Film Review - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the fifth and supposedly final Indiana Jones film with Harrison Ford as Dr Jones and this time he is in 1969 and is retiring from teaching but one day his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) shows up wanting his help to find the Dial of Archimedes which is said to be very powerful, also wanting it is the scientist Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) who may be related to a famous enemy from Indy’s past.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was a movie I held out hope for despite the absence of Steven Spielberg in the directors chair though given his poor directing in 2008’s Kingdom of the Plastic Prop-sorry-Crystal Skull which felt a whole lot like a man who didn’t want to direct it perhaps James Mangold of Wolverine and Ford V Ferrari fame was a good bet to take the reins but would this deliver or be another false hope like X-Men Dark Phoenix and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

Well it wasn’t a false hope but its also a movie that on the whole is fine, nothing bad or awful but nothing great either, Harrison is perfectly fine as Indy this time around but it feels like the film is trying to hide his age a little too much at times and the de-aging done on him for the films prologue set in 1944 is hit and miss, at times it works but other times it looks like a video game.

As for Phoebe Waller-Bridge she is again perfectly fine and is the normal capable woman that these films have though some of her dialogue did bother me at times while Toby Jones was pretty annoying as her father Baz (he really suffers in comparison to Denholm Elliott in Raiders and the Last Crusade) and Ethann Isidore as Teddy kept making me think of Abu the monkey from Aladdin and he is again perfectly fine but nowhere near as good as Ke Huy Quan as Short Round from Temple of Doom.

But there are 2 things that really drag this movie down for me:

- The first of those is Mads Mikkelsen as Voller, frankly not only is he boring to watch as a villain but his character does so little in terms of the storytelling he more often than not feels like a prop for extended chase scenes be it on a train or in a car or on a boat etc etc and Mikkelsen in Casino Royale showed that he could play a memorable villain when given the opportunity but here he’s boring and doesn’t compare to Belloq or Mola Ram or Walter Donovan.

- And secondly and this is regrettable for me to say but its James Mangold’s direction, so much of it is done in close ups and close shots and steady as she goes editing that it again feels flat and lifeless and I know these comparisons to the first 3 films are unfair but I have to go there as those 3 films were Steven Spielberg is his directorial prime making the kinds of films that very few knew how to do back then (only John Carpenter, Ridley Scott and the late great Richard Donner could compare.)

And the action in those films is exhilarating and thrilling and Spielberg showing us what he could do (in fact George Lucas wanted him to direct Return of the Jedi before a bitter fallout with the DGA over Irvin Kershner’s credit placement on Empire Strikes Back saw that scrapped) whereas here Mangold just goes about it slow and steady and it’s fine but not good enough to compare to Spielberg or even Mangold who is a capable director outside of this film.

And lastly I want to mention this because I did think of it while watching the film and that is to me Indiana Jones is like John Rambo, characters who were born out of a specific time and place (Indy the 30s adventure serials and Rambo the Vietnam War) that when you take them out of their respective time periods and put them forwards in time they don’t quite feel the same and that could work with the right care and approach to the story but with both of these characters it doesn’t and perhaps its now time to leave them both well enough alone.

And so that was Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and its fine but nothing remarkable and I want to forget all about it now that I’ve seen it because its just not worth more than a “it’s fine”, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - No Hard Feelings (2023)

No Hard Feelings is a new comedy that stars Jennifer Lawrence as Maddie who is risking losing her house and loses her car due to not paying property taxes so one day while at her bar job she answers an ad from a wealthy couple (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) for someone to “date” their introverted 19 year old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) before he leaves for college, Maddie accepts the job and Percy is more than meets the eye.

No Hard Feelings is good fun and watching it in a cinema with a crowd reminded me of how much I missed watching a comedy on the big screen with an actual audience as opposed to watching one at home on my TV and this is a fun comedy with plenty of laughs in store.

Also Jennifer Lawrence is in full on movie star mode and she takes to doing a comedy like a hand in a glove, she is effortlessly charming, likeable and funny and it is great to see her anchoring a movie again and she has good chemistry with Feldman as Percy as she tries to bring him out of his shell and that delivers plenty of good laughs in its own right.

And so that was No Hard Feelings and it is a fun romp that is worth watching with a crowd, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)

Transformers Rise of the Beasts is the follow on from 2018’s Bumblebee and sees the Autobots led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) in 1994 where the Terracon Scourge (Peter Dinklage) is after the Transwarp Key that will summon his master Unicron (Colman Domingo) to Earth but Prime will need the help of Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) and his Maximals to Roll Out and save the world so all are one and free.

Rise of the Beasts isn’t as good a movie as Bumblebee was (having Kelly Fremon Craig rewrite your script uncredited does help) but it is a solid follow up that for the most part I enjoyed watching and firstly the use of 1994 and its hip hop culture was very nice and it didn’t feel too much like window dressing for the most part so we can have our cast dress up in mid 90s fashions and we can play mid 90s hip hop and other songs of that era on the soundtrack.

Also while before heading into the film I felt the addition of the Beast Wars spinoff characters (Beast Wars was a spinoff Transformers series from the 1990s made by the same team that also made the breakout CG cartoon Reboot about life inside a computer) was Paramount pressing the panic button to generate interest in a new Transformers film again they do work fairly well for the most part and hearing Perlman and Cullen play off each other was pretty cool especially in the third act.

And lastly Anthony Ramos from In the Heights is so so so much better than Shia “Nononononononono OPTIMUS!!!!” LaBeouf it isn’t even a contest here he actually plays a character instead of a panicky screaming plot device with a girlfriend and is very appealing as the human lead as is Dominique Flashback as Elena an archaeologist in training who finds a clue to the Transwarp Key and her and Ramos do have good chemistry together.

And so that was Transformers Rise of the Beasts and it along with Bumblebee are easily the only 2 live action Transformers movies that you should bother watching as their well made, have endearing human characters while using the Transformers characters well and giving you good action that doesn’t give you a migraine in return, I hope this group of films gets a third entry and Megatron returns because I want him back to face Prime one last time before either Peter Cullen or Frank Welker pass away, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Elemental (2023)

Elemental is the new Pixar film and concerns Element City where Earth, Water, Fire and Air elements all live together in harmony and here we meet a Fire element called Ember (Leah Lewis) who is poised to take over her father’s store but one day she meets a Water element named Wade (Mamoudou Athie) and well Opposites soon attract.

Elemental is not a great Pixar film but it is a good one and I am surprised by how much I did enjoy it and firstly the concept of Element City is a good one and the film does a good job developing this idea where a Fire element can be partially put out by Water and Water can help an Earth element grow more and Air elements can fly in the air and have their own skyways and when the Water elements cry it is good fun to watch as they almost could create a flood with their tears.

And also the film works very well as a romance story of opposites attracting and each person bringing out the best in the other and culture clashes especially when the parents grew up in the traditional ways and the children grew up in the West and were exposed to those ideas and customs of that culture moreso and those scenes really got to me and because of that the film worked for me more than I thought it would.

And so that was Elemental and it is a good Pixar effort and my favourite of their since Onward in 2020, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - The Flash (2023)

The Flash is the new DC film and stars Ezra Miller as Barry Allen aka The Flash who is keen to return to the point in time where his father (Ron Livingston) is not convicted of his Mother’s murder but Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) warns him that he could destroy the universe if he does so, well Barry does run fast enough to go back in time but ends up creating a world without metahumans just as General Zod (Michael Shannon) attacks Earth like we saw in Man of Steel so Barry seeks out this timeline’s Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) to help him save the world.

The Flash is a movie that I am very mixed on, on the one hand it does have some good things going for it mainly Keaton and Affleck as Batman though the latter is only in the beginning of the film while the former has a sizeable role and is great to see back in the suit after 1992’s Batman Returns left a polarising taste in many mouths and saw him and Tim Burton shown the door on the series and his action moments are a lot of fun as well especially given the tech advances made since his early films.

