#Harrison ford witness roger ebert movie
#Harrison ford witness roger ebert series

It’s said you’re not a true Star Wars fan unless you hate Star Wars. Images courtesy of Netflix Australia, Paramount Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures Video Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade & The Mummy are now streaming on Netflix in Australia. The more ridiculous but less coherent The Mummy Returns followed two years later, also directed by Sommers, with the same cast, but it hasn’t stood the test of time as elegantly. It’s breezy and enjoyable, and suitably chilling. The visual effects, too, have held up considerably well, and Sommers along with his cinematographer Adrian Biddle have done a masterful job of framing beautiful but claustrophobic spaces for their characters to get lost in.

He is the bond that holds the set pieces together. It’s standard fare but incredibly fun, particularly because Brendan Fraser, as the Indiana Jones-like swashbuckler Rick O’Connell, is endlessly charming, hilarious, and convincing in action. Sommers brings great energy to this picture, which is all about ancient Egyptian curses and creatures returning from the dead and our heroes reciting the wrong sacred passages from the wrong sacred books to accidentally unleash all the wrong kinds of phenomena. I’m actually thankful for that, because this Mummy would’ve shrivelled up and died if anyone working on it had taken it seriously.

#Harrison ford witness roger ebert movie

It’s all incredibly preposterous and has very little in common with Universal’s original Mummy movie with Boris Karloff, but it’s directed by Stephen Sommers, who is, let’s say, a little rough around the edges and not primarily concerned with making great movies. The kind of adventure movie that can have you hiding behind your fingers one moment and laughing out loud the next. The Mummy, which I hesitate to admit kept me awake for two weeks straight after I saw it for the first time in 1999, has grown for me into a balanced cocktail of fun and dread. Here is a movie that has aged superbly, retaining its humour and dogged atmosphere of eerie thrills more than twenty years on from its original release.

It is a full-blooded, often hilarious adventure, my favourite of the lot, and in casting Sean Connery, I think Spielberg has indeed topped himself. And this time, Indy actually has a profound effect on the outcome of the story. Last Crusade does everything an Indiana Jones movie must do and includes all the sensational chases and nail-biting stunts that made Raiders great (in some cases, like the sequence involving the tank, it is even better than Raiders). Of course, none of this would matter if the movie as a whole didn’t work.

#Harrison ford witness roger ebert series

In Last Crusade, he is so complete you’d think he was a series regular, and it’s this very comfort that convinces us he’s Indy’s dad, Marcus Brody’s old friend, a true historian and an explorer capable of accepting the supernatural. Connery has always been able to determine exactly what a part requires of him and tune his performance accordingly. His proper introduction in the German castle and the ensuing motorcycle chase contain some of his funniest exchanges. He develops a chemistry with Harrison Ford so natural, so convincing and gleefully entertaining that the film kicks up a gear whenever he’s on screen. Connery, as Indy’s clueless but often resourceful father, adds a spark to the movie unsurpassed by anyone else the series has to offer. Perhaps the best thing to happen to the franchise since the melting Nazi faces. True, but Last Crusade has something Raiders didn’t, something Temple of Doom (1984) attempted to remedy semi-successfully with Short Round: Indy’s perfect foil.Įnter, Sean Connery.

But there was no way for Spielberg to top himself”, wrote Roger Ebert when he reviewed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989. “When Raiders of the Lost Ark appeared, it defined a new energy level for adventure movies it was a delirious breakthrough. If you’re home and in the mood for some swashbuckling archaeological throwbacks, Netflix has two killer classics for you to enjoy in isolation.