks her if she remembers the last time they were together. I’m convinced at one point Helena’s character was a fake and not the real Helena Shaw and Indy’s question -and a subsequent flashback- proves that she wasn’t the daughter. Shaw’s daughter would know the Dial of Destiny was in her father’s possession well after the war and not thrown away into any river at War’s end.
Therefore, I feel her character was originally a cohort of Dr. Voller but the decision was made to make her a rascal rather than an outright villain and someone who would eventually go over to the side of good.
Anyway, it is what it is. Dial of Destiny is far from terrible but, unfortunately, not much more than decent. I recommend it with reservations but do feel most Indy fans will have a good time with the movie.
I will say this much, though: The final sequence was very sweet and a good way to say goodbye to this movie hero.
Released this past weekend, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1 is the latest in the Tom Cruise-starring Mission: Impossible films, the first of which was released way back in 1996. The franchise remains quite healthy and, if anything, seems to be finding its proper niche in the world of your James Bond-Ian type films.
Here’s the movie’s trailer:
I’m a fan of the series for the most part and have enjoyed almost all the releases, including this one. It is a slickly made film that never seems to slow down but like some of the other features, it works best when you put your mind into neutral and simply accept what’s being played before you and enjoy the earnestness -and at times hair-raising stunts- Tom Cruise does.
Despite a strong ensemble cast, Cruise as Ethan Hunt is the show… usually… in each of these movie but often we’re given some great scenes with the other actors. Alas, in the case of Dead Reckoning Part 1, unfortunately Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rahmes, Vanessa Kirby, and Simon Pegg this time around don’t have a ton of stuff to do. Perhaps Ms. Ferguson fares the best and Simon Pegg the worst (while he gets one exciting scene early on in an airport -no spoilers- he’s otherwise doing not all that much but following Hunt around).
Someone who does get to appear before the camera quite a bit is newcomer to the series Haley Atwell as Grace, a master thief that has gotten in over her head and whom Ethan Hunt is constantly after.
The movie is long, clocking in at two hours and forty three minutes, but the plot is, alas, somewhat underwhelming.
In the movie’s opening minutes we follow a Russian submarine on what will turn out to be its last run. It carries within it a sophisticated artificial intelligence program activated by a pair of interlocking keys. Something goes very wrong and the submarine is sunk and, a short time later, it appears the artificial intelligence is all over the world and is intent on getting the interlocking keys… along with seemingly all intelligence agencies.
Here’s the bad: After we get this setup, the movie goes from scene to scene as Hunt and his team -but mostly Hunt and Grace- get the key, lose the key, lose each other, find each other, get the key and lose the key again, and on and on to the end.
It pains me to say this but that’s what this film boils down to: Who has the key and what crazy ass stunt does Ethan Hunt have to do to try to get it back.
Again, though: At least there’s a great deal of skill in the telling of this admittedly undernourished story and things are exciting as they progress but you’ll forgive me if I’m not as impressed with the story as I wanted to be.
As a writer, and one who has dealt with the idea of artificial intelligence, perhaps I’m a little down on this because I’ve been there and done that, but it feels like the meat of the story was being held back for Dead Reckoning Part 2, which hopefully gets done soon. I don’t know how the current SAG writers and actors strike will impact the making of this film but I imagine like many other works out there, even those in mid-production, they will shut down until those issues are resolved.
Either way, I still recommend this film. It’s a fun, at times preposterous action/adventure film which will entertain you… provided you don’t think to hard about how little plot there actually is.
So, recommended.
I do have a couple of ideas as to where the next film might go and, for the heck of it, I’ll get into them. I could be totally off but here come my thoughts.
After, of course, some…
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1, as I mentioned above, involves the hunt for a key that supposedly will unlock a powerful artificial intelligence computer within a sunken Russian submarine.
The thing that struck me, however, was that it appeared the artificial intelligence was behind the attack on the submarine itself, which resulted in its sinking.
