INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY : Tuesday 4th July 2023.

I saw the M Rated 'INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY' earlier this week. This long awaited and highly anticipated American action adventure film is Co-Written and Directed by James Mangold, whose previous film making credits take in his 1995 debut with 'Heavy' followed by the likes of 'Cop Land' in 1997, 'Girl, Interrupted' in 1999, 'Walk the Line' in 2005, '3:10 to Yuma' in 2007, 'The Wolverine' in 2013, 'Logan' in 2017 and 'Ford v Ferrari' in 2019. This film is the sequel to 2008's 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' and the fifth and final instalment in this five feature film franchise that began in 1981 with 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', then 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' in 1984 and 1989's 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'. Those first four films grossed worldwide US$1.99B off the back of combined production budgets of US$279M with each of those films being Directed by Steven Spielberg, who this time around takes an Executive Producer credit. With an estimated production budget of approaching US$300M it is the most expensive film in the Indiana Jones franchise, as well as one of the most expensive films ever made. The film saw its World Premiere showcasing at the Cannes Film Festival in mid-May where it received a five minute standing ovation, and was released worldwide last week, having so far grossed US$165M and garnered mixed or average reviews.

The film opens in 1944 during the WWII Allied liberation of Europe. Nazis capture Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford in his fifth and final outing as Indy) and Oxford archeologist Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), as they attempt to retrieve the holy Lance of Longinus at Nuremberg Castle - considered to be a most important artifact for Hitler. Astrophysicist Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) informs his Nazi superiors that the Lance is in fact fake, made of an alloy and probably no more than fifty years old, but instead he has found half of Archimedes' Dial, an Antikythera mechanism built by the ancient Syracusan mathematician Archimedes. An astronomical calculator, it leads users to fissures in time. 

Voller's superior scoffs at the importance of the Dial saying that no one has ever heard of it, so how can it be so important. Jones escapes onto a Nazi train filled with a cargo of looted antiquities. He frees Basil and, after fighting Voller on the roof top of the speeding train at which Voller gets knocked off when he stands upright just as the train passes a signal, obtains the Dial-half. He and Basil leap from the train as it passes over a viaduct into the river below, just before the Allies bomb it.

We then fast track twenty-five years later to New York City in 1969. Jones, about to retire from his teaching job at Hunter College where he has been for the past ten years, has also been separated from his wife Marion since their son, Mutt, died in combat in the Vietnam War. Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Jones' goddaughter whom he has not seen for eighteen years, turns up one day unannounced paying him a visit. She is now also an archeologist, and is researching the Dial, but Jones warns how her late father, Basil, nearly went insane after years of trying to unlock its secrets. Basil reluctantly gave Jones the Dial to destroy it, but he never did, instead keeping it safely hidden in the archives of Hunter College. 

As Jones and Helena retrieve the Dial-half from the college's archives, Voller's henchmen attack them. Voller, now works for NASA under a new identity, and is assisted by a CIA group led by Agent Mason (Shaunette Renee Wilson). Unknown to Jones, Helena sells illegal antiquities to the highest bidder. She escapes with the Dial-half, exposing her intention to auction it on the black market in Morocco. Jones flees into a ticker-tape parade celebrating the Apollo 11 astronauts moon landing, and then an anti-Vietnam war protest, before escaping through the New York City Subway system on horseback. He seeks out his old friend Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), now a NYC cab driver. 

In Tangier, Jones prevents Helena from auctioning the Dial-half off to a bunch of would-be purchasers. Voller and his henchmen (Boyd Holbrook, Olivier Richters and Martin McDougall) arrive and steal the Dial, forcing Jones, Helena, and her teenage sidekick, Teddy Kumar (Ethann Isidore), to join forces and pursue them in an auto tuk tuk. After a frenetic chase through the side streets and alleyways of Tangier, Agent Mason apprehends Voller, who appears to have his own agenda. The US government, now reject Voller, want him neutralised, but Voller's men kill the CIA agents, including Mason, and steal their helicopter.

