movie review

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Harrison Ford picks up the famous fedora for the fifth time as Indiana Jones in this respectful and sufficiently entertaining yarn which seeks to put a cap on Ford’s appearances in the franchise.

It’s another globe-trotting, Nazi-punching, treasure seeking adventure which goes through the motions at an impressive lick but never re-captures the magic. This time the now retired professor of archeology is chasing down the Dial of Archimedes, a device which can detect fissures in time.

He’s aided by his god-daughter, played by the enjoyable Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Ethann Isidore, as a teenage hustler whose role feels created as a market-tested obligation. Mads Mikkelson is wasted as the under-written Nazi scientist who’s also chasing the dial.

James Mangold’s directorial CV has strong moments such as Walk the Line, Logan, and Le Mans ‘66. And he demonstrates vast courage in even attempting follow in Steven Spielberg’s footsteps in the grandmaster’s signature franchise.

To compare Mangold to Spielberg in any other context but this one would be as grossly unfair as comparing the person painting the Forth Bridge to Picasso.

One is doing a fine job in difficult conditions, the other is creating Guernica.

And of course Mangold comes up short, anyone would. The gulf in talent between Spielberg and Mangold is easily demonstrated by their respective treatment of Jones’s hat.

Even in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the weakest of the franchise prior to this, Spielberg used Jones’s hat with a deft sleight of hand, introducing it in gorgeous silhouette, and lingering as it waits to be picked up, creating anticipation in the audience our hero is about to appear.

Here Mangold bandies the hat about as luggage, uses it as a punchline to a non-joke, and worse, employs it as a superhero disguise, giving an octogenarian the power to punch people’s lights out.

And speaking of silhouettes, I missed the crispness of Douglas Slocombe’s cinematography of the original trilogy. 

This seemed shot to compensate/accommodate the CGI, which only raises from modern blockbuster passable when impressively de-ageing Ford to his prime, in the lengthy Second World War sequence.

Back in the film’s present of 1969, I understand the now grizzled Jones is frustrated and deeply dissatisfied with life, but he’s never given the opportunity to use his wits, learning, or problem solving ability. 

Think of the tension generated in Raiders of the Lost Ark by watching Jones measure out a bag of sand to balance the weight of a gold idol. Or Sean Connery defeating a plane with his brolly in The Last Crusade.

There are at least four Professors in prime roles in this film, which must be a blockbuster record, yet the film misses the opportunity to allow them to do much with their brains except ladle out exposition. The memorable exception belongs to Waller-Bridge and fair play to her for running with her big moment.

Instead Ford is shuffled from one action sequence to the next where it’s obvious he’s no longer doing any of his own stunt work.

The best stunts in Raiders, such as the truck chase, were based on breathless in-camera stunts from the 1930’s and as such were mostly dialogue free.  And were all the better for it.

‘Cut to the chase’ goes the Hollywood maxim. There’s good reason the saying is not, ‘Cut to the dialogue in the chase’, as this film amply demonstrates.

Here the characters trade barbs while racing tuk tuks, and their dialogue acts as an anchor to the action. The great Hollywood vehicle chases such as those in Bullitt, The French Connection, and any chase from a Mad Max film. All dialogue free.

Was George Miller not available to direct this? Was he not considered? He’s good with a truck chase in a desert.

Bless Mangold for having the cojones to take the hospital pass in following Spielberg.

But with a film crammed with bonkers invention, a great cast and a canvas designed to muse upon life, love & legacy, I should have been far more wildly entertained.

Love sci-fi? Check out our website, Nemo’s Fury

TOP GUN: MAVERICK

Strap yourself in as the blockbuster of the summer as this breathlessly exciting sequel blasts you along on supersonic waves of nostalgia, extraordinary aerial photography and the unrelenting charisma of star, Tom Cruise.

Inspirational, respectful of military service, and a paean to can-do team spirit, Top Gun: Maverick is a high-fiving, high flying celebration of the virtues of endurance and excellence, a victory lap for the star’s long lived career and a muscle-flexing statement of intent from Cruise’s Hollywood military-industrial complex.

