It’s certainly a movie!
Harrison Ford dons his famous
brown fedora, leather jacket and whip, as well as pats a cheque for $10,000,000
in his back trouser pocket and returns to the big screen as one of cinema’s
most famous adventurers. And we the audience don our coat, head outside and pat
our back trouser pocket where £8 used to be, to return to the cinema to see
Harrison Ford look mildly annoyed and perplexed at having to play one of his
most famous characters for the fifth time.
Set now in 1969, the film
follows, what we really hope is, the final adventure of Dr. Henry Jones Jr..
Far past his prime, in a drastically changing world from the days of the 1930s,
Jones is embroiled in a plot to hunt for an artefact and to stop the bad guy
and ultimately save the day! Just retired from his job as a lecturer, he bumps
into his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) who is after the two
parts of an artefact which drove her father insane. Also looking for these
pieces is Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) and his American-German goons.
Travelling from New York City to Tangier, Greece and Sicily, there are plenty
of chases and attempts at that Indy action we know and love so well.
Ford didn’t look as disinterested
as he had done in the recent Disney Star Wars trilogy.
However the audience certainly seemed as unimpressed as the 80 year old
archaeologist on screen was. That isn’t to say it was a bad film. Just a film.
As a reviewer I try to go into these things as impartial as can be, and that is
very difficult for me, to the point where I set myself up to be seething and
hating every single frame that flickers before my eyes. It wasn’t great, it
wasn’t bad.
As much time has passed between Raiders Of The Lost Ark and The Dial Of Destiny, as had between Raiders and the swashbuckling serials
which the series originally paid homage to. This film doesn’t feel like one of
those homages, but more a homage to the first three films. Throughout the
screening I was wondering why this instalment did not feel like a Spielberg
film, as dross as The Kingdom Of The
Crystal Skull was, it had that Spielberg flair to it, whereas this was
lacking and in need of it. It was not until the credits at the end that it was
revealed that James Mangold was the director. You know, James Mangold? The man
who did those two Wolverine films and
more recently, Ford V Ferrari...
those really memorable films.
It is certainly no recent
revelation that Mangold had swapped an uninterested Spielberg as director, I
must have been under a rock that day. However the film at parts feels very
generic and at best a second rate Spielberg film. More worryingly however, is
that that great CGI castle which everyone seems to look up to these days, the
Hollywood beast which is Disney, produced the film (in association with
Paramount although the Paramount logo appears and disappears that quickly on
the screen, one may actually not notice). Of course Disney’s acquisition of
LucasFilm some ten years ago now means that the great Indiana Jones series has been gobbled up in the belly of the
soulless corporate beast. Of course Disney would want a director which will
oblige their demands and make something which is borderline flat. Indiana Jones runs the risk of being
teared open and spread wide and thin as a “franchise”.
The first boot stomp comes with
aforementioned Paramount logo. Now for myself, as I guess for many others, the
Paramount logo fading and blending into the hill of Radiers, the Mountain decoration on the gong of The Temple Of Doom, the rock formation
of The Last Crusade, and the prairie
dog mound (not as impressive) of Crystal
Skull, is as an important feature to the films as the 20th Century Fox logo and fanfare is to the opening of Star Wars (something else which Disney had to remove). As
previously mentioned, that wonderful mountain logo flashes before our eyes
before it cuts to black.
It is a very safe move to bring
back the Nazis as the bad guys, but in all reality who else would it be? Certainly
not an Indian death cult these days. The previous film had tried to establish
as agents of the USSR, or more broadly communists, as the bad guys but that’s
more a matter of political philosophy rather than being downright evil. Overall
the film feels incredibly safe; it would have been interesting to bring the
adventure to home, as Harrison Ford is rather old, maybe have him look into
some spiritual thing with the Native Americans against the Nixon
administration, or something where Ford doesn’t have to run around and
gallivant across the globe for. It’s not a safe suggestion, but if they’re
adamant about making another film, then make it interesting or change things up
a bit! Likewise, in an article from 2022, Mangold did not wish to use
Industrial Light & Magic’s Stage Craft technology (imagine a 360° digital green screen
modern day equivalent to rear screen projection) in favour for practical
effects, and Ford insisted on doing his own stunts. However, the CGI bugs and
eels. As the rather obvious digital background on some of Ford’s close ups in
certain action and chase scenes tell otherwise. It begs the question that if
Disney are so intent on making this film, and if these scenes require such
special effects to hide the fact that your 80 year old star can’t do the stunts
he used to be able to, why write the scene in the first place? It’s rather
glaring in certain parts of the film and you end up wishing that you’d have a
much more realistic scene where Ford was sat on a sofa or something.