Jones, Helena, and Teddy trail Voller to Greece and team up with Jones's deep-sea diver friend, Renaldo (Antonio Banderas). They retrieve a 'graphikos' tablet from an ancient sunken ship in the Aegean Sea, made of wood and coated in wax with ancient inscriptions written upon the wax surface. Jones notices that the tablet is too heavy to be just wood and wax and so burns off the wax revealing a gold dial that contains cryptic directions to the Dial's other half. Voller kills Renaldo and Jones's group escape on board Voller's motorboat and head off to Archimedes's tomb in Sicily.

Inside a meandering cave system, Jones and Helena locate the tomb after negotiating several dangerous and unpleasant obstacles along the way. They uncover Archimedes skeletal remains which is clutching the second half of the Dial and Indy also observes that the skeleton is also holding a present day wrist watch, to which he remarks that timepieces hadn't been invented for another thousand years. Voller and his henchmen meanwhile are in hot pursuit and eventually catch up with Jones and capture him shooting him in the shoulder. Voller then reconnects the two halves of the Dial together and reveals his plan to travel back in time to 1939, to kill Adolf Hitler, and lead Germany to victory in World War II, having witnessed all the mistakes that Hitler made in his war efforts. Voller activates the Dial to open a time fissure and sets a flight course. Jones is held captive and bundled onto a plane, while Helena has sneaked on board by clambering through the landing gear. Meanwhile Teddy steals a light aircraft and pursues them through the opening.

When approaching the eye of the opening the plane begins to rattle, moving objects around uncontrollably. Jones observes this and comments that Voller's plan to land back in 1939 doesn't account for Continental Drift which wouldn't have been factored in when Archimedes lived, and so rather than arriving in 1939, the time fissure instead leads to the 212BC Siege of Syracuse. Roman warriors shoot projectiles at the approaching plane, believing it to be a dragon. Jones and Helena parachute out before it crashes, killing all on board, including Voller. Meanwhile, Teddy's plane lands safely with the aid of the sleeping owner who was woken up by the events unfolding. Helena observes the fissure is closing and urges they leave immediately. Archimedes arrives having seen the parachute, inspects the wreckage and finds Voller's burned and dead body and is captivated by his wristwatch. He gives Jones the Dial but is fascinated by the watch and keeps it. Jones and Helena learn that Archimedes created the Dial solely to bring users from the future to 212BC to aid the Greeks. As the fissure begins collapsing, Helena insists on getting the Hell outta Dodge. Jones, who is wounded, wants to remain behind saying his has nothing to return to, and he has studied this time period all his life. Fearing he may not survive or could change the course of history, Helena knocks him out cold with a single punch.

Jones comes round in his apartment back in 1969 with his shoulder heavily bandaged. He is greeted by Helena, Teddy, Sallah, and also Marion (Karen Allen), who has returned from the shops with bags full of groceries to restock his meagre supplies and to aid in his recovery. Helena, Teddy, Sallah and his two young children leave to go get ice cream, so that Jones and Marion can talk alone, and make up their differences. 

'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' is entertaining enough and you're almost guaranteed a good time at the movies, but it lacks the bravura and the necessary spark that were the touchstones of its four predecessors. Director James Mangold certainly knows how to lay on the action set pieces, but here he lurches from one straight into another, and then another, followed by more of the same without too much regard for the script or exposition. Harrison Ford turns in a fine performance in the titular role, Phoebe Waller-Bridge certainly holds her own and Mads Mikkelsen as the antagonist of the piece is as menacing as he ever was albeit in an understated way. It is a fitting end to this movie franchise which has given us one of the most endearing screen characters of the last forty or so years that sees Indy and Marion reconcile and finally settle into their retirement. Amen to that!

'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

ANOTHER ROUND : Tuesday 16th March 2021.

