These Dads are freakin’ old, 3.5 readers. BQB here with a review.
Ah, Bill Burr. He’s the only comedian out there taking on the veritable treasure trove of comedic material that is wokeness and making a fortune doing it. Surprisingly, Netflix, the champion streaming service of wokeness, allows him to do it because they know a cash cow when they see one.
If you’re a fan of BB’s comedy, you know he became a dad late in life at age 50 and suffered culture shock when he found non-stop, daily disagreement with the much younger generation of moms and dads of the friends of his kid. This is bound to happen. Millenials parent one way and Gen X? Another way entirely.
Well, Bill finally got around to making a movie about it. Here, he stars with two other old dads, played by Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine, the trio of BFFS all had kids late in life and all must now circumnavigate a strange new world of parenting that includes talking about feelings and emotions and being non-judgmental when damn it, the old dads never met a problem that walking it off and rubbing some dirt on it can’t cure.
NOT TO GIVE AWAY A SPOILER, but the funniest scene, IMO is when Bill’s character, Jack, calls an obnoxious school principal a (brace yourself) CUNT! after she rags on him incessantly for picking up his son late. Truth be told, the principal’s rant was a bit much, but Bill’s use of the c-word was like dropping an atomic bomb to kill a fruit fly.
This is a mere set up the for the humor that comes next. At the urging of his wife, Leah (fans of the League will be happy to see Katie Asleton back in action), Bill arrives at the school, hat in hand to give an apology, only to be force to not only apologize to the principal, but to his surprise, an assembly of 50 parents and students called in, each with their grievance about the comment, most of whom were not present when the word was dropped. “I’m sorry I said this in front of 6 of you and that those 6 then when on to tell fifty,” Bill says.
I admit the older I get, the more I feel like an alien in the modern world. Sometimes there are improvements that I think were a long time coming. Sometimes there are nonsense trivialities that make me think we are a nation of crybabies that will be easily invaded and conquered any day now. The answer seems to be for generations to stick to their own peers when it comes to socializing, but when you’re a 50 year old dad, you have no choice but to spend time with the 20 and 30 something year old parents who think words are violence, microaggressions can make you worse than Hitler and all offenses must be mediated on twitter.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Double spoiler – there’s a scene where Bill and the boys are talking about hot chicks and one of their younger dad peers is disgusted by the objectification of women and I hate to say it but its been forever since I’ve been able to converse with dudes about hot chicks because even men my age have bought into this. What has life come to if we can’t talk about hot chicks? Sad! Sad, I say!
Hollywood ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, 3.5 readers.
BQB here with a review of Hulu’s latest comedy.
You might know Charlie Day as the loveable janitor on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Here, he breaks out in a movie of his very own, and becomes a veritable Charlie Chaplin, bringing a modern take to vaudeville schtick.
Day plays a helpless, homeless, mute mental patient, dumped into the middle of LA by an overburdened mental facility that doesn’t have the funding to take care of him anymore. He’s instantly snatched up by movie producer Ray Liotta (one of his last roles and it’s so sad to see him so full of life only to realize, well, that he no longer is). Liotta’s Western film is struggling due to a troublesome actor who bears a striking resemblance to Day’s mental patient, but who simply won’t cooperate.
Said mental patient is accidentally named Latte Pronto, due to a mixup with a coffee order, and through a series of comedic misunderstandings, he goes down the rabbit hole of super stardom, never saying a word, never doing anything of any importance really, just lucking out as he happens to be in the right place at the right time each step of the way, getting ushered from one opportunity to the next from a cavalcade of all-star cameos, from his energy drink addicted down and out publicist Ken Jeong, to his fast talking agent Edie Falco (perhaps her best role since the Sopranos), to his whirlwind tabloid marriage to a famous actress (Kate Beckinsale) to a foray into politics aided by John Malkovich.
Aided by the various cast members of the Always Sunny gang, Latte achieves great fame and glory with all its ups and downs, but like iron pyrite, discovers that Tinseltown is only a paradise for fools.
