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The Twilight Saga: New Moon
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A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
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London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Steven Spielberg.
Cast: Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, John Hurt, Ray Winstone
Description: Following an encounter with Soviet agents led by villainous Irina Spalko at the height of the Cold War, Professor Jones returns home to Marshall College with his plucky sidekick Mac. The dean of the college reports that government forces are putting pressure on him to fire Indiana. Shocked by this turn of events, Indiana decides to leave town for a while and is intercepted by Mutt, a young man with a tantalising proposition: if the archaeologist will help him carry out a deeply personal mission, Mutt will lead Indiana and Mac to the legendary Crystal Skull of Akator.
Country: US. 2008. 122mins
Crack the whip: Harrison Ford still has what it takes
Action heroes: Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Melody Hoffman, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart in Cannes
Don't worry, Paramount. You’ll get the $400 million you’ll need at the box-office to recoup your investment in the latest Indiana Jones movie.
That’s a fairly safe bet after the premiere in Cannes, where even some of those with bona fide tickets couldn’t get in, having waited impatiently for 20 years to see a new edition. Admittedly the applause was muted at the end of two hours of high jinks from a hero of 65 wrapping himself around Steven Spielberg’s lavish production values and sometimes hairy special effects.
But this was no Da Vinci Code critical debacle. It may not be the freshest or the best of the series but the formula still works, still making us enjoy the absurdities which remind us of the cliffhanger Saturday morning serials upon which Spielberg based the first film in 1981. Strangely, after all the doubts, some of them his own, Ford, our now fairly ancient hero, who is several times referred to as such in the screenplay, is the most convincing character in the cast. Certainly more so than Cate Blanchett’s Irina Spalko, who is the Ruskie villain of the piece and has to behave a bit like a pantomime figure. At least she ensures that there’s not a nasty Muslim in sight to torment the world’s most indestructible archaeologist. But then we are back in the Fifties with the plot, at a time when they were hardly invented.
No one manages to spout his or her lines with the same weary know-how as Ford who, if he really did most of his own stunts, is a very fit pensioner. The madcap action asks a lot of him, and he delivers. He escapes from a nuclear blast in a fridge, he falls down three giant waterfalls without even losing his hat and he beats up a large Soviet soldier with right and left hooks a much younger man would envy. There’s not much logic around but it’s all a sight for sore eyes.
Ray Winstone and teen idol Shia LaBeouf are treasure hunters who warn that the Russians are after a crystal skull that offers allembracing power. John Hurt is an ancient rival hunter and Karen Allen, the love interest in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, is back as the woman who can’t get her old flame off her mind. They all go to it with a will.
The film does most things asked of it with rumbustious enthusiasm, though it’s a pity an actor as good as Jim Broadbent has been relegated to a few amorphous lines at the end. But we can’t have everything, can we?
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Loved the first three so much that I dragged my poor wife to the midnight showing at Odeon Leicester Square. Sadly, this movie is DREADFUL. Mr Ford is more "Model-T" than "GTO" - very slow, very old... the plot(s) are unbelievable - I mean totally bizarre ... and the continuity problems are just so noticeable to be embarrassing. Indiana is just too old for this now, Mary looks like a prune and Shia Leboeuf ... well....
Anyway - go and see ... it should be called Indiana Jones and the Turkey Factory.
- From India, london, england
Morning:
12°c
