On the quest for the Holy Grail ...
SF films of the late 1980s
Originally written: July-August 1989
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Incident at Raven's Gate
Willow
Last issue we were discussing two films (Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) that were great successes partly because they took a fantasy construct and transformed it into a credible reality. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a very enjoyable movie but its affect on the audience is vastly different from either Munchausen or Roger Rabbit. While it entertains and enthrals one for the run of the movie, one is never convinced of its reality and, in fact, part of its appeal derives from its playing with the audience's sense of unreality.
Having enjoyed Raiders of the Lost Ark only marginally and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom not at all, I was quite prepared to be unimpressed with Spielberg's latest reincarnation of the 1930s' serials. I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised to find myself carried along by an enjoyable romp that is made by the interaction of the lead characters and in which dialogue is almost as important as action.
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Primarily, the characters of Indiana Jones and his father are responsible, with the script giving a great basis for Harrison Ford and Sean Connery to develop their characters. Connery has been doing quite well of late in the portrayal of character parts. In The Untouchables and, even, Highlander, his presence was a major saving grace of the film. Here, he is able to do the same thing with a very underplayed and laconic Prof Jones that counterpoints Ford's more frenetic 'Junior' very well. The rapport between the two is marvellous, even bringing back such underused cinema devices as the double-take and the 'slow- burn'. The other 'goodies', played by Denholm Elliott and John Rhys-Davies, reprise parts from the first film and are very effective. Unfortunately, the baddies are not as good. Particularly, the female lead, Alison Doody, whose German accent slips into an Irish brogue at the oddest times. There are other weaknesses in the movie. The introductory sequence doesn't have the strength of its analogous section in Raiders and the climactic scenes don't quite cap the movie as well as they might. (Fortunately, they avoid the irrational 'gosh-wow-ism' of Raiders.) Additionally, too often, the script overdoes its attempts to lighten things up. The worst case being the Venice "X". And, like Raiders, there are serious gaps in the logic of both the character of Indiana Jones and the action scenes, particularly, here, the battle with the tank.
However, like my memories of the Saturday afternoon serials at the Bondi Junction Coronet, I was carried along at the same time as I realised this was a complete fraud. In Raiders, the contradiction of the extreme reality of the production process and the unreality of the contents was, for me, the major problem with the movie. I didn't have that trouble this time, mainly because of the greater leavening of humour ("Look we're laughing at this, too") and Connery's brilliant performance (together with Harrison Ford's more assured characterisation). I can recommend IJ and the LC, but rate it BO (Brain Optional).
Bird in the hand ...
Rolf de Heer co-wrote and directed Incident at Raven's Gate, an Australian SF film, with supernatural overtones. He failed to get major theatrical release, however. (Fairly typical of the treatment of all Australian film, not just SF.) It has, apparently, gone straight to video, but the Valhalla Cinema (Sydney's avant garde reprise cinema) gave it a brief commercial 'first run'. And, allowing for the paucity of the competition, it would be amongst the best Australian SF movie yet. Not that it is without problems, but it has enough to recommend it to make viewing worthwhile. Set in the outback, its protagonist is an ex-convict, living with his brother and sister-in-law, and surviving despite the antipathy of the law and the local football hoons. Steve Bisley does an excellent job with this character, so it's a bit of a shame that none of the other parts are similarly developed. The plot revolves around the earthly presence of some sort of alien or unnatural force or being (this aspect is left unexplained, despite at least one local artisan being commissioned to designed the 'monster') and its effects on the lives of an old couple, the protagonist's family and immediate acquaintances. Because it has two time streams developing simultaneously (the alien threat and the investigation of the results of its presence), the film sometimes lags and, in its refusal to explain anything, it leaves one somewhat dissatisfied.
The movie was made on a very small budget, so it is remarkable that the makers have got it to look as convincing as it is, and they have been forced to integrate special effects better than they might have had the budget been larger.
However, Incident has enough quirky humour and interesting scenes (and a likeable enough lead character) to make the viewing worthwhile. Like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it doesn't drag one in and involve one in the film as reality but it entertains and diverts one. That's not a bad accomplishment these days.
Howard's End
What a meretricious waste of film-stock this is. Again it demonstrates that you cannot make a good movie merely by throwing lots of money in its general direction. At least some of the investment has to be directed towards the script and the development of some sort of decent framework within which the film can work. What we have here is the reductio ad absurdum of the quest movie with a race of dwarves (who nonetheless have normally proportioned children - which must have some effect on their ecology) become the pseudo-hobbits and link up with the usual set of quest figures, the thief with a (weak) heart of gold, the goody-goodies, personfully persevering against evil, and the magic user, whose usefulness is somewhat blunted. Opposed to them are the baddies from Cliched Evil 101: the soldiers led by generals who communicate by growls and whose concept of strategy is to throw more grunts into the fray and the Evil Queen, bent on world domination and who spends her time eating scenery. The only vaguely interesting character is the Queen's daughter, an independent woman, who, in the way of these things, naturally falls for the thief and becomes another simpering female.
There is the occasional scene where the combination of effect and action raises the movie to the level of mediocre but this is rare and director Ron Howard, working, it appears, under George Lucas' overall control, presents us with yet another Tolkien-clone that is a pale shadow of the original, given any credence only by the pandering Lucasites who can see no wrong in their hero. Despite its nomination for the Hugo award, there were many far better movies made in the genre last year.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]