As a comedy fan, I enjoyed this flick because it had plenty of classic jokes that were just there for the sake of comedy. No lessons or story behind them, nothing of real value, just there for a setup and a punchline. The downside is that while I appreciated all the gags, none of them were real gutbusters. I never really openly guffawed, just a mild smirk here and there. Day’s overall premise is that fame boils down to being in the right place at the right time and any fool can do it, even a bumbling idiot mental patient with nothing to say…so I don’t know if that means if all of us nobodies should be happy that we avoided such a silly business or mad that we didn’t get our piece of the action if getting it is so easy? (The title of the film would suggest the former, though I assume Day is happy with his lot in life.)
BQB here with a review of the latest Marty Scorcese epic.
It’s the early 1900s and the people of the Osage nation in Oklahoma have become absurdly rich, for oil has been found on their land, and plenty of it. The white man has been hoisted on his petard, for the land the Osage were ordered to remain confined to turned out to be lousy with black gold and well, the white man being the white man, will no doubt want to get his hands on it.
Osage starts out as a rare place in the early 1900s where white people are the servants and people of color call the shots. One such menial laborer is Ernest Burkhardt (Leonardo DiCaprio, a longtime Scorcese collab), snags a job as a driver for wealthy Native American oil land owner Mollie. Before long the two hit it off and are married.
But what starts as a romance turns into horror as Ernest’s uncle William King Hale (Robert Deniro proving he still has it well into his old age, playing a rather menacing, yet two timing, conniving character) convinces his nephew to participate in a series of murders of Mollie’s family members, all in the name of securing rights to the oil land. Mollie, plagued by illness, is a formidable foe as she investigates te murders while her body is ravaged by diabetes, going all the way to Washington to plead with President Coolidge for resources to investigate the murders, never suspecting until its too late her hubby and uncle in law are the ne’er-do-wells. Her lobbying efforts would go on to become a reason why the FBI was eventually founded.
Overall, its a good film and definitely the first Oscar bait of the season. My only complaint is that at nearly 4 hours long (you read that right, a surprising nearly 4 hours long!) I began to wish that Ernest would plot to have me wacked just so I could go home and get some sleep. I get it. It’s an important story of racial injustice that needed to be told, but it really could have been told in 2, 2 and a half tops and after awhile there was just a lot of redundancy and stuff that could have been cut out. Maybe Marty is getting up there in years and lacks a heavy hand in the editing room.
I have no idea why I keep falling for this drek, 3.5 readers. Once upon a time, there were franchises I could always count on for a good time. Fast and Furious was one of them until they let me down in May with their latest monstrosity that they owe the fans an apology and a refund for.
But the Expendables? Nah. No way Stallone would ever do us dirty, right? RIGHT?
Wrong.
But let’s back up.
Schwarzenegger and Stallone were the top action stars of the 80s, even into the early 90s. Alas, Arnie made the mistake of running for govanator of Cal-ee-forn-ya in the oughts, which I say was a mistake because he wasn’t that much of a governor and he missed out on his chance to rebrand himself as an actor and take on roles where he plays older, wiser, mentor types. Maybe even bring some of his old properties back for one last ride.
Stallone has managed to do that with style. In the past 20 years he’s given us a couple of fairly decent Rambo sequels, as well as some great Rocky sequels. But arguably his best contribution was the Expendables, a trio of action films that served as love letters to the 1980s action flicks that made him famous, the ones that former 80s kids like this writer loves.
And while many moves lamely patch themselves together with pathetic, tired cameos, the Expendables excelled at cameo fan service, giving action stars of yesteryear huge roles with plenty of room to strut their stuff for the fans who have missed them oh so long. Past outings have seen Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, AH-nold, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Harrison Ford, well, basically anyone who has ever fired a gun in a movie before has been in one of these films and given plenty of time to shine. Not just a silly walk on but time to shine.
Were these flicks low on plot? Sure, but they still had a fun, rudimentary plot. Despite a huge ensemble cavalcade of characters, everyone had something important to do for at least a few minutes. It was a rockin good time.
Now comes this mess. My first complaint is a big one. Stallone is barely in it and he’s really the main reason you’d see it in the first place. Talk about a bait and switch. It’s like being sold a ferrari only to drive it home and find out it was a bunch of cardboard prosthetics propped up and painted around a 1977 Gremlin. I really am getting sick and tired of these movies that look good in the promos only to disappoint on screen but I wonder how many times I’ll fall for it before I stop bothering to buy a ticket altogether.