However, we come to find the A.I. is already spread out through the world and doing all kinds of things, including trying to find that key and a way into the submarine’s computer programming. It is stated this is so that it can get the main programming, I guess, which might deactivate it.
Or does it?
I couldn’t help but think, once the film was done, that the whole attack on the submarine didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Why attack itself? And why do so in such a half-assed way that resulted in the sub -and the program- being potentially intact on the sea floor and ready to be recovered? How exactly did the keys get recovered from the bodies of the submariners and how did they get split up to where two different parties had them (this too is explained in the course of the film… the bodies somehow left the sub and floated to the surface/ice and were there and recovered afterwards).
It just… I dunno. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. That the submarine could be knocked out in such a way that the bodies got out so nicely?
If the screenwriters leave it at that, it will leave me with some rather massive things to simply accept.
However… what if there are two artificial intelligence programs out there, fighting against each other? Perhaps one is a United States A.I., the other the Russian one.
What if one of the A.I.s was the one that sabotaged the Russian submarine and got it to attack itself as shown in the opening minutes of the film? What if the other A.I. was the one that managed to get the corpses out, so that its masters could retrieve the key… and then fight off the other A.I. that was responsible for the attack?
I’m obviously just spitballing here but that would be a fascinating twist to find in the second film… if it is something that’s coming.
If you’ve got the Apple TV+ streaming service, you can see Greyhound, a Tom Hanks starring and written (yes, he was the screenwriter!) film, which was never released to theaters. A victim of COVID, no doubt.
Here’s the pretty damn exciting -to me anyway- trailer:
Watching this once again as I’m typing, I remember my initial excitement upon seeing it and the eagerness I had to see the film proper. The subject matter intrigued me and the effects looked pretty damn good.
Alas, I didn’t have the Apple TV+ service and frankly have enough streaming services as it is. I don’t have the free time to watch so much damn TV nor was I interested in spending yet more money on another streaming service.
Besides, the film was bound to make it to other formats before long, no?
…welp…
Three years passed and it appears Apple is intent on keeping this movie within its streaming umbrella. I don’t believe either a physical or digital copy of the film is available for purchase.
So it appeared I’d have to wait a while to see the film. However, a few months back I upgraded my cell phone and included in the upgrade was the Apple TV+ streaming service for free.
It would take me a few months from when I got it to finally find the free time but I searched the service and finally got around to watching Greyhound.
Was it as impressive as the trailer made it seem? Was it worth the long wait?
…welp…
Everything that was good about the film is encapsulated in that trailer. There are good effects and some damn good action sequences which revolve around Hank’s Captain Crause leading the Greyhound, a destroyer escort leading a convoy of supply ships across the Atlantic during World War II while facing off against a “wolfpack” of German submarines.
Here’s the problem, though: That’s pretty much all the film is, one action sequence after another with minimal characterization.
The camera almost exclusively follows Tom Hank’s character and everyone else is relegated to the background. For some reason the film opens with Hank’s character meeting up with Elisabeth Shue’s Evelyn, his wife or girlfriend and then leaving her for the command. Ms. Shue is in the film for something like two minutes, if that.
That and the fact that he’s a religious man who prays before meals and (MILD SPOILERS) prays after everything is over are pretty much all we get in terms of depth (no pun intended) of character.
Otherwise the movie’s dialogue consists of variations of “Hard right rudder!” or “Hard to starboard” while other more minor characters echo Hank’s command.
So while we have minimal characterization and technojargon for dialogue (for the most part), the film does admittedly deliver some thrills with the many battles between Greyhound and the nefarious wolfpack, who very improbably actually radio Greyhound and taunt them while attacking.
I would ultimately recommend this film but with the caveat that it is for those who want to see some exciting high sea action sequences but aren’t put off by a film that has near zero actual characterization.
Greyhound is a decent work but compared to something like Das Boot, it could’a been better.
