Tag: Antonio Banderas

Cinema Dispatch: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by James Mangold

I’ve actually gone back and rewatched the Indiana Jones trilogy recently, and for the most part, they still hold up pretty well.  Not so much Temple of Doom, but even that one has some charm to it and the big action packed finale is a sight to behold.  There’s just something unique about them that has kept the series relevant after all these years and sadly could not be recaptured with the fourth movie which at the time felt a bookend for the series.  Now we’re back with one more adventure starring the even more aged Indiana Jones and without Spielberg or Lucas behind the camera.  Does this change in direction bode well for Indy’s final adventure, or will this just feel hollow and cheap without the original creators who couldn’t even make it work again back in 2008?  Let’s find out!!

The year is 1969 and Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is now just crotchety old Dr. Jones teaching college classes that no one cares about when he’s not sleeping in his old man armchair.  Needless to say that the glory days have long been over with a few personal tragedies peppered throughout for good measure, but all of that is about to change as the daughter of an old friend shows up and asks him about an ancient artifact.  Her name is Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and she’s looking for a mysterious dial that her father was obsessed with and that Indy took off a Nazi researcher back during the war.  Said researcher, Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), is also after the dial which holds some mysterious power and when he sends his goons to take the piece of it that is at the university, Indy finds himself whisked away on one last adventure to settle an old score, solve a mystery from his past, and save the day once again!  Can Dr. Jones summon the courage and dust off the cobwebs to become Indy once again?  Why did Helena show up after all this time, and what are her plans for the Dial once they find all the pieces?  Seriously, is he wearing a fedora in 1969?  That’s somehow more disconcerting than the guy running around with a bullwhip.

“Anyone who cracks wise about my hat gets one right between the eyes!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Uncharted

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Uncharted and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

The quest for the truly great video game movie has felt like a moot point for years now; especially since people are rediscovering some of those old nineties films and realizing that they were actually pretty good. Mortal Kombat is well regarded for its fun action and interesting aesthetic (certainly more so than its 2021 counterpart) and I still maintain that the Super Mario Bros movie is an unsung classic of the dystopian sci-fi genre. Heck, even with the more recent films like Detective Pikachu, a good chunk of the Resident Evil movies, and arguably Sonic the Hedgehog, it’s hard to say with a straight face that we’re still waiting for someone to “get it right” when there are plenty of examples we can point to that are more than watchable. Now it’s time for Sony’s big cinematic money maker for the PlayStation to try and prove that it can be a good movie in its own right instead of just mimicking big-budget adventure films. Will it be another feather in the game industry’s cap as far as film adaptations, or will this be as quickly forgotten as that Tomb Raider movie from a few years ago? Let’s find out!!

Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) is a lovable crook in the heart of New York as he steals his way through a meager life because how else are you going to afford rent there? He has aspirations of… I guess being Indiana Jones at one point, but it’s not until some shady guy named Sully (Mark Wahlberg) offers him a job that his career as an adventurer finally gets off the ground. With promises of an impossibly large treasure as well as clues to what happened to his missing brother Sam, Nathan jet sets around the world to solve the mystery of Magellan’s lost gold! With the help of an associate of Sully’s named Chloe (Sophia Ali), can this unlikely team manage to find the treasure before ruthless businessman Santiago (Antonio Banderas) and his crew of even more ruthless mercenaries led by Jo (Tati Gabrielle) can take it for themselves? Who is this Sully guy anyway, and is he being forthright with everything he knows about Sam? Does Nathan have any idea what he set himself up for? I mean there are at least four games I could have shown him to give him a clue before he agreed to this ridiculous adventure.

“We’re falling to our deaths AND everything is on fire!?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Dolittle

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Dolittle and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Stephen Gaghan

My GOODNESS have studios been putting out some high priced nonsense recently!  We are definitely stuck in the Billion Dollar Blockbuster Bubble where every studio wants nothing but the most expensive movies to maximize their profits, but as is the nature with bubbles all the money Is usually dried up by the time everyone else tries to get in on it which is why Disney is still sitting pretty on their mountain of gold and everyone else is making stuff like Cats and that awful Tarzan movie.  With this being the current trend, someone making an overpriced adventure film about Dr. Doolittle feels almost inevitable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be bad!  I LOVE me some overpriced entertainment like Jupiter Ascending and Final Fantasy XIII, so maybe Dr. Doolittle being played by Iron Man and co-starring a wrestler as a CGI polar bear is just what I need to cleanse the palate and finally kick off the GOOD parts of 2020 which so far has been pretty plodding at the multiplex!  Is this retelling of the classic story the start of another beloved blockbuster franchise, or are we in for a disaster to rival even that of Cats!?  Let’s find out!!

Taking place AFTER what I presume is the actual Dr. Dolittle story, we find that the intrepid physician who can talk to animals (Robert Downey Jr) has gone fully Will Wonka and is holed up inside his giant wildlife preserve; refusing to see any visitors, human or otherwise.  That all changes when one day, out of PURE LUCK, he gets TWO visitors who insist on seeing him!  The first is Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado) who is on assignment from the Queen despite being all of twelve years old, and Tommy (Harry Collett) who shot a squirrel and has brought the wounded creature to Dolittle because he feels bad.  Lady Rose is there to inform him that the Queen is dying and requires his help which he reluctantly agrees to, and determines that she’s dying of McGuffin’s Disease which can only be cured by a fabled fruit on an uncharted island, so he takes some of his animals friends (Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, and Octavia Spencer just to name a few) on a boat to get the fruit and save the Queen; hoping that once this is finished he can go back to brooding in his house all day.  Oh, and Tommy is coming along too because… he loves animals too I guess?  Will the Dolittle Crew get to the magic fruit in time to save the Queen?  What challenges will they face along the way, and will some of it be intentional sabotage?  If one of the cats from Cats was in this movie, would Dolittle be the only one who could talk to it!?

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“So what you’re saying is that never was there ever a cat as clever as Magical Mister Mistoffelees?”     …     “What is that it?  I mean sure, throwing your voice is a skill but I wouldn’t call it MAGICAL.”

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