{"id":938,"date":"2023-07-08T14:03:51","date_gmt":"2023-07-08T14:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/?p=938"},"modified":"2024-01-04T11:03:32","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T11:03:32","slug":"double-review-asteroid-city-indiana-jones-and-the-dial-of-destiny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/?p=938","title":{"rendered":"Double Review: Asteroid City, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s quite an achievement to be able to build your own aesthetic in the film world. When you\u2019ve got numerous Youtubers reimagining your style with AI in franchises like Harry Potter<\/em>, Star Wars<\/em> and The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, you know you\u2019ve hit the big league. And when a distinct colour scheme saturates every frame with meaning and intrigue through practically every film he directs, you also know you\u2019ve got yourself an auteur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

That fact can be great, and not so great. Asteroid City<\/em> has got the most packed \u2018Wes Anderson\u2019 cast so far. The ensemble includes regulars like Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Bryan Cranston and Edward Norton, along with newcomer Tom Hanks. Unfortunately, a group of talented big names aren\u2019t enough to lift the film out of a hollow and somewhat dull crater. Schwartzman acts as the emotional core of the story, expressing himself largely through grief-laden stares in a play-within-a-play setup as a grieving father. The actor is at his best with eccentric oddballs like Rushmore<\/em>\u2019s Max Fischer as opposed to brooding enigmas like Augie Steenbeck. Which is not to say that grief shouldn\u2019t play a part in the Wes Anderson plot. It\u2019s what makes classics like Royal Tenenbaums<\/em> classic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when you haven\u2019t got the poetic whimsy of The Grand Budapest Hotel<\/em> or the soulful tones of The Life Aquatic<\/em>, the grief that\u2019s present from the film\u2019s beginning doesn\u2019t really gel with the vintage Anderson palette. It\u2019s hard to emphasise with Steenbeck when we have minimal information about his background combined with few characters to engage with or play off his melancholy. Ultimately, there\u2019s too much going on character wise, with the alien subplot not quite working, and not enough attention given to the main storyline. Colourful as always, but nonetheless disappointing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, onto Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny<\/em>. I didn\u2019t really know what to expect here, as my memory of the original trilogy is pretty fuzzy, and the fourth film doesn\u2019t stay much in my mind except with that daft ending involving aliens and a fridge. So it was nice to find that the final entry in the series (supposedly, anyway) is a decent bit of light entertainment. The de-aging tech in the opening flashback scene wasn\u2019t quite convincing (I don\u2019t think the technology has quite got it perfected yet), but it was entertaining to see a young Harrison Ford and Mads Mikkelsen nonetheless. The first film without Spielberg, Logan<\/em>\u2019s James Mangold takes the helm, bringing back Logan<\/em> alumni Boyd Holbrook as the secondary baddie to Mikkelsen\u2019s big bad. And guess what? They\u2019re Nazis. Who\u2019d have thunk it? But yeah, if it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it, and the same essential plot is spruced up by a race against time for Indy to retrieve a dial that controls…time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phoebe Waller-Bridge joins the cast as Jones\u2019 goddaughter, and a few other familiar faces come along for the ride too. The action scenes are exciting and energetic, and Ford is great as always in one of the most iconic roles of his stellar career. It\u2019s nice to see the film spend a bit of time with Jones ruminating about old age rather than just keeping him on action mode the whole time, and it also feels refreshingly in keeping with the \u2018grumpy old man\u2019 character he portrays in public (it was funny just watching the preceding trailer where the cast bigs up the film, with Ford\u2019s two gravelly, taciturn promotional lines adding a bit of cynical light relief). If you\u2019ve got a rainy afternoon and you feel like heading out to the cinema for some escapism, this is a darn fine choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s quite an achievement to be able to build your own aesthetic in the film world. When you\u2019ve got numerous Youtubers reimagining your style with AI in franchises like Harry Potter, Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, you know you\u2019ve hit the big league. And when a distinct colour scheme saturates every frame with meaning and intrigue … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Double Review: Asteroid City, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1287,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions\/1287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancyepton.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}