Stallone’s number 2 man, Lloyd Chrismas (Jason Statham) takes the lead, avenging the death of Stallone’s character Barney Ross against a pretty insignificant villain. Past flicks gave us action film stars like Van Damme and Mel Gibson chewing up the scenery while the baddie is rudimentary. Someting bad happened years ago and there’s a secret bad guy and you know what its all so stupid it’s not worth your time.
Megan Fox gets a big part and her hotness defies logic as well as my pants but even she can’t save this stink fest. 50 Cent stops by but even if he were an entire dollar he couldn’t do much.
Missing in action are Expendable standards Terry Crews (Hail Caesar) and Jet Li. No explanation given. I assume they just read the script and there wasn’t enough money to convince them to debase themselves. I wish Stallone and Statham felt the same way. Especially Stallone. I mean, come on man. You slap your name and face on this, your fans come out thinking it’s going to be a winner only for it to be a loser cash grab? That sucks.
I don’t really understand the fizzle. Surely there are plenty of action stars who want five minutes to ride again. Or maybe this franchise already gave them that. And if they’re all too costly, then don’t ruin the franchise with a lousy flick.
STATUS: Not Shelfworthy. At some point, doesn’t Hollywood owe us a duty to not make shitty movies? Shouldn’t all these people look at this script and say this really blows and we aren’t going to hoodwink fans who loved the past three into thinking 4 is going to be equally great? So tired of this.
Paul Reubens/Pee Wee Herman died recently. For Generation X, he was like a zanier version of Mr. Rogers. It was quite a blow because I didn’t realize he was that old, but I suppose if you do the math, it adds up.
Some thoughts:
#1 – I rewatched Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and it amazes me how many phrases this movie coined that people used all the way up to the early 2000s. “I know you are but what am I.” “Why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer.” “That’s my name. Don’t wear it out.” “That’s so funny I forgot to laugh.” There are more I’m forgetting, but I know well into adulthood, whenever I was on the phone and people were talking, and if it was a light enough situation I’d do the Pee Wee voice and say, “I’m trying to use the phone!”
#2 – Pee Wee gave Tim Burton his big break. We wouldn’t have Beetlejuice, Batman, etc. without PeeWee.
#3 – I spent my whole life telling myself I can’t do this. I can’t do that. Then here is this guy who made millions pretending to be a hilarious man child character.
#4 – I’m torn on his early 1990s career ending arrest. On the one hand, there are celebs like Weinstein who did way worse and stayed in their jobs way longer. On the other hand, I remember even as a kid thinking that when you’re a popular children’s entertainer making millions, you’d think your number one priority would be to stay out of the porno theater. Even by early 1990s standards, porno theaters were very outdated. Why Paul didn’t just use his PeeWee money to buy himself a big screen TV and a vcr and a box of porno tapes and wank in the privacy of his own home is beyond me, unless doing it in public was part of the thrill. I don’t want to speculate but I wish he’d kept it at home because he was popular and really beloved by everyone – all races, colors, creeds, young and old – he could have gone one and done that Pee Wee schtick for a few more decades if he’d watched his porn at home. Honestly, I think by 2000, if he trotted PeeWee back out in some other format, we would have forgiven him.
#5 – There are old clips where PeeWee was a guest on Letterman and guest hosted for Joan Rivers and crushed it, such that I think he really could have killed doing his own late night talk show as PeeWee if he wanted to. He was just very quick and sharp, always stayed in character and thought of quips and one liners and delivered them as PeeWee that had his celebrity guests rolling with laughter. If he’d been up for it, I think he could have done that in the 2000s or early 2010s.
#6 – Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is the only PG rated movie I can think of that has gut busting laughs. Usually you need the R rating. Maybe a better film buff can point to another PG film I’m forgetting but this stands out in a crowd as a family friendly movie that will leave you rolling over with split sides.