Also watching him in this movie did actually make me want a live action version of the Dark Knight Returns comic with him as Batman.

As for Affleck as Batman watching him in this movie I instantly thought of my beloved Timothy Dalton as James Bond, someone who did a great job with that character but never really got the chance to prove it to audiences either due to timing or outside circumstances beyond their control, in the case of Dalton as Bond it was Christopher Skase and the Qintex collapse in 1990 leaving MGM/UA in the hands of people who tried to undercut the Broccoli’s and didn’t want Dalton back as Bond.

Meanwhile with Affleck’s Batman it’s the response to Batman V Superman in 2016 and the mad scramble on Warner Brothers’s part to course correct which led to him leaving the role and as good as it is to see him here he looks checked out and ready to move on to making movies like Air again.

As for Miller as the Flash he is okay but I’ve never really been all that on board with him as the character because he felt like to me more of a rip off of Evan Peter’s Quicksilver from the X-Men movies and this isn’t helped as I really liked Michael Rosenbaum’s voice work as the character in the Justice League animated series where he was fun to watch but there was also a warmth to him as well, something that is sorely missing from Miller’s take on the role.

Now comes to the bad part of the film and firstly the humour in this movie is really obnoxious, so many times the movie goes for all these big joke moments and they all fell near completely flat to me, I am so fucking sick of the way humour is used in modern movies they just go so overboard with it that I feel pulled out the film.

Also the use of the Multiverse and Time Travel especially in the end of the film feels like such gobbledygook that you just sit there going “What on Earth is Going On” and it isn’t helped that this movie is coming out so soon after Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and the Best Picture Oscar win of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once both movies that do a much better job with their multiverse storytelling.

And so that was the Flash and this Flash won’t save everyone of us and feels like a slog at times but it has 2 good Batmen in it so it isn’t a total writeoff, 2 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse follows on from 2018’s Oscar winning film Into the Spider-Verse and sees Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) try to balance being a school boy and Spider-Man but when Gwen (Halle Steinfeld) returns from her universe to bring him into the Spider Society crazy adventures ensure as well as a meeting with the mysterious Miguel (Oscar Isaac) who isn’t too happy with Miles taking on the Spider mantle.

Across the Spider-Verse had me skeptical going into it but right away the film won me over and I really enjoyed it, firstly the animation style here is remarkable to witness on a big cinema screen as it throws all kinds of different styles at you, some feel like street art, others a sketchbook while others feel like hand drawn animation with Adobe Flash addons plus the film does a good job replicating that comic book feel of how stories are told in that medium which sometimes doesn’t translate well in live action.

Secondly Miles and Gwen feel a lot more fleshed out as characters here, the first film was more of an ensemble team film but here the 2 leads are proper leads and they anchor the story equally and both Moore and Steinfeld rise to the challenge asked of them as does Oscar Isaac who does good work here as Miguel even if I’m pretty well over the “Villain is the Evil version of the Hero” troupe that Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock started in Spider-Man 2 in 2004, I wish our comic book villains were more of a mix of his and Brian Cox’s Stryker from X-Men 2 as he was a terrible person and I miss that in my movie villains.

And third there are some fun references and easter eggs for Spider-Man fans across the board and there were a few that I spotted that made me laugh.

But to go back to that animation style as remarkable as it is at times it feels very overwhelming as it throws so much at you in the frames of the film that at times it felt like too much for me, I get it guys you want to pack the frame the Zuckers did it wonderfully with their comedies but you don’t need to throw everything at me all at once I can keep up.

And also at 140 minutes the film feels a little too long especially when this is only part one of a two part story and just as Part 2 needs to have a beginning Part 1 needs to have an end so you don’t walk out of it thinking “That was a waste” and thankfully that doesn’t happen here its an okay cliffhanger but I did feel the length from time to time here.

But that said this is a fun time at the movies and along with Women Talking, John Wick 4 and Air is one of my favourites of the year so far, 3 and a half out of 5.