Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/indianajonesandthekingdomofthecrystalskull/

Heroes don’t die, they just get older - and whole lot grumpier. Such is the case for Doctor Henry Walton Jones Jr., better known to all as that treasure hunting, snake-hating archaeologist Indiana Jones. His escapades have been daring - from tackling the nefarious plans of Nazi mystics in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark‘, taking on bloodthirsty child-stealing cults in ‘Temple of Doom‘, to dealing with those troublesome Nazis once more as they hunt for the Holy Grail in ‘The Last Crusade‘.

Its been a long wait for the next thrilling instalment, but now Indiana Jones returns, in a movie with a title thats as long as the wait itself: ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull‘.

This fourth film is set in the late 1950’s, with an older Indiana (Harrison Ford) having to contend with Soviet agents led by the villainous ‘Spalko’ (Cate Blanchett), the return of former lover Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and the possibility of a son he never knew he had. The hunt is on yet again, this time for the titular ‘Crystal Skull’, a powerful relic from the Mayan civilisation that may be extra-terrestrial in origin.

The trailer recounts the past exploits, ‘triumphing over the armies of evil’ and so on, before we get to an out-of-shot Indiana picking up his fedora and the sillouette shot that is an inevitable part of the ‘Indiana Jones’ effect. All hell breaks loose, with Indiana being chased through a top-secret relic-filled warehouse (last seen in ‘Raiders…‘) by agents of the Soviet Union. Whip-cracking and swingiing from many light-fixtures is the order of the day, and we see signs of the fallible nature of the character, as he mis-judges a landing and slams backside-first into a truck windshield.

There’s explosions, car chases, strange ruins, more explosions, wise-cracks a-plenty and angry savages as Indiana Jones tries to survive this very latest adventure.

Superhero Movie

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/weinstein/superheromovie/

Superhero Movie is a comedy film that spoofs (unsurprisingly) the genre of Superhero movies. Spoofs and parodies can be tricky to get right, but as is the case with recent atrocities, they can be flimsy excuses to jam-pack as much ephemeral cultural references and teen titillation as possible into one movie.

This time round we have a spoof on the likes of movies such as Spiderman, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Batman, among others; Rick Riker (Drake Bell) is a high school kid who gets bitten by a genetically mutated dragonfly, developing superpowers as a result. He becomes a crimefighter, ‘The Dragonfly’, and first on the list of duties is taking on the villain Lou Landers (Chrisopther McDonald), aka ‘The Hourglass’, who has the ability to steal a person’s life-force and begins to gain immortality.

Although the movie is meant to spoof all such genre films, the trailer shows that the Spiderman movie seems to be the biggest influence; we get the scenes of Dragonfly saving the damsel in distress in a dark alleyway, chasing after the school bus, the visit to the genetically-enhanced dragonflies, and the accident that gives our protagonist his powers, realising he can climb up walls and so on, with the inevitable slapstick and costume-difficulties that are a staple of ‘the spoof’.

Its worrying when the only mildly funny thing shown in the trailer involves someone getting stabbed in the hand with a fork, even if it is the villain.

The Happening

Trailer: http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/thehappening/

We end this month with M. Night Shyamalan’s newest ‘event’ movie, enigmatically (or perhaps lazily) titled ‘The Happening‘. Shyamalan has become somewhat familiar for his supernaturally themed films, as well as over-familiar for the ‘twist ending’ plotlines that have featured in a number of them. This new movie - written and directed by Shyamalan - stars Mark Wahlberg, and concerns a global environmental crisis; focussing on one family trying to survive a mysterious epidemic and the mass hysteria that ensues.

The trailer opens with a teacher (Wahlberg) as he discusses the inexplicable disappearance of honey bees, during which we begin to see the effects of a strange ‘event’, something that’s causing people to die, or maybe to kill themselves once they’ve become infected. Speculations as to what is happening and the cause - high on the paranoia list being terrorism - lead to mass exodus and hysteria as the infection spreads further and further.

Is it a disease? Or some other unknown force? Whatever the heck it is, it’s causing Mark Wahlberg to look really really concerned.

There’s a danger that this will be another ‘gimmick’ movie, where style wins out over substance, and its true that Shyamalan’s movie record has gone from good (Sixth Sense) to not-so good (Lady In The Water), but ‘The Happening’ could be a return to form for him.