Those are all my PeeWee thoughts. I’m sad he has passed on. I never thought about it while he was alive other than when you think about what he did – that when he was young, he was an aspiring actor and comedian who tried and tried and went to auditions and got passed over and almost got on SNL but got passed over and came close to giving up and then invented a character and put all his money into renting out a theater and doing his own PeeWee show and audiences loved it and word spread and finally he found his path to stardom, it’s really inspirational.
I don’t say this often because sad that I am to see celebrities go, but I love you, PeeWee. You seem like you were a really weird guy who could have just as easily allowed the world to put you on the sidelines as often happens to weird guys, but you fought, and you fought, and you tried, and you tried, and like the human whack-a-mole that you were, whenever the entertainment industry bonked you with its hammer, you kept popping back up until you got to big to whack. Rest in PeeWee Power.
This is going to be a quick, basic review because this is a quick, basic movie.
Perhaps you horror buffs will remember that in the novel, Dracula, there is some mention of how the titular villain shipped himself to England from Transylvania aboard the ship the Demeter in a box of dirt, said vessel was found run a ground off the coast of England a wreck, the crew all dead and no Dracula to be found.
This is the story of how that happened, how the crew discovered that their cargo was noneother that the world’s most infamous vampire and how they fought bravely (spoiler alert to no avail) to keep him from reaching shore).
All you aspiring writers out there be inspired by public domain fiction for there are all sorts of little tidbits like this to build on.
Liam Cunningham of Game of Thrones fame, David Dastmalchian and Corey Hawkins lead a crew of ne’er-do-wells against the Drac attack. Unfortunately, if you’re familiar with the novel then you already know the ending going into it, and the story is largely confined to the ship. There’s not a lot of room for character development, growth, romance or what have you. They set sail. They discover a vamp in a box. They fight it. They lose. The end.
Still worth a watch. If you feel like the trip to the cinema you could do worse than this but otherwise I’d wait to stream.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Some movies are steaks and some movies are moldy tuna fish sandwiches. This is a solid peanut butter and jelly sammy that will get you through but you’ll forget it tomorrow.
BQB here with a review of Christopher Nolan’s epic historical drama.
The atomic bomb. It was a terrible invention and yet, once science progressed to the point where its invention was inevitable, it became a necessary evil for America to invent it before a more evil power, say, the Nazis, invented it first.
Christopher Nolan, who has often wowed us with his mysterious, edgy, cliffhanger music style brings his usual schtick to this drama. If you came for action, you’ll be disappointed, except for the end where SPOILER ALERT the bomb goes off. I mean, that really shouldn’t have been a spoiler in a movie about the bomb, but there you go. The rest of the movie is a lot of talking – about how to invent the bomb, whether it can be done, whether it should be done, what will happen if the Nazis invent it first and so on. It’s heavy on the dialogue and Nolan makes very liberal use of dramatic music, such that it almost feels like this movie is a historic rock video set to a beat. At various points, you have prominent historic figures debating esoteric points and the heavy music kicks in just in time to remind you to be afraid, very, very afraid.
Cillian Murphy, a frequent star of Nolan flicks, plays the titular scientist – brilliant but flawed, as many geniuses are. So focused on the pursuit of knowledge that he allows his personal life to fall into disarray, chain smoking constantly while cheating on his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) with his longtime paramour Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh). To be honest, the film spends a lot of time trying to explain bomb science (we’re all too dumb to figure it out) and even more time on Oppenheimer’s battles with opponents who disapproved of his communist ties (interesting, but eventually the ground was more than covered) – it would have been interesting if the film could have explored what screw in Oppenheimer’s brain went loose that made him become a womanizing sex fiend. Ultimately, the affair makes him, his wife, and his girlfriend sad so why carry it on? Why start it in the first place? What was broken in him that he needed it? If that was explained, I missed it. We do get the general sense that from his early student days, he was very weird and eccentric, that his mind was essentially a glass and when all the milk of physics was poured into it, there was no room left for basic life skills.
Like Nolan’s unintelligible Tenet, time is not linear in Oppenheimer though unlike Tenet, the timeframe is understandable. Jumps are made forward and backward, from committee hearings on the nomination of Oppenheimer’s colleague turned rival Lewis Straus (Robert Downey Jr.) to various points in time in the race to build the bomb.