Cruise reprises the role as naval aviator and all-round fighter jet pilot hero, Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell, who back in 1986 used his amazing aeronautical skills to avert a potential Third World War, and marked his graduation from the navy pilot school, nicknamed ‘Top Gun.’

Now living alone in the world’s best man-cave, Maverick remains a lowly captain while his contemporaries and rivals have flown up the ranks, with his one-time adversary, Iceman, is now an admiral, allowing for a lovely emotional return for actor Val Kilmer.

Out of date, out of time and threatened with extinction, Maverick will not go quietly into the night when an admiral wants a to replace the pilots with drones. My favourite Tom Cruise persona is the Cruise who’s told off, and Maverick is told off a great deal here.

He returns to the Top Gun academy to teach the latest generation of pilots and handpick a team to fly an almost impossible mission to destroy a uranium plant in enemy territory. The team are noticeably more ethnically mixed compared to last time, and even include a token women flyer.

Sadly there’s no return for actors Meg Ryan or Kelly McGillis, but romance arrives in the form of the gorgeous single mother bar owner, called Penny. It’s a slightly-written role but Jennifer Connolly’s charm and talent make it seems more substantial than it is, and it offers Connolly an opportunity to demonstrate some impressive sailing skills, and there’s a nice riff on Richard Gere’s 1982 romantic drama, An Officer and a Gentleman.

Of course the emotional core of the film is family, and Miles Teller sporting a moustache and Hawaiian shirts of his late on-screen dad and Maverick’s erstwhile partner, Goose. Jon Hamm and Ed Harris are also on hand contribute to the excessive levels of testosterone.

Being a Tom Cruise film, the flying is done for real. And frankly the death-defying flying sequences are astonishing. In order to do justice to all involved please watch this on the biggest screen available to you.

The final mission is an exhibition of phenomenal flying and involves hurtling at high speed through a canyon littered with deadly rocket launchers, at the end of which is a target barely a couple of metres wide. If that sounds suspiciously like Luke Skywalker’s Death Star mission in the first Star Wars film, it’s worth remembering that mission was inspired by a Second World War movie, 633 Squadron.

Armed with sky-high levels of machismo this is a surprisingly funny film, with the humour delivered with a remarkably straight face and a tone that veers at times but never falling into self-parody. After all, it would be hard to send itself up as much as the gloriously self-knowing brash and glossy original did, even if all the cast weren’t in on the joke.

You don’t have to have seen the original to have a great at the cinema with Maverick and co. and new director Joseph Kasinski dedicates this film to Tony Scott, the late director of the 1986 original Top Gun, and pays homage to Scott’s visual style with plenty of sunsets and silhouettes.

Plus Kasinski brings back parts of the original soundtrack, and is aided and is abetted by the musical talents of electro-pop pioneer Harold Faltermeyer, pop star LadyGaga and composer Hans Zimmer, and deploys their talents with deadly frequency and precision.

At least as great a time at the cinema as the glorious original, Cruise gets the summer off to a flying start.

Nemo’s Fury is an exciting digital reinvention of Jules Verne’s classic steampunk adventure novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 

Download for free to your smartphone or tablet, search your app store for ‘Nemo’s Fury’.

A mobile interactive fiction game employing a bespoke combat system and hundreds of original illustrations, Nemo’s Fury is inspired by the 1980’s role-playing gamebooks such as ‘The Warlock of Firetop Mountain’, of the Fighting Fantasy series which celebrated its fortieth anniversary last year.

Each player joins the legendary Captain Nemo on board his fabulous submarine, the Nautilus, on a wild voyage of adventure, intrigue, loyalty, and betrayal.

There’s mayhem, monsters, maelstroms and murder as Nemo takes you from the South Pacific to the Northern Atlantic via Antartica and the Red Sea. And if they survive long enough, the player will of course fight a giant squid.

Nemo’s Fury

The Mysterious Island (1975)

This brisk sixty minute animated adaptation is hand drawn in the style of the famous TinTin cartoon series, and delights in its similar sense of old fashioned derring do.

Faithful to Verne in its story, character, US Civil War-era setting and spirit of adventure, it sees am intrepid band of balloon-wrecked castaways and their dog attempt to colonise their new island home.

