DVD OF THE WEEK

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL ****
Dir: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia LaBeouf

Yes, after a break of a couple of decades, Indie is back, in what everyone pretty much agrees is his third greatest adventure.
Which may sound a little mean, but Raiders of the Lost Ark and that one with Sean Connery set the bar pretty high and, if this new outing only occasionally reaches such heights it is still a rollicking ride that delivers all you expect from an Indiana Jones film.
This time the setting is the cold war fifties with anti-commie paranoia rife. The villains, led wonderfully by Cate Blanchett's icy Stalin acolyte, are naturally nasty Ruskies, and the quest… Well, it's not quite as well defined as the two films mentioned above. There are aliens and ancient Mayans and the titular skull. It's all kinda confused, but the plot zips along with enough general good-humour to allow one to ignore its shaggy dog nature.
Joining Blanchett are other new characters. Too many possibly. Ray Winstone weighs in as a partner, John Hurt pops up as a batty old colleague, and Shia LaBeouf appears as Indie's son, all Marlon Brando Wild One greaser chic. Mum Karen Allen is back from the first film but struggles to find romantic space amongst the melee.
Also dodgy are a number of the action sequences relying a little heavily on digital work, resulting in a car chase along a cliff that reminds one of the dinosaur stampede in King Kong – very impressive but lacking in any genuine sense of danger. There are also moments – the Tarzan bit and the 'fridge escape” - that push suspension of disbelief beyond its reasonable limits.
But for all that, it's a whole bunch of fun. Like the other Indie films it harks back to an era of movies made for pure entertainment, and that's no bad thing.

Ryan Reynolds would appear to be the main attraction of The Nines (**). Particularly, according to women I've consulted, if he is wearing a swimsuit. And while this film purports to say profound things about filmmaking and creativity and the evils of Hollywood, it is also a rather pretentious, esoteric mystery, as the three separate stories (with three different Ryan Reynolds) start to interconnect. All is revealed at the end but it's doubtful whether the effort is worth the reward.

The filthy rich go under the scalpel in Savage Grace (**), based on a book telling the true story of Brooks Baekeland, heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune, and his socialite wife Barbara (a very good Julianne Moore). Related as a series of letters from son Tony to his father, it reveals a tensely masochistic marriage with much sleeping around. Tony grows up gay but does have at least one girlfriend, who promptly runs off with his father. Barbara seduces her gay male 'companion”. Then things get really decadent… Unfortunately the film's chilly style keeps one at arms length from the (admittedly appalling) protagonists, leaving little room for emotional involvement as they spiral into tragedy.

13 Tzameti (****) is a slow-burning black and white French thriller that builds a considerable net of tension by its alarming finale. The set-up has an impoverished roofer overhearing a conversation about a package that will make the family he's working for rich. When said package arrives he duly intercepts it and finds himself caught up in a ring of unscrupulous gamblers betting on Russian Roulette. Bleak, chilling and very impressive.

Unearthed (**). What can I say about Unearthed? An archaeological dig finds a creature that looks a bit like the one in Alien. But cheaper. It kills most of them. Being Indian territory there is, of course, an old legend. Which doesn't seem to help much. While committing no major insults against the intelligence this hardly breaks any new ground.