'ANOTHER ROUND' which I finally got around to seeing this week following its Australian release on 11th February, is an M Rated Danish comedy drama film Directed and Co-Written by Thomas Vinterberg whose previous film making credits include 'Kursk' in 2018, 'Far from the Madding Crowd' in 2015 and 'The Hunt' in 2012. This film saw its World Premier screening at TIFF back in early September 2020, was released in its native Denmark at the end of that same month, has so far accumulated thirty-five award wins and a further fifty-one nominations from around the awards and festival circuit and has garnered universal critical acclaim. The film has been selected as the Danish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards, and so far taken just over US$2M at the Box Office off the back of a US$4M production budget.

Teachers, colleagues and long term friends Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), Tommy, Peter and Nikolaj ((Thomas Bo Larsen, Lars Ranthe and Magnus Millang respectively) all work at the same Copenhagen High School for fifteen to nineteen year old students. All four of them have become jaded to say the least and struggle in their tuition of the seemingly unmotivated student cohort, believing that over the years they have become boring and stale in both their professional and personal lives. Martin lives with his wife Anika (Maria Bonnevie) and two teenage sons, but hardly sees or speaks with his wife because she works at night, and he during the daytime, and when he asks her outright if he has become boring, she replies saying that he is not the Martin that she met and fell in love with years ago, before hurriedly rushing out the door to go to work.

One day while at work Martin is told that a delegation of parents and their sons and daughters want to meet with him later that afternoon. Martin teaches modern history and his students feel that his teaching style and the learnings he is trying to convey aren't working, are confusing, and thus failing to register with the largely uninterested class. Something has got to change. One night over dinner to celebrate Nikolaj's 40th birthday, at which an opening bottle of expensive Champagne is first cracked followed by caviar and an equally expensive Vodka, Martin says that he'll stick with mineral water as he has a busy day at school tomorrow and he has still to prepare when he gets home that night. However, Nikolaj starts to discuss the noted Norwegian psychiatrist, psychotherapist, author and Professor Finn Skarderud, who theorises that having a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.05 makes you more creative and relaxed. Martin soon gets into the vodka, and the red wine and opens up to his friends about the situation he was confronted with earlier in the day and the troubles in his marriage. His friends tell him not worry, that he is made of sterner stuff and how everything will work out just fine. 

Initially, the group dismissed the notion of Skarderud's theory but Martin is inspired and the next day takes a bottle of vodka into school, and downs a couple of nips before his morning class. And the end of that day Martin feels he cannot drive home as he would be over the limit and has Nikolaj drive him home instead. En route Martin mentions to his friend that he had several drinks during the course of the day and he feels great as a result, and his students have become more participative. Upon hearing this, Nikolaj calls Peter and Tommy and the four meet. Ultimately they decide to join in, considering the ordeal an experiment to test Skarderud's theory, and write a paper which they will later publish with their test results. They agree to a set of rules, namely that their BAC should never be below 0.05 and that they should not drink after 8:00pm weekdays and not at all at weekends. 

Within a short period of time, all four members of the group find both their work and private lives more enjoyable. Martin's class have become more responsive, more motivated, and more interested in his teachings and he also finally manages to reconnect with his wife and children, taking them on a canoeing trip and camping out in tents at night by the edge of a lake. Such is the success of their experiment, that they all agree it should be taken to the next level and so they increase their daily BAC limit to 0.10. 

With their lives continuing to improve, the group decides to attempt binge drinking to observe how their bodies and minds respond. Initially Martin is reluctant and says that he is done with their experiment while the other three prepare an Absinth based cocktail and start to dance around the room in Nikolaj's house. Preparing to leave, Martin turns and sinks an Absinth cocktail, then another, then something else. The group has a fun filled night, ending up in a bar, with Peter playing the piano almost naked, Martin dancing on the tables, and Tommy stealing two bottles from behind the bar to send them on their way. After coming home totally wasted, both Martin and Nikolaj are confronted by their families early the next morning. Martin's family state their worries that he is descending into alcoholism, revealing that he has been visibly drunk for weeks. After a heated argument, during which Anika admits to an affair, Martin demands the she leaves the house and the pair separate. The group as a consequence abandon the experiment on the basis that it is leading to alcoholism. 