Fighting pirates and escaping the erupting volcano are given prominence, and the characterisation is appropriately two dimensional.

Nemo appears early, a watchful, mysterious and potentially malevolent figure, but is eventually revealed as an old dying man, and though his appearance alludes to his background as Verne describes it, his identity of Dakkar, Indian prince is not mentioned, nor is his vendetta against the British. Neb is introduced as a manservant, but is otherwise treated as simply another member of Captain Harding’s team.

The Nautilus is an enormous, palace-like vessel, bearing little relation to Verne’s description and unlike Verne’s version is capable of firing torpedoes.

Unremarkable yet straightforward, faithful and enjoyable, and played at a pace it’s target audience of young kids may have been content with at the time, but to a modern generation it will seem painfully slow.

Nemo’s Fury

Under the Seas (1907)

This thoroughly delightful silent short film by early cinematic genius Georges Melies is a parody of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

It bears little relation to Verne in terms of story, character, location or humour, but does channel his sense of wonder at the natural world, while nodding to his work with the inclusion of a submarine and an exciting battle with an octopus.

Melies gives this story far more fun and invention than Verne allows his audience, and it’s probably important to suggest the debt the filmmaker also owes to HG Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, first published in 1900.

Most of Under The Seas is now sadly lost along with much of Melies‘s work, but what we have remains . What we do have is wildly inventive and charming in the single camera static style familiar to fans of his work. Melies provides fantastical fish and dancing underwater nymphs among the slapstick, adventure, fantasy and spectacle.

No discussion of the cinematic adaptations of Verne would be complete without a passing mention of Melies, not least because his astounding and enchanting 1902 A Trip to the Moon is indebted to Verne’s 1865 novel, From The Earth To the Moon, featuring a group of scientists who travel to the moon in a cannon-propelled capsule.

Under the Seas is well worth seeking out and tragically it won’t take long to watch.

Nemo’s Fury

Captain Nemo and the Mysterious Island (1973)

Jules Verne’s second adventure novel to feature his greatest creation, Captain Nemo, is brought to somber if reasonably faithful life in this low budget Spanish production, which swaps the action packed thrills, larger than life monsters and wild imagination of previous adaptations, for the pleasure of Omar Sharif‘s company and plenty of political commentary.

Also known as La isla misteriosa y el capitán Nemo, or simply, L’Île mystérieuse, this production is either a TV movie or a TV mini-series, depending on where it was broadcast, and relies heavily on the undimmed star wattage of it’s sole name actor, Egyptian superstar Omar Sharif.

But it’s fair to say his decline at the box office had already begun from his sixties heyday of 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia, 1965’s Doctor Zhivago, and 1968’s Funny Girl, and his best efforts are hampered by a director more comfortable and interested with ideas than with pushing Sharif‘s performance or creating dynamic action sequences.

Verne’s US Civil War adventure about escaping Union POW’s being swept to a pacific island where they experience various perils as they establish a US colony and and meet Captain Nemo survives mostly intact. Yes, the extensive colonisation of the island is skipped, but the five principal characters are all there, including the African American, Nab, rechristened from Neb in other versions. He’s not given much character or agency but at least he isn’t relegated to a domestic role as in the source novel.

The POW’s escape from the stockade takes the form of a pitched battle and is excitingly staged on an impressive scale, but is sadly not indicative of what follows. The underwater photography is fine if far from groundbreaking, and the special effects are typical 1970’s TV quality.

Unlike the novel, Nemo and his submarine the Nautilus appear very early on to hook in sci-fi fans and the casual viewer with its star turn. Though a younger and more robust Nemo than fans of the book may expect, Sharif is a dignified and fittingly regal presence and never looks less than magnificent. And of course he has the charisma to carry off the role of Nemo, even in this staid production.

Nemo initially seems dressed in Flash Gordon’s wedding outfit, but later appears more conservatively in a turban and Nehru jacket, reflecting Nemo’s true identity as Dakkar, a deposed Prince of India.

I can’t be sure if Nemo’s real identity is explained or is just alluded to by his attire, but at least this version is giving Nemo’s Indian heritage its due, rather than whitewashing the character as some other versions will later do. Yes, I’m looking at you, Michael Caine. And you, Patrick Stewart.

