This slam-bang adventure opens with a prologue that finds Harrison Ford’s surprisingly youthful Indy battling Nazis as they loot Berlin, prior to the city’s fall in the spring of 1945.
We briefly wonder: Has director James Mangold resurrected unused footage left over from a previous film?
 |
| Trying to keep an eye on his, larcenous, long-estranged goddaughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) proves increasingly difficult for Indy (Harrison Ford), particularly with a bevy of bad guys hot on their heels. |
This fracas establishes what will become the story’s ongoing clashes between Indy and the nefarious Dr. Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), over possession of the Antikythera, an artifact also known as the Archimedes Dial. For reasons unknown when the story begins, the famed Greek mathematician broke the mechanism into two halves, one of which is stashed on a train bearing the Nazis’ stolen plunder.
Cue an action-packed melee within and atop the aforementioned moving train, between Indy — accompanied by his overwhelmed Oxford colleague, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) — and scores of Nazis led by the hissably unpleasant Col. Weber (Thomas Kretschmann). Voller, on the sidelines, has his own agenda.
(It’s a shame that what ultimately becomes a mano a mano skirmish between Indy and Weber, atop the train, features many of the same stunts, moves and details employed by Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One, due in two weeks. Did these two production teams spy on each other?)
Cut to Aug. 3, 1969, the day the Apollo 11 astronauts are feted with a New York City ticker tape parade; and also the final day of teaching at Hunter College for an older, wearier and somewhat disillusioned Professor Jones. Not that any of his students will notice, since they have absolutely no interest in archaeology.
But one surprise visitor does: Basil’s daughter — and Indy’s goddaughter — Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), whom he hasn’t seen for years. She’s full of praise and questions, the latter quickly turning to the long-unseen partial Archimedes Dial. Believing her interest to be sincere, Indy reveals that it is indeed in his possession.
Elsewhere, in a posh hotel room, Voller and his neo-Nazi associate, Klaber (Boyd Holbrook) — along with their hulking man-mountain, Hauke (Olivier Richter), and a few other lackeys — have a chilling encounter with the Black porter (Alton Fitzgerald White) who delivers breakfast. Voller is contemptuous; White’s expression, body language and reply are sublime.
Alas, Voller’s men crash Indy and Helena’s reunion, demanding the Archimedes dial. Worse yet, during the ensuing fracas, Helena reveals her true stripes: She’s a career con artist, liar and thief. She snatches the dial, manages to elude everybody, and — to Indy’s disappointment and horror — swiftly departs the country in order to sell the artifact to the highest black market bidder in Tangier.
Indy’s own escape, with the baddies in hot pursuit, is a true rip-snorter involving the assistance of a four-legged member of New York’s Finest. Then, having been dragged reluctantly into this new adventure, it’s off to Tangier, in order to prevent the black market sale.
Helena isn’t pleased to see him again, particularly when Voller & Co. also crash the party (which subsequently involves a cute tweak on the whip-vs.-gun gag from 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark). Helena has a scruffy, resourceful young accomplice: teenage Teddy Kumar (Ethann Isidore). A larkish round of “dial, dial, who’s got the dial?” — backed by a droll John Williams orchestral cue — leads to yet another spectacularly choreographed chase scene, involving a couple of auto-rickshaws.
All of this — and everything that follows — would be a lot more fun, were it not for two glaring problems. The first, alas, is Helena. She’s arrogant, insufferably smug, dismissive, insulting, condescending and a general pain in the ass: characteristics that Waller-Bridge (unfortunately) plays to perfection.
While she can’t be blamed for how her character has been scripted — by Mangold, David Koepp, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth — the sad truth is that Helena repeatedly brings this film down. Even if we accept that this is a Character In Need Of Redemption, she’s so unpleasant, for so long, that we’d just as soon see Klaber shoot her.
Which brings us to this film’s second flaw: the wholly unnecessary murders of far too many sidebar characters, which adds an inappropriately mean-spirited tone. I can’t help thinking that Steven Spielberg, were he directing instead of merely producing, would have handled things far differently.
We get it: Voller and his men are über-nasty Nazis. They don’t need to keep proving it.
The race to find the rest of the Archimedes Dial — which Voller intends to activate, thereby unleashing its unusual powers — takes everybody to the Aegean Sea, and then Sicily, where…
…but that would be telling. Suffice to say, the eyebrow-lifting climax — a masterpiece of special effects — moves in a very unexpected direction.
Ford was born to play this role, and it’s great to see him once again grab the whip and don the felt hat. He still radiates authority and resourcefulness, and is quick with a quip; he’s equally persuasive when Indy ruefully reflects on the limitations of old age (particularly during a climb up an interior cave wall).
Age notwithstanding, he still takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.
Young Isidore is thoroughly enjoyable as Teddy: bright, impulsive, quick-witted … and an accomplished pickpocket. He proves invaluable.
Shaunette Renée Wilson has a thoroughly incomprehensible role as Mason, a CIA agent somehow in league with Voller (?!), which makes absolutely no sense. Can’t imagine what the writers were thinking.
The thrills, chills and spills aside, it’s also nice to see John Rhys-Davies return as Sallah, the cheerfully loyal excavator from Raiders and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He now works as a New York City cab driver, where his family has settled; he appears long enough to lend an important hand.
Antonio Banderas also pops up as Renaldo, a longtime sailor friend of Indy’s, who is helpful when an expert diver is needed during the visit to the Aegean Sea.
The film’s other key character, it must be noted, is Williams’ music. The heart beats faster — and Wednesday evening’s sell-out preview audience broke into a cheer — each time a given scene is backed by Indy’s iconic main theme.
Given that this really must be Indy’s swan song, it’s nice to see the film conclude with another, gentler reunion. And, perhaps, nostalgia will be enough for most folks to accept this as pure, dumb fun.
Helena notwithstanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment