I had a great time looking at this movie, until I started to think about it and what it meant. Here's 81-year-old Harrison Ford portraying 65-year-old Indiana Jones in feats of derring-do that would have put me in the hospital, if I was lucky, at 30. The movie was preceded by coming attractions of movies that feature 70-year-old Liam Neeson taking on a maniac who has planted bombs everywhere, and sixty-two year old Tom Cruise saving the world and his wife by running very fast and jumping a motorcycle off a cliff, even though the mission is impossible.
I am old enough to remember when Clark Gable did his own stunts in THE MISFITS, and promptly died of a heart attack. He was fifty-nine when he died. It's certainly true that people can keep active and healthy and relatively youthful looking longer than they used to. Neither do I expect any sensible movie star to say "Certainly I am fit and quite able to do this, but keep your tens of millions of dollars, Mr. Producer." Likewise, the movie industry hasn't come up with much in the way of fresh ideas since W. K. L. Dickson directed BLACKSMITH SCENE in 1893. Nor should they. Their job is to take hundreds of millions of dollars, shepherd them through the movie-making process like Oscar Meyer moving cow parts through the frankfurter-making process, and come out with something north of however much moolah went in. Since at least 1893, audiences have demonstrated time and again that originality serves little to no purpose in the effort. The wise producer has taken heed.
And so, men -- and women, since Jane Fonda has been forced from retirement -- who should be spending their golden years enjoying their well-earned leisure, or engaging in roles that reflect the wisdom and dignity, and even problems that used to accrue to our elders to so do -- continue to pretend to run fast, get shot, and bounce back like rubber balls. And why do they do it? Because the producers keep offering them absurd sums of money. And the producers do that because we, the movie-going public, insist on it. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proven himself a smart and wise enough guy to get himself elected governor of California, and remains a voice of reason, passion, compassion, and love of democracy in our often fraught times. Yet he's still in demand in the movies, but only as a cigar-chomping tough guy toting a machine gun like it's a pea shooter and intoning "I'll be back."
He shouldn't have to. He only does it because many people, my age and younger, refuse to admit that we're getting older, and it's time to put away the juvenile fantasies that amused us when we were fourteen. Haven't we grown tired of sniggering at the same things over and over again? Haven't we grown up at all? Don't new problems and pleasures occupy us, or did we cease to grow more than half a century ago? Must the same people put on the same costumes and perform the same roles yet again, because we insist on being adolescents until they drag all our corpses from our Assisted Living facilities and dispose of the remains in whatever fashion is fashionable?
No, this is a very enjoyable movie. But until we, the movie-watching public decide to grow up, neither will the movies.
I am old enough to remember when Clark Gable did his own stunts in THE MISFITS, and promptly died of a heart attack. He was fifty-nine when he died. It's certainly true that people can keep active and healthy and relatively youthful looking longer than they used to. Neither do I expect any sensible movie star to say "Certainly I am fit and quite able to do this, but keep your tens of millions of dollars, Mr. Producer." Likewise, the movie industry hasn't come up with much in the way of fresh ideas since W. K. L. Dickson directed BLACKSMITH SCENE in 1893. Nor should they. Their job is to take hundreds of millions of dollars, shepherd them through the movie-making process like Oscar Meyer moving cow parts through the frankfurter-making process, and come out with something north of however much moolah went in. Since at least 1893, audiences have demonstrated time and again that originality serves little to no purpose in the effort. The wise producer has taken heed.
And so, men -- and women, since Jane Fonda has been forced from retirement -- who should be spending their golden years enjoying their well-earned leisure, or engaging in roles that reflect the wisdom and dignity, and even problems that used to accrue to our elders to so do -- continue to pretend to run fast, get shot, and bounce back like rubber balls. And why do they do it? Because the producers keep offering them absurd sums of money. And the producers do that because we, the movie-going public, insist on it. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proven himself a smart and wise enough guy to get himself elected governor of California, and remains a voice of reason, passion, compassion, and love of democracy in our often fraught times. Yet he's still in demand in the movies, but only as a cigar-chomping tough guy toting a machine gun like it's a pea shooter and intoning "I'll be back."
He shouldn't have to. He only does it because many people, my age and younger, refuse to admit that we're getting older, and it's time to put away the juvenile fantasies that amused us when we were fourteen. Haven't we grown tired of sniggering at the same things over and over again? Haven't we grown up at all? Don't new problems and pleasures occupy us, or did we cease to grow more than half a century ago? Must the same people put on the same costumes and perform the same roles yet again, because we insist on being adolescents until they drag all our corpses from our Assisted Living facilities and dispose of the remains in whatever fashion is fashionable?
No, this is a very enjoyable movie. But until we, the movie-watching public decide to grow up, neither will the movies.