Nemo uses his science to save a young boy from death. Harbert Brown is played by Rafael Bardem Jr. but I can’t find any biographical information for him. Though given this show’s director is the son of Rafael Bardem, a noted Spanish film actor whose career stretched from the 1940s through the 1960s. I suspect he is some relation.

Juan Antonio Bardem co-directs with Henri Colpi, and the former was imprisoned by Spanish fascist leader General Franco for making anti-fascist films. In case you were wondering, Juan Antonio is the father of director Miguel Bardem and uncle of actor Oscar-winner and James Bond 007 villain, Javier Bardem.

Nemo and his crew wear head scarves and flowing robes which may be a nod to Sharif’s turn in David Lean’s masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia, but it also certainly represents North Africa to the show’s Spanish audience, thus adding a layer of historical local conflict.

This version leans into the idea of the watchful Nemo not being an altogether benign presence, and allows this show to lean into the politics of Spain, then under the regime of dictator General Franco, who died in 1975.

Nemo employs electronic weaponised surveillance devices to spy on the shipwrecked POW’s, and this is reminiscent of 1967’s British avant-garde sci-fi TV series, The Prisoner, an idea also used in the 1995’s Canadian adaption of The Mysterious Island.

And this island surveillance of the shipwrecked also draws on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, whose central character, the powerful magician Prospero, spies and manipulates the behaviour of the castaways on his desert island. Later versions lean more heavily into Nemo-as-Prospero. I’m still looking at you, Patrick Stewart.

The costume department doesn’t shirk from styling the pirates in bandanas and Breton shirts, and when the action picks up the sound editor gets to be loudly expressive. It’s just a shame this decent bit of work is undermined in a lack of interest in or development of the characters.

The design of the Nautilus exterior errs towards the work of Gerry Anderson of Thunderbirds fame, which would no bad thing if the quality achieved were anything near even his weakest moments. And there’s an absence of the novel’s sojourn to a nearby island.

However there’s good location work at sea with a raft and a canoe, and Verne’s volcano is intact until it isn’t and erupts. It’s a spectacular if all too brief moment, and I assume it’s stock footage, albeit of a superior quality. That said my viewing copy was a poor transfer to digital and the colours were certainly more muted than I suspect were intended.

I’ll point out here I watched the original Spanish-language version of this without subtitles, any very basic grasp of Spanish means any exposition, nuance or sophisticated humour was pretty much lost on me, assuming it’s in there to begin with.

This sits nicely alongside BBC’s sci-fi series, Blake’s 7 by way of Mike Hodges’ 1980 adaptation of Flash Gordon, in that exterior locations exploit the possibilities of local quarries, there’s plenty of stagey composition in the single camera set-ups, and the cast are all acting in capital letters. Only I enjoyed both those shows more than this middling-at-best take on Verne’s masterpiece of speculative fiction.

This is a generally dour and ponderous adaptation, not helped by the mournful and haunting soundtrack. As ever, Verne’s dog and chimp are employed to provide the meagre laughs.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea {1954}

Verne returned to Captain Nemo in his 1875 novel, The Mysterious Island, which has been filmed several times. Read my review of 1961’s Mysterious Island, HERE

Nemo’s Fury is an exciting digital reinvention of Jules Verne’s classic steampunk adventure novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 

Download for free to your smartphone or tablet, search your app store for ‘Nemo’s Fury’.

A mobile interactive fiction game employing a bespoke combat system and hundreds of original illustrations, Nemo’s Fury is inspired by the 1980’s role-playing gamebooks such as ‘The Warlock of Firetop Mountain’, of the Fighting Fantasy series which celebrated its fortieth anniversary last year.

Each player joins the legendary Captain Nemo on board his fabulous submarine, the Nautilus, on a wild voyage of adventure, intrigue, loyalty, and betrayal.

There’s mayhem, monsters, maelstroms and murder as Nemo takes you from the South Pacific to the Northern Atlantic via Antartica and the Red Sea. And if they survive long enough, the player will of course fight a giant squid.

