Indiana Jones 5

Well the rumor is that Karen Allen is back as Marion, so hopefully they are still together in this film

That divorce nonsense doesn't work 

The final moment from the trailer of Indy ducking gunfire while the gangsters maintain the direction of said gunfire long after said ducking is enough camp to earn my confidence in the spirit of this last hurrah. Bring it!

Just saw the trailer (yeah, yeah, I know -- I'm slow with these things, okay?).

It was... surprisingly entertaining. Lots of good energy. And Harrison Ford still looks and sounds like Harrison Ford. Even with de-aging. 

Certainly, the digital look is much more noticeable this time around; perhaps more in the vein of the whole-hearted embrace (i.e., digital cinematography) that George Lucas wanted his pal Steve to pursue on "Crystal Skull" (with that movie ending up as more of a half-way house). I'm not the world's greatest Indy fan, so maybe I'm not fit to make too many pronouncements, but this looks like Indy carried into the circa 2022 era, yet still retaining a good deal of the series' classical serial spirit.

Maybe.

Oh, and it's got Phoebe Waller-Bridge, which is awesome. And pretty meta, given that she physically acted and voiced Lando's droid companion L3-37 in the underrated modern-day Lucasfilm production "Solo", who then becomes the "mind" of the Millennium Falcon after her mechanical body is destroyed.

So, all in all, I think I'll give this trailer (and the thrill ride it promises) 14 parsecs out of 12.

Oh, I definitely noticed it, but it wasn't necessarily thrown in your face. A lot of it could pass as practical, in-camera effects with some digital touch-up. The main difference is really the saturation, contrast levels, and overall texture of the image: these are all a lot more "digital" than before. 

What grounds the trailer and makes it feel Indy are a few things:

i) Harrison Ford.

ii) Harrison Ford.

iii) Harrison Ford.

iv) The glorious Indy theme.

v) John Rhys-Davies. It's good to see this guy again.

vi) The nice locations and perfunctory (yet seemingly crisply maintained) globe-trotting feel, replete with Middle Eastern/Moroccan/Colonial overtones.

vii) The quirky and propulsive set-pieces that Indy looks to be involved in. These look lively and well-staged.

viii) Some very slick camera work and sharp compositional choices (which give the upcoming movie -- relievedly -- a quasi-Spielbergian vibe).

ix) Additionally, some self-conscious yet very welcome visual riffs on light and dark, cinematic projection, and even a classic close-up of Indy reflected in a wing mirror in the middle of an action sequence.

x) Did I mention it's got Harrison Ford?

Yeah... I'm somehow cautiously looking forward to this now.

Seems they made a choice to consciously evoke that look and feel; albeit with modern touches and post-production techniques.


He doesn't really look or sound too old in this! He seemed older in the Sequel Trilogy.

It's a darker looking film, period, by the trailer at least.

Raiders and Temple of Doom were both darker, moodier-lit by comparison to Last Crusade and Crystal Skull. All four maintained Spielberg's quasi-classicalist sensibility in warmly hued and shadow-saturated black 'n' white Academy aspect ratio cinematography writ anamorphic Eastmancolor -- all four share the same characteristics in contrast and tone -- but the first two feature more scenes with less direct sunlight at play, often at night, in doors or subterranea whereas Last Crusade has a largely noon-hour Spanish/Mediterranean feel and with slightly higher key-light temp altogether while Crystal Skull, along with the changeup to DP Janusz Kaminski, made work of its 1950s setting with an almost nostalgic pastel tilt, harder halos, an uptick in reflective surfaces and technicolor boosted comic-strip jungle. 

Dial of Destiny is certainly recalling the 'magic hour' saturation of Raiders only less photochemically and more by way of digitally graded sepia... it is what it is. But it's also competently crafted by my eye. There's color-pop in the parade scene and above all an atmosphere of something luminously spectral between the WWII 'memories' perpetually shrouded by a (pop)cultural psyche and Indy once again negotiating a mystery ancient and weird.   


James Mangold has matured quite well in this regard, beginning with The Wolverine which is a good looking movie. I've argued once already in this thread that his really was the steadiest hand amidst known Hollywood directors to take over for Spielberg. He can deliver a very modern product that nonetheless maintains an underlying respect for more traditional dramaturgical visual language with character and action scenes alike. Ford v Ferrari exhibited his penchant for speed without overindulging in AbraBayhem (as in: JJ and Michael) and also a strand of humor that is goofy self-effacing (a nigh-perfect fit the Indy series) without being smugly self-deprecating (i.e., Marvel, or just about anything else these days). Even his exact lensing style is the most conducive to how Spielberg would block and frame his Indiana Jones films in particular with closeups and clinched compositions. Observe:



Sure, it's heyday Indy but even the shot as a whole, while basic and at cursory glance interchangeable with any grouping of current cinema, digs deeper into a kind of imagery grit where subjects are ruthlessly framed and with just enough of some token background environ. Brass tacks, it's a pretty hardcore '80s Indiana Jones visual. Overall, he's a sharp stylist, Mangold, whose editing & action filmmaking for me evokes Martin Campbell or perhaps the best of John Frankenheimer; so too a good match for Spielberg. 

Sorry for geeking out on such aesthetics. I sometimes get carried away with that stuff.

I will say however that I do like (the potential of) Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the leading lady role—she's British, brunette and with dark brown eyes, so, yeah right there. Much has been made of her aggregated FemWamen screen persona, her avatar as a progressive talking point and even the possibility of her correlating screenwriting osmosis somehow infesting this movie the way it supposedly did with No Time To Die. Whatever, I guess. She's also just a working actress. Dressing up pretty-boy stars in ridiculous superhero costumes so they can simp over and subjugate themselves before blandly casted and often desexualized female costars is one thing—and a thing that certainly happens all too regularly in some fashion or another. Yes, there's a lotta woke bullshit with Hollywood in general but it's best to take these things as they come, empirically, and this is yet another instance where Indiana Jones shares a commonality with James Bond. These are hetero-cavaliers borne from the older eras of pulp and men's magazines. These are your dad's heroes, and his dad's. Rather than emasculating, paring them up with sassy, self-intitled independents actually does well for a special kind of chemistry where Bond or Zorro or a John Wayne cowboy or, here, Jones brushes off a haughty soapbox with but a sly smirk in a way that plays the chaffing between both characters as a term of endearment. So long as it's written right, anyways. Even with Waller-Bridge's role as a goddaughter instead of a love interest, the material is ripe for a young heroine of the Women's Lib late '60s to charmingly saber a bit with an old-timer who rode with Pancho Villa and fought fuckin' Nazis. The whole thing might still tip over into a cringe fest but, for the time being, I doubt it.   

 

Ingram writes some damn fine prose when describing the aesthetics of film.

Love it. I absolutely despise what gets passed off as film commentary/criticism on Youtube. I'm looking at you, The Critical Drinker.