Oddly, its a three hour movie with a lot of talking but it goes by quick. If you don’t like dialog based flicks, this probably isn’t for you. There’s a lot of meditation on the bomb itself, its significance, how horrible it was yet sadly how once its invention became inevitable, America had to be the first to invent it, how Oppenheimer was torn between the love of the science behind it but the sadness of being responsible of unleashing the nuclear age upon the world.
Went on a stroll down memory lane this weekend, way back to the early 2000s, when I was a huge fan of the Shield. FX was new back then, and this was one of the shows that built that network. Tough, gritty, all about the anti-hero who you partially rooted for and partially wanted to fail.
In the first episode, the clock is ticking when a young girl has been kidnapped and every second counts when it comes to her safe return because God only knows where she’s being kept or what condition she’s in.
When a pervert suspect demands a lawyer, all the by the book cops are stymied by procedure, but fear this scumbag will walk while the girl dies in whatever secret dungeon she’s being held in.
Enter Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) who turns the camera off, lays out his torture tools, and proceeds to beat a full confession out of the pervert. The girl’s location is revealed within minutes and she’s returned home safely.
Good Vic.
However, by the end of the episode, Vic suspects a new member of his strike team detective unit is working undercover for his captain, trying to dig up dirt, and so during a raid of a drug dealer’s hideout, Vic shoots said dealer, then shoots said informant in cold blood, then plants the gun on the dealer. Doing so allows Vic and the boys to continue with their long running scam of stealing drugs from crime scenes and selling them to a drug dealer on their take.
Bad Vic.
And thus is the conundrum of Vic Mackey that lasts for nearly a decade of great TV. Vic has a super power in that he’ll bend, break and completely ignore laws that most cops won’t. Many times he does this for good – to save lives, particularly innocent lives – we cheer when he brutalizes psychos and scumbags, murderers and killers and saves innocents but then we are aghast when he commits crimes and murders witnesses in the name of being able to line his pockets with illegal drug money for another day.
There is a lot going on in this show, so I’ll begin with the premise. Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto” (Jeremy Allen White) has spent years working as a high-level chef at some of the best restaurants in the world, but when his older, alcoholic brother Michael (Jon Bernthal) commits suicide, Carmy trades glamor for grease when he returns home to Chicago to run the family business Michael left behind – a dirty old dive of a sandwich shop called the Original Beef.
OK, BUT WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Your guess is as good as mine. In many ways, it’s like your own personal Rorshach test and what you see isn’t necessarily wrong. My initial thought is it’s about the dark side of the American dream. For many, business ownership is seen as the pinnacle of success, true freedom, the ability to know that money will come in yet if you want a day off, you can have it. While you’ll never have to worry about answering to a sucky boss, you’ll damn near answer to everything else. If something breaks, you’ll fix it. If a bill is overdue, you’ll pay it. If a government inspector wants a word, you’re the one getting an earful. When profits run short, you’ll go without pay to keep your staff in the black. And when disaster strikes, you’re the one up all night, picking up the pieces.
Carmy exemplifies this lifestyle as the living embodiment of a walking, talking human panic attack. The poor kid says very little or does very little outside of work and constantly looks like his head is about to explode. If owning your own business is supposed to be fun, someone needs to remind him.
Maybe it’s about family, or how the people we love drive us nuts, and that insanity can be magnified times a million when money is involved. Petty rivalries, jealousies and infighting abound as Carmy deals with Cousin Richie (Ebon Moss Bachrach) and sister Sugar (Abby Elliott.) (An SNL alum, Elliott really shines here.)
At the start of season 1, Richie is miffed that Michael didn’t leave the joint to him and undermines Carmy at every turn, while Sugar sees the shop as an insufferable money pit/giant ball of stress that should be sold and forgotten posthaste. Carmy knows he’s better than this greasy spoon, but he just can’t bring himself to let this place, wrapped up with so many family memories, go.
Maybe it’s a show about perfection, about being the best at something and all the time and stress that goes into being the best at a trade. You may not know it but the chefs behind the scenes at your favorite restaurant really do toil away to bring you exquisite dishes in a timely manner and make it look so easy you probably never thought about all the skill that goes into it. Here, we get a constant look at this labor of love, kitchen workers hustling about putting the finishing touches on their masterpieces.