Available on your smartphone or tablet, (but not yet your desktop), click on your app store below

Or go to Nemo’s Fury for more info

LOVE OF MY LIFE

Director: Joan Carr-Wiggin (2017) BBFC cert: 15

 

One shouldn’t make jokes about cancer and this glacially paced farce certainly succeeds in failing to make us laugh.

Devoid of wit, mirth or ambition, it’s a malignant, morbid and mawkish misfire, unrelentingly unfunny, staggeringly awful and too predictable and painful to endure.

It stars three refugees you’ll recognise from classic comedy, Four Weddings And A Funeral, in John Hannah, James Fleet and Anna ‘Duckface’ Chancellor. The latter in particular is deserving of so much better material.

She plays middle aged mother and architect, Grace, who believes she has only four days to live before she undergoes an operation to remove a brain tumour.

Her arrogant and smug ex husband turns up declaring undying love and wanting to rekindle their romance. Her current hubby is a dithering drunken idiot, and doesn’t seem too put out.

It’s set and filmed in Canada, presumably for tax relief purposes. It speaks volumes even the British film industry wouldn’t stoop to funding this nonsense.

★☆☆☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

A CURE FOR WELLNESS

Director: Gore Verbinski (2017) BBFC cert: 18

 

Gore Verbinski administered shock treatment to Johnny Depp’s career by directing the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, and the magnificent mess, The Lone Ranger.

The appropriately named director now turns his hand to horror, with equally mixed results.

It’s beautifully designed on a grand scale, and stunningly photographed.

Brit actor Jason Isaacs is wonderfully measured as the governor of an exclusive Swiss sanitarium. Forever pale and interesting, Dane DeHaan is suitably cast as a young US executive sent to Switzerland to rescue his CEO from hydrotherapy.

In the vein of the venerable Hammer House of Horror, the story draws heavily on the European folktales which inspired Dracula and Frankenstein.

Distended on a diet of eels and red herrings, the constipated storytelling puts a strain on the audience. It needs a good dose of leeches. Movement in the bowels of the castle allows for a necessary and explosive purge of plot, providing great relief all round.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER

Director: Billy O’Brien (2017) BBFC cert: 15

There’s a beating heart full of love within this off beat and disturbingly entertainingly horror.

Young actor, Max Records, is terrific as John Cleaver, a bullied high school student works part time at the family mortuary and believes himself to have the potential to be a serial killer.

Veteran Christopher Lloyd has fun as his elderly neighbour and only friend.

But when John believes he’s discovered the existence of a real serial killer at large, his life takes a doubtful turn.

Due to the smart writing, assured direction and performances of rigid conviction, this is a macabre, small town joy.

★★★★☆

@ChrisHunneysett

BEYOND THE GATES

Director: Jackson Stewart (2017) BBFC cert: 18

 

Rewind to the era of the video nasty with this lovingly made, entertaining and accurate homage to cult comedy horrors such as such as Fright Night and Re-Animator.

When two brothers return to their parents’ defunct video store, they find a mysterious interactive video cassette game movie called Beyond The Gate.

They realise it holds clues to their father’s disappearance, but are warned playing the game could cost them their souls.

There’s a healthy amount of camp fun among  the blood letting action and enough menace to give you the shivers.

★★★☆☆

@ChrisHunneysett

HIDDEN FIGURES

Director: Theodore Melfi (2017) BBFC cert: PG

Equations lead to equality in this astronomically uplifting biopic.

When NASA find themselves behind communist Russia in the space race, three groundbreaking African American female mathematicians prove they have the right stuff.

Their brain power is instrumental in figuring out how to to return an astronaut alive from Earth orbit.

Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monae and Octavia Spencer bring warmth, integrity and humour to their roles. The latter was up for the best supporting actress Oscar, but all of them are deserving of an award.

The real life characters they play may have been hidden from history, but they’re easily identifiable in the labs occupied by white men.

Rather than preach, the script uses humour to mock the stupidity of racism and sexism. And the science is pitched at a level so dummies like myself can easily understand it.

Stirring, sentimental and sweet, it’s a powerful and entertaining story of heroism in the face of prejudice.

★★★★☆

@ChrisHunneysett