I’m well aware that these films
for the most part aren’t realistic and I do not wish to be interpreted as
attacking Harrison Ford’s age, but there was also an aspect of reality to the
first three films particularly. The use of models, real animals, younger
Harrison Ford actually being able to ride a horse all created this world which
even though it’s on screen, one could almost feel it and believe it. Compare
the truck fight and the tank fight from the first and third films, and compare
it to the horse chase in this film. You can believe one, but you question the
other. Coincidentally, the opening flashback scene where a de-aged Ford with
CGI noose, runs around on a train, feels more like a cut scene from an Indiana
Jones video game rather than an adventure from the previous films. Kudos to the
filmmakers for making that entire scene so dark that you struggle to see what
is happening to hide the de-aging effects, a very big mark up from what was
seen in Scorsese’s The Irishman.
Additionally running with playing
it safe, the soundtrack is said to be by John Williams. One gets the impression
that it was more, Williams turned up to the recording studio with boxes of
tapes and cut and pasted together themes from the previous films mixed with him
tinkling a couple of ivory keys and then returned home with a fat cheque in his
pocket. The soundtrack is unfortunately forgettable, being rather generic for
the most part and the only time your ears will prick up is when you hear Marion’s Theme or The Raider’s March, or a couple of bars from Crusade. Overall, however, the sound design is great and on par
with the previous films.
I promise that I will be getting
to some positives soon. The cinematography was the big thing which made me
question if it was a Spielberg film. Again it felt very average. It seems the
camera crew misplaced the lens for wide shots, and when they did find it, they
promptly lost it again. Everything seems to be close up. The action scenes are
in everybody’s face. The chase scenes are in the faces of those running and
those pursuing, with the odd close up of a pedal or dial (not the titular dial,
but a speedometer). Where are the wide establishing shots which show our
characters on the street and the thrilling choreography that one is meant to get
with a car chase or foot chase? You may get one of two generic dolly shots for
a brief second and then you’re back pressed up against Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s
face.
Mads Mikkelsen is the best part
of the film, and even then I feel he is underused. A superb actor whose
chemistry with the others is perfect. Playing a character who is similar to
Ford’s Jones, a bit too long in the tooth, and rather forgotten, wanting for
those good old glory days of the 1930s. The only man I know to make a SS
uniform look sexy. Mikkelsen brings an unnerving element to his role, in a
manner I found somewhat reminiscent of when he played Hannibal Lector in the
television series, Hannibal. His on
screen presence really takes away from everyone else sharing the screen with
him, and quite rightly too that for the majority of his scenes, he only appears
with secondary characters. It would have been nice for there to have been more
of a rapport with Ford’s Jones character, but what we were treated to was just
that, an absolute treat. One can’t even really find issue with any of the
characters, Waller-Bridge was fine and her chemistry with Ford was believable.
All the actors in this production were superb and did well with what they had
to work with.
I enjoyed the humility of the
film, making reference to the fact that Indiana Jones is so old now. It was not
the case that this elderly man turns up cracking his whip and everyone carries
on like he is in his 30s/40s. His outfit stands out from the others due to it
being so outdated. His retirement in the film is (fingers crossed) Hollywood
bidding farewell to this cultural icon. There were glimpses of that witty,
funny dialogue which was endeared from the previous films.
Despite the film lacking that
Spielberg touch, it was nice to revisit the character again and not have the
series end with Crystal Skull.
However it would be very nice to have the series end here and nothing more is
ever done. It won’t be the case because Disney have a wonderful way of finding
the teat on things and milking them dry. It was an incredibly safe film, which
paid a little more fan service than I would like (looking at the inclusion of
Sallah), and which dragged on for about 30 minutes more than it needed. It’s a
long film, and normally I don’t have an issue with a film's length, but you will
feel every second of this film. One has to ask who this film was made for? The
kids in the audience were chatting amongst themselves towards the end, I can’t
imagine they want to see an elderly man shuffle about, and the older audiences
who grew up with the original films were sort of indifferent to it all. This
was evident by the amount of yawns and checking the time on phones which were
happening all around me. Spielberg and Lucas clearly did not want anything to
do with it, and they are Indiana Jones. The lack of their presence is sorely
missed. It really is a mixed bag of emotions, I didn’t hate it, nor did I love
it. I found issues throughout but overall just sort of shrugged my shoulders to
it.
Go and watch it? There are far
worse things on at the cinema at the moment. You will definitely enjoy aspects
of the film.
Reviewer – Daryl Griffin
on - 30.6.23
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