Some months down the track, all the members of the group have stopped drinking during the day except for Tommy, who has become an alcoholic. Martin has reached out to Anika seeking a reconciliation, but she is seemingly not interested. A few days later Tommy arrives at work under the influence and is barely able to stand up or string a sentence together. Martin helps Tommy home that night, puts him to sleep, and cleans up his apartment of empty beer bottles and spent wine bottles and prepares a pasta meal for the both of them. Tommy is grateful but after tells Martin that he and his friends don't need to come around every day and check in on him - he's fine. Tommy boards his boat with his dog, gets frustrated trying to put on a life jacket so discards it and motors out on the ocean. The next time we see the boat bobbing up and down in the harbour later that evening, only the dog is on board whining and there is no sign of Tommy. 

The three remaining members of the group go out to dinner after Tommy's funeral and toast their departed friend with a beer. They ask themselves what Tommy would do under such circumstances, and so they go back to the restaurant where their experiment kicked off several months ago, and order that same Champagne to kick off with. While dining, Martin receives a text message from his wife who states that she misses him and says 'a lot' in a subsequent text and appears willing to give their marriage a second chance. In the meantime the recently graduated students drive by in an open top bus. Martin, Peter and Nikolaj join them in celebrating, dancing and drinking down by the harbour side. 

Martin, who in a previous life trained as a jazz ballet dancer, dances with the rest of the partying students, which he had refused up to this point despite the repeated requests to do so by his colleagues. As his dance moves become more and more frenetic he is last seen diving head first into the harbour, fully clothed.

It is easy to see why 'Another Round' ('Druk' in its native Denmark) has garnered such widespread critical acclaim. On the one hand this tragicomedy speaks to four friends all dealing with a mid-life crisis in their own way but connected through alcohol; it also deals with loss - of a marriage (well almost!), and the death of a close friend; and how a bunch of male friends behave when they come together with a joint goal in mind. On the other hand, it also deals with the excesses of drinking culture on the student age group depicted in this film from the opening scene to the closing sequence; and finally it tells a story of how with every action there must be a reaction, as the lives of these four men (and their students) are changed forever as a result of their drinking experiment. The four principle characters all give top notch performances that are believable, relatable, credible and confronting - especially Mads Mikkelsen who always gives his all with his grounded, nuanced and keeping it real portrayal of a man at a cross-roads in his life. Director and scribe Vinterberg has here crafted a thought provoking film that won't be for everyone (given its at times confronting subject matter), but nonetheless this is an emotional, sobering and heartfelt film that is sure to lift the spirits, and raise a smile without detracting from the ills caused by over consumption. I'll drink to that, cheers!

'Another Round' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

CHAOS WALKING : Tuesday 9th March 2021.

I saw 'CHAOS WALKING' at my local multiplex this week. This M Rated American Sci-Fi action adventure film is Directed by Doug Liman whose prior film making credits take in the likes of 'Swingers' in 1996, 'The Bourne Identity' in 2002, 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' in 2005, 'Fair Game' in 2010, 'Edge of Tomorrow' in 2014, and 'The Wall' and 'American Made' both in 2017. This film is based on the Sci-Fi trilogy 'Chaos Walking', adapting its first book, 2008's 'The Knife of Never Letting Go' by Patrick Ness. First announced in 2011, the film had undergone several rewrites with Liman later announced as the Director in 2016, with principal photography fully started and finished around 2017. Originally set for release on 1st March 2019, it was removed from schedule to accommodate the films' reshoots in April 2019 following poor audience test screenings. It saw its World Premiere in South Korea on 24th February this year and was released in the US and Australia last week. Costing US$100M to produce, the film has so far grossed US$7M and has garnered mixed or average Reviews. 

Our film opens up on a distant habitable world (not unlike planet Earth), known as New World in the year 2257 AD. We are first introduced to Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) walking through the woods with his trusted dog in tow. On the path into Prentisstown, where he lives he comes across Aaron (David Oyelowo) a radical preacher riding his horse. Aaron gets down off his horse and thumps Todd squarely in the face sending him reeling backwards. This is because of 'The Noise' - a force that puts everyone's thoughts on display and for everyone to see and hear. Clearly Aaron was none too pleased at the noise emanating from Todds head. Aaron mounts his horse and heads onward, leaving Todd to collect his thoughts and continue into Prentisstown. Once there Davy Prentiss Jnr. (Nick Jonas) siddles up on horseback and chastises Todd who retaliates with the thought of huge snake rising up against him which causes Davy's horse to buck throwing him off. Appearing shortly afterwards is David Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen) the Mayor of Prentisstown, who tells the two young lads to stop playing, and commends Todd for his clever snake thought.  

Returning to his farm that night and over dinner with Ben Moore (Demian Bechir) and Cillian Boyd (Kurt Sutter) his adoptive fathers, Ben tells Todd that he is needed to work the farm the next day. The next morning while Todd goes to the barn in search for some tools, he spies a mystery figure dressed in orange jump out of a barn window and leg it into the woods. Todd gives chase and comes across the scene of a recently downed spacecraft whose wreckage is strewn over a large area. His thoughts are to immediately advise David Prentiss of his findings, who rapidly organises a search party for the mystery man. 

Returning to the crash site David Prentiss, Todd and a bunch of other men scour the scene salvaging what serviceable technology they can, whilst searching for a girl, Prentiss has quickly determined. Gingerly seeking out the mysterious figure Todd comes across a girl (Daisy Ridley), and is taken aback because he has never seen a girl before. It turns out that the alien species who inhabited New World, known as the Spackle, released a germ that killed all the women and unleashed 'The Noise' on the remaining men. Todd's own mother was killed by the Spackle shortly after he was born. The girl does not speak, but chooses to run in a bid to escape. 

It's not long before David Prentiss and his men catch up with the girl, and take her back to Prentisstown. There she is questioned and we learn that her spacecraft burned up on entry into New World's atmosphere and the rest of her crew all perished. David has ulterior motives for his line of questions - in particular his interest in the mother ship which carries four thousand people and its means to get them off New World. Following an incident in which the girl is left alone with Davy Jnr., the girl again escapes and from under the building where she is hiding she can easily overhear a conversation David is having with some others saying that it is in everyone's interests to capture the girl, to do it quickly before she is able to contact the mother ship, and that she poses a threat to them all. 

While David is off organising a search party, the girl lays low in the barn of Todd's farm, unbeknownst to him. He goes inside and discovers her, and tells her that he doesn't want to harm her, is there to help her and to remain out of sight. He then tells his fathers Ben and Cillian, who reluctantly agree to harbour the girl, but tell Todd that he needs to get far away from Prentisstown and to go to Farbranch another community some distance away. Ben shows him a map which Todd commits to memory, and is told not to tell anyone at Farbranch that they are from Prentisstown. It's not long however, before David arrives at the farm demanding to know the whereabouts the girl. Todd gives away the girls location in the barn through his noise. Inside the barn the girl has hot-wired a motorbike and makes her escape on it. Todd jumps on a horse and follows in hot pursuit, duly followed by a posse of David's men. David meanwhile shoots Cillian in the stomach and he lies there dying in Bens arms.

After falling down a steep gully in the woods, the motorbike is trashed and the horse suffers a broken leg which sees Todd put his trusted steed out of its misery. They continue on foot, and camp out in the rain overnight. The girl introduces herself to Todd as Viola Eade and says she has never seen or felt rain before. It took her mother ship sixty-four years to travel from Earth to New World. She was born on it, as were her parents who have subsequently died, and it was her grandparents who set forth from Earth all those years ago in search of new worlds to colonise. 

They venture deeper into the forest trying to find the path to Farbranch. They come across a clearing and a Spackle alien. Todd and the Spackle fight with Todd gaining the upper hand and holding the Spackle's head under the water of a nearby stream and stabbing away furiously at the alien. Viola urges Todd to stop. He does so reluctantly, as the Spackle gets up, recovers himself and walks away nonchalantly glancing back over its shoulder as it does so. 

Eventually they come to Farbranch and they are surprised to find a community that has sheep in a paddock, grapes growing on trellised vines, and a big contingent of women and girls. The mayor of the town is female too - Hildy Black (Cynthia Erivo) who takes in the pair and provides them with safe harbour, despite the ruling that any man from Prentisstown entering Farbranch will be given the rope (ie. hanged). When Todd lets slip through his noise that he is in fact from Prentisstown, the menfolk want to string him up immediately, but Hildy says that he's just a boy and therefore the rule doesn't apply. It's here we learn one evening that Ben slipped Todd's mothers journal into his pack before he set off. He confesses to Viola that he cannot read and was never taught, in the belief that hearing others mens thoughts was all the education he would ever need. So Viola reads the journal and it is revealed that David Prentiss engineered the execution of all the woman, because the menfolk couldn't bear the women knowing their every thought, while the men couldn't bear not knowing what their women were thinking. The next day David rocks up to Farbranch with his posse and a stand-off ensues with Hildy and her community. 

David demands to know the location of the girl, and sends Ben in to retrieve her from a storage facility. Ben uses his noise to project an image of Viola to appease David momentarily so giving her and Todd the opportunity to escape. Hildy had previously told Todd that the next community, Haven, contains a means of communicating with the mother ship, so they venture forth. In the meantime, Todd and Ben argue saying that he now knows the truth behind the slaying of all the women and why did Ben lie to him all these past years. Ben is distraught, and offers to make amends to allow their escape, even if it means sacrificing himself. They come to a river bank upon which is tied a two man barge. They see this as a means of evade their pursuers but Aaron catches up with them on horseback and follows them into the river. Viola can't swim, and approaching a set of rapids Aaron latches onto Viola and drags her off the barge with Todd attempting to beat off the preacher. In the white water Viola is dragged under the upturned barge and she is separated from Todd and Aaron. Todd resurfaces and rescues Viola while Aaron emerges on the other side of the embankment and holds Todd's dog under the water drowning it. 

Collecting themselves and gathering their thoughts, they continue onwards coming to the remains of a downed mother ship that was the first in the fleet that landed initially on New World years ago. It is half buried and completely wrecked, but Viola says that there is a means of communicating two levels down that will still be active. They both climb down into the bowels of the former ship and locate the communication device, but there is no signal as the antennae is down. Todd offers to climb up several levels to reconnect the antennae, which he does successfully, but from on high notices David's posse approaching. In the meantime Aaron has re-emerged and gets into a fight with Viola as she is attempting to reconnect. Needless to say its doesn't end well for Aaron who is last seen screaming that he has been baptised by fire - literally! Viola connects with her mothership once the antennae is restored. Todd has clambered down and is confronted by David. Todd attacks David with a knife, David shoots Todd in the shoulder as he is running for cover, and Viola appears and pushes David over the edge of a badly damaged wing sending him falling several storeys below into the guts of the spaceship - presumably to his certain death. 

Viola's mothership then appears in the sky above them. Todd comes round on the mothership having been out of it for several days, his shoulder wound having been treated and almost healed with Viola looking on. They both look down on New World and see a new community in the throes of construction. 

'Chaos Walking' isn't a bad film, but it's also not that great. For a start there is very little by way of world building here given that this film is set 230+ years into the future and New World has the look and feel of our very own planet Earth, even though it is supposedly sixty-four years away. And this Sci-Fi, dystopian action drama part Western is a muddled concoction of teenage angst, wannabe romance and a wilderness survival movie that is aided along by the pairing of two young talented screen actors in Holland and Ridley intent on going their own way following their big budget franchise outings of recent years. And Mads Mikkelsen who is always watchable despite his character being undercooked does manage to be the glue that binds the film together, with mostly surplus to requirement performances from Oyelowo and Erivo regrettably. As for the Spackle who supposedly inflicted the Noise on the male population, well they barely get a look in save for one sequence when a fist fight breaks out between Todd and an one armed indigenous alien that ends as quickly as it started - enough said (and seen) it seems! Doug Liman who has enjoyed many successes throughout his career here offers up an interesting premise, with well enough realised set pieces but it lacks energy, urgency and emotion and ends up being conventional, predictable and lacking in substance, clearly not helped by its troubled shoot and protracted delays. 

'Chaos Walking' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

ARCTIC : Tuesday 26th February 2019.

'ARCTIC' is an Icelandic Arctic Circle survival thriller which Premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year where it competed for the Camera d'Or, and is Directed and Co-Written by Brazilian musician and filmmaker Joe Penna. Made for just US$2M this film was released in the US on 1st February, has received generally favourable Reviews so far, and has recouped US$1.7M of its Production Budget to date. Filmed over the course of nineteen days in Iceland, Mads Mikkelsen, who is the star of the show here, apart perhaps from the harsh, barren and beautiful snow covered landscape, later commented that it was the most difficult shoot of his career.

The film opens up with a lone figure heavily clad in cold weather gear, digging away in the snow to expose the frozen bedrock below. He works with the handle of a snow sweeper to dislodge large lumps of white rock from beneath the snow surface, to reveal black granite, and then uses the blade of the sweeper to dislodge the snow and shovel it to the side. It's bitter cold, the snow is blowing and he's labouring for breath. He gets to his feet, collects his tools, and walks away. In doing so, the camera pans out revealing the giant black letters carved in the pristine white snow - S O S.

The man walks back to his shelter - the wreckage of an aeroplane that he was obviously a passenger in. There are no other survivors, only him. The plane is beyond any repair, and inside he has set up a temporary home at least out of the elements. Everyday he follows the same routine, setting the alarm on his wrist watch to tell himself when to rest, when to work, when to eat and when to climb up the nearest snow capped hill to wind up his radio transmitter in the hope of reaching someone out there who will hear his distress signal and come to his rescue.

This same routine seems to maintain his sanity as Overgard, his name is printed on his jacket breast, needs to keep busy or succumb to his seemingly dire predicament. He has rigged up various static fishing lines through ice holes in the snow from which he exists on a diet of raw fish, as he has no cooking apparatus, and when he retires for the night it is still daylight outside and he huddles himself down in a zipped up sleeping bag fully clothed from head to toe.

Then one day his fortunes are about to change. Winding away at his radio transmitter, he is about to call it a day as a blizzard approaches when a green light flashes to life on his receiver. As the weather begins to close in, a faint hum of a helicopter can be heard. As it gets nearer, Overgard lights a flare to attract attention, but the approaching helicopter struggles to maintain control in the blizzard conditions. Within two minutes, Overgard's elation at being rescued turns to despair as the helicopter is caught in the fierce wind and spins out of control crashing to the ground in the distance in a plume of black smoke.

Overgard rushes over to the downed chopper. The thing is upside down in the snow with its tail snapped off. Hanging in the cockpit upside down is the dead pilot and one other female passenger (Maria Thelma Smaradottir), still alive, barely. He attends to a deep cut in her stomach using the First Aid kit and staples the wound together. He unbuckles the dead pilot and drags him outside. The pair remain in the cockpit overnight - the woman unconscious, and Overgard sleeping off this traumatic turns of events.

Using the helicopter door as a makeshift sledge Overgard drags the woman back to his place where she will be a little more comfortable and he can attend to her. She remains unconscious. The next day Overgard returns to the helicopter to salvage what he can from the wreckage. There he finds rope, a gas bottle with burner, a cigarette lighter, a tarp, a torch, a map of the terrain, pot noodles and in the tail section of the helicopter is housed a brand new sledge - he can hardly believe his luck! At least now he can make a noodle broth with freshly cooked fish and eat a home cooked meal for he and his patient. The woman slips in and out of consciousness. Overgard studies the map studiously seeking the best most direct route to get