At the start of the show, Carmy wants to turn the Beef into something better. He’s well versed in French kitchen style – the ranks and customs and so on – militaristic rituals that turn cuisine into a science and get food ingredients out of the fridge, into the fryer, onto your plate and into your mouth in record time without you ever knowing about any of the fuss that went into it. Speed. Timing. Precision. Respect. Calling each other Chef. And dang it, keeping the kitchen clean.
But the Beef crew are more or less fast food minimum wage schmucks at the start of the show. With the help of his right hand woman/sous chef Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edebiri), a fellow culinary school grad, Carmy whips the crew into shape in an arc similar to any down on their luck sports team movie. You know the movies I’m talking about. First they’re idiots who think trying is for chumps but when they try, they start to win and they start to like it so they try harder and win more?
Chaos is the name of the game. Episodes are loud, obnoxious, fast paced, and crazy, all meant to mimic the frenzied pace of a busy kitchen. It’s hard to keep track of what’s happening when the characters are screaming at each other while having secondary and tertiary side arguments with others. Richie is the loudest and most obnoxious of them all and one wonders when someone will just knock him the eff out but he eventually redeems himself and grows on you.
Season 2 changes things up a bit as Carmy closes the Beef and goes on a quest to reopen it as the Bear – a fine dining restaurant “bearing” his family nickname. Apparently, the show became very popular between last year and this year because it’s a star studded cameo fest this year- Jamie Lee Curtis, John Mulaney, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Olivia Colman, just to name a few.
Yes, to be the best, you really have to put in the time. Morning. Noon. Night. No time for a life. No time for love. No time for hobbies. No time for fun. No time for anything. Our intrepid food slingers often wonder whether or not it is worth it but then again, they love food so much they can’t imagine doing anything else. Further complicating matters, they love each other, but drive each other insane.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. With so many cooking shows like Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen gaining popularity, it was only a matter of time before someone figured out away to dramatize food production, raise the stakes, and make us realize that behind every cheeseburger we scarf, there’s some poor bastard of a restauranteur sweating it out over whether he’ll be able to keep the lights on for another month. It’s almost enough to make you want to go on a diet, and you should, because let’s face it, we’re all fat.
Grab your hats and whips, 3.5 readers. It’s time for a review of Indy 5. SPOILERS ABOUND!
Hype is weird, noble readers. This movie got a lot of it. Bad hype. Hate hype. All the social media comments and online reviews, youtube videos etc – it all gave me the impression that this flick had taken a big huge steamy corn infested dump all over the legacy of America’s favorite fictional archaeologist.
Indy turned into a pathetic old man! Indy bossed around by a mouthy dame the whole picture! Four decades of a beloved franchise flushed down the toilet in the name of radical feminism.
I only bought a ticket with the intention of hate watching it and writing a scathing review for all 7 of your eyes, but to my surprise, I ended up liking it. It wasn’t that bad a movie at all.
Now don’t get me wrong. The original trilogy was fabulous with a perfect ending that wrapped it all up nicely, so other than the profit motive, I’m not sure Hollywood wants to keep tinkering with it. Well, the answer is because Disney bought the Indy franchise when it bought Star Wars and the rest of Lucasfilm’s IP, and I can’t blame them for wanting a return on investment.
The story begins at the end of World War 2 with a CGI de-aged Indiana Jones infiltrating a train full of Nazis making a run for it before the Allies arrive. They’ve packed the train with a buttload of stolen artifacts, all the relics and artwork they need to sell and fund their post war exile abroad.
With colleague Basil Shaw in tow, the duo is on the hunt for the famed Spear of Destiny, the spear said to have pierced Christ’s flesh when he was crucified. Truth be told, the legend of this spear and how it was passed about through various European rulers and how their downfall often coincided with when they lost control of the spear would, in and of itself, make for a great flick, but its only a premise for our heroes to discover an entirely new MacGuffin, namely that the train is carrying Archimedes’ Dial, an Ancient Greek device that Shaw has been obsessed with for years, due to claims that it can be used to travel through time.
