Category: Phoebe Waller-Bridge

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY

By Marc S. Sanders

When a film director, the writers, and producers are trying to make a fifth installment of a franchise that spans over forty years, centered around one of the most iconic characters in history, it is important to consider every factor involved in the process.  My colleague, Miguel, commented that Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny had four writers attached to the project.  Normally, I call that a shortcoming.  When you’re stumped for imagination, turn to yet another writer.  In this case, however, I believe it served to ensure they were providing a fitting send off to the famed archeologist in search of rare antiquities.  Dr. Jones’ final silver screen adventure hits all the right notes thanks to storytellers focused on imagination and sensitivity for the celebrated character.

James Mangold, a director who I don’t think gets enough credit for his accomplishments (Walk The Line, Logan, Ford Vs Ferrari, 3:10 To Yuma) takes over for a busy Steven Spielberg who occupies the producer’s chair this time.  The Dial Of Destiny has a modern Mangold gloss to the cinematography, compared to the distressed, washed out films of Indy’s earlier adventures.  However, it remains a very well-constructed film that should be recognized especially for some outstanding editing.  At the center of the film is a swashbuckling chase through Tangiers on three-wheel scooters and cars. It is as breathless as any of Mangold’s prior work or Spielberg’s pieces.  In fact, all the fined tuned action sequences function so beautifully.   Give the editors an Oscar nomination now!  The DC superhero films need to take a lesson from this esteemed house of Spielberg.

The film has a wonderful prologue worthy of being in the same fraternity with the other films in the series as Indy (a de-aged Harrison Ford) and his colleague (Toby Jones) come face to face with Nazis as Hitler’s reign is quickly collapsing.  The set up of the titled MacGuffin is introduced aboard a high-speed locomotive through German territory.  Flash forward to 1969 in New York City, and it is the eve of Dr. Jones’ retirement being overshadowed by America’s parade celebration of the moon landing.  Circumstances that our hero was never looking for occur and before you know it, Indiana Jones is riding horseback through a subway tunnel after being set up by his long-lost goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge).  Clandestine antagonists are hot on their trail, particularly a professor who goes by the name of Schmidt (Mads Mikkelsen). Then it is on to Morocco, followed by a diving expedition among a school of threatening eels. Sicily is next, and I dare not even reveal where the final destination takes place, but it’s a welcome and very appropriate surprise.  Bravo to the promotion machinists for not even hinting where this new film eventually escorts Indy and his pals.

When George Lucas invented the famed archeologist with the fedora hat, crackling whip, and leather jacket, I believe he was simply looking to arrange with Steven Spielberg to offer an update of the Saturday cliffhanging serials they watched as adolescents.  Indiana Jones was not a character in Raiders Of The Lost Ark.  He was a carving.  Harrison Ford occupied the well-worn image. Spielberg’s silhouettes of the man kept him thankfully recognizable.  Later films gave the world traveler more depth with back stories pertaining to his father (a timelessly memorable Sean Connery) and his one true love Marion (Karen Allen; isn’t she great?).  Indiana Jones is an archeologist by trade. Yet, in an age of advancing technology with television sets in every home during the 1980s and video games being updated quicker than people pay for them, the character is cinema’s greatest historian and one its most adoring adventurers.  The greatest achievement that The Dial Of Destiny offers is an absolutely perfect send-off to the character that movie goers have gotten to know since he first appeared in 1981, when he was the best alternative to James Bond.

Unlike the British secret agent, though, I truly believe only one actor can play Indiana Jones.  All five films demonstrate that Harrison Ford is irreplaceable.  Unlike Bond, who is written to adapt to the respective modern age in which every new film is produced, Ford has aged in line with Jones.  Indiana Jones is a traveler through the history of the twentieth century, researching and uncovering evidence of centuries past.  In his youth he’s fallible, and his improvisation to get out of a tight squeeze remains thematically the same during his elder years.  Time passes and evolves over the twentieth century, but Dr. Jones’ profession and vast intelligence lives in a past before evolution and technological advancement.  

This film features snippets of 60s rock music and references the moon landing.  Jones clearly is grumpily dismissive of these new discoveries.  They are not appropriate in his world. His best skills in the field to fend off what interferes with him are a weapon of ancient times (his whip), some hard-hitting punches and a six-shooter pistol.  Other than his researched knowledge, he doesn’t advance further than that.  So, the character ages physically and out of modern date, just as the man who portrays him does as well.  Ford goes shirtless in one scene.  The wrinkles, grey hair, pot belly and love handles show.

The cast is very welcoming in this latest movie.  Phoebe Waller-Bridge is especially fun and spunky in the same vein as Karen Allen.  She’s smart and instinctual.  Daringly adventuresome too.  I know she’s a newly celebrated screenwriter, but I’d love to see more of her in front of the camera as well.  Toby Jones is that character actor who always looks fitting for a period piece.  Mads Mikkelsen is who casting agents dial up for the quiet, yet scary, villain that the best heroes in film need to face off against.  He’s not doing anything we haven’t seen him do before, but he works well as a smart Nazi stooge.  Antonio Banderas is here, not doing much really.  A kid actor named Ethann Isidore joins the party, reminiscent of the Short Round character, and John Rhys-Davies as Indy’s trusty pal Sallah returns for a few scenes to welcome applause.