Preposterous, surmises Young Indy, and dutiful suspenders of disbelief that we are, we’re totally supposed to forget that Indy has seen the Ark of the Covenant melt people who looked at it, went mano y mano with a voo doo priest who rips the hearts from people’s chests and turns them into mindless zombies and oh yeah, there was that time he met a still-alive ancient knight who was guarding the holy grail, which he used to cure his father’s bullet wound.
SIDENOTE: I gotta say, this beginning scene felt like it could have been from a lost cut of an old Indy movie. The effects are modern, but the CGI is brilliant, such that it looks and sounds like a young Harrison Ford. One wonders if we aren’t only a few years away from new Indy movies where Ford lends his voice and likeness and lets Disney techs work their magic to bring us new tales set in Indy’s golden age of the 1930s and 40s.
But I suppose that involves a debate of whether or not CGI actors are a good thing. That’s a whole other kettle of fish.
Flash forward to 1969 and Indiana Jones is very old, sad and lonely. It’s his retirement day as a college professor. He’s bummed for without his job he has little to look forward to. Marion, who he married in his 60s according to the Crystal Skull, truly the shittiest of the Indy movies with the exception that at least it left Indy in the happy situation of having a wife and newly discovered son, has left him, because of course she has. I get the online criticism here to an extent. I mean, they don’t ALWAYS have to leave our heroes sad and lonely but other than suffering the woes of old age, Indy proves he still has some piss and vinegar left, as does Harrison Ford.
Indy’s sidekick in this film is Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a woman so excessively British that she probably had relatives who spit shined King Arthur’s codpiece and her blood type is fish and chips. She speaks English throughout the film, but you know, Englishy English. I’m trying to say I have no idea what she’s saying half the time because she’s absurdly British.
Her character, Helena Shaw, to put it simply, is a total asshole. She is Indy’s goddaughter as her father and Indy were once BFFS. She approaches Indy under the guise of being a grad student researching Archimedes’ Dial, but this is just a pretense to steal it and sell it to the highest bidder. Throughout the film she insults and betrays our fearless hero, and I think that online critics didn’t quite get the point that the intention was that her character was written specifically so that she’d come across as a dick. Indy, however, isn’t that pathetic, and goes tit for tat with her throughout the flick.
My complaint is the writers never offer an explanation as to why Helena is such an unscrupulous d-bag. We see her father was a very nice, moral man. We see she was nice as a child. If there was an event, a tragedy, a something or other than turned her into a money hungry scumbag willing to screw over a close family friend in the name of cold hard cash, we weren’t told about it.
But Indy and Helena become frenemies as their larger goal is to keep the dial out of the hands of the villainous Jurgen Voller, a Nazi scientist who dreams of using the dial to rewrite history and turn the Nazi’s defeat in 1945 into a permanent, never-ending world tour.
There’s some great car chases. Incorporation of history. Thrills and chills. Twists and turns. Fun cameos. All in all, a decent flick. Does it outshine the trilogy? No. As good as the trilogy? No. Does it make up for the doody fest that was the Crystal Skull? IMO, yes. It’s a good movie, a fun time, and its far from the crapfest the internet tongue waggers are making it out to be.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Worth a trip to the big screen.
My thoughts on the future of the Indy Franchise:
#1 – Key Huy Quan, who played Short Round in Temple of Doom, just had a major career comeback, winning an Oscar at 50. Maybe it’s time to see what Shorty’s doing as an adult.
#2 – If done right, I wouldn’t be against a Disney Plus animated series where Ford lends his voice and likeness to Indy cartoons of Indy’s younger days.
#3 – CGI actors are getting better and better so before you know it, we might actually see Young Indy movies where he looks as spry as he did in the trilogy.
#4 – There’s talk of Indy passing the torch. Maybe, but the thing is, the franchise is called “Indiana Jones.” If another character becomes an adventurer, they might be inspired by Indy but they aren’t Indy. They might make movies where a younger actor plays Indy in his prime, but the role is so much all about Ford.
#5 – But ultimately, this IP is worth big bucks. Disney bought it, so they’ll want to make bank off it. Let’s hope Harrison eats his wheaties.
Bookshelf Battle 