The cast is dynamic, and all have their shining moments, but the film belongs to Harrison Ford. I regard his latest performance with a warm smile as a salute to his distinguished career of playing those everyman roles without the bulked-up muscles or tough guy bravado.  He never had the skillful soldier like ease of getting out of any dangerous situation like a Stallone or Schwarzenegger.  Ford steers his characters to those pictures where none of them, including Indiana Jones, ever expect to get caught up in grand adventures.  Yet, when it happens his performances leave you yearning for him to triumph and win out in the end.  The best example is Indiana Jones, of course.  He carries his audiences with the smarts of the character and the pursuit of the unknown and what we can learn more about.  The Indiana Jones series is one of the greatest inventions to ever grace a movie theater.  Because they are born out of history, they will always remain timeless and priceless with each passing generation that discovers these wonderful films.

It’s good to have Indiana Jones back in theaters.  I can’t wait to see this movie again.

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY

By Marc S. Sanders

To those who naysayed this standalone installment in the galaxy far, far away, all I say is you are trying too hard to be pleased.  Shut up and have some fun, will ya?

Solo: A Star Wars Story presents a film that stands on its own, relying on mysterious legendary side stories only talked briefly about for the last fortysomething years like the Kessel Run, Sabaac card games, dice and the origin of how Chewbacca met everyone’s favorite space smuggler, Han Solo, plus the Millennium Falcon and the scoundrel Lando Calrissian.  

My brother and even a few friends of mine (Joe Pauly) grew up loving John Wayne’s films. No one else epitomized a Hollywood western better than The Duke.  He was their childhood hero.  For me, it is the generation after that which introduced the space cowboy Han Solo played by Harrison Ford.  He is not anywhere near a multi-dimensional character; pretty one note if you ask me (which ironically is opposite of what I demand in any kind of storytelling these days).  

Captain Solo was the guy who would make it up as he goes; never planning ahead or considering others beyond his trusted furry partner and his beloved spaceship.  He’d poorly talk his way out of trapped situations and when that didn’t work, he was a fast draw with his blaster.  

The screenwriters for Solo, legendary Lawrence Kasdan with his son Jonathan, were all aware of Han’s placement in this space opera, while constructing this film.  Only this time they intended on showing how that devil may care came about. It reminded me of a similar approach writer Paul Haggis took with the reinvention of James Bond in Casino Royale.    A lone hero trusts very little beyond his own arrogance and self-assurance.  The Kasdsans used that technique as the spine for this story and it works.

Director Ron Howard is the right guy to fill in following a notorious director incident beforehand.  Howard keeps the film moving fast with casualties you might not expect to perish, revealing masks (an under looked theme of the original films), traitors, fast ships, fast cars, and their pursuits and chases.  A favorite scene, saluting the Western, is a thrilling train robbery across a snowy mountain that seamlessly changes its angle and vector at times.  It’s as awesome a scene as it promised in the trailers.  

Howard is best at keeping the film grounded in actors rather than tired CGI cartoons.  He definitely makes Han, Lando and the rest look convincing trying to steer a ship or carry a blaster and play cards.

The cast is great.  Alden Ehrenreich is fine in the role; young, cocky, brash, handsome.  I wasn’t looking for him to do a Harrison Ford impersonation.  That would only look like a 12:45 am Saturday Night Live skit. The guy had to do his own thing, not someone else’s much like the Batman and Bond films have done before.  Donald Glover is perfect as Lando, even adopting Billy Dee Williams own way of pronunciation (“Han” vs Ha-an”).  Still, he makes the part his own.  He’s fun to watch.  Beyond some mild makeup scarring, Paul Bettany makes for a really uncomfortable crime lord, like a suave Miami Vice drug kingpin, and Woody Harrelson is just right in the inspirational pirate role; gruff and tough and educating.  Emilia Clarke is finally directed properly in a film.  (I still haven’t forgotten her awful Terminator: Genisys Sarah Conner portrayal.). She is dangerously sexy, but smarmy and cocky like Carrie Fisher was.  She’s a great femme fatale of the 1940s beautifully incorporated into some very thick sci fi.  

This was such a fun time at the movies.  Go ahead.  Accuse me of my bias, but as well shouldn’t I be expected to be a tough demanding critic of all new Star Wars material?  I’d probably be wanting it to match the magic of the original trilogy.  Well no.  I don’t want it that way.  I want new and fresh ideas, while still recognizing George Lucas’ used universe settings.  Disney and Lucasfilm continue to move along, stretching their imagination in monies well spent while also following the rules of smart aleck characters, film western motifs, Eastern cultures and death-defying cliffhangers.  Had the Star Wars franchise remained with Fox, audiences would not be getting the treats we’ve been blessed with for these last 10 years.

Solo really only has two minor misfires.  The droid L3, Lando’s Co-pilot, does not live up to Anthony Daniels nor Alan Tudyk and their high brow robot attitudes.  Why? Because it’s hard to understand what L3 is truly saying.  The lines are garbled at times; drowned out by the robot dialect I guess, and maybe also by a mostly origninal score.

As well, there is one ending moment that’s eye opening, but puzzling with little demand for it.  It was one surprise that did not seem to be well thought out and considering this is a stand alone film, it left me unsure of what Lucasfilm hoped to gain from it.  The moment was too distracting for me.  Yet it’s in there and it’s not the worst offense.  Just very very unnecessary and perplexing.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is none other than great fun with something to think about.   I was laughing out loud.  The audience we were with was clapping and cheering.  That’s why Star Wars films continue to thrive.  Their audiences get caught up in the ride, especially when the films are relatable while not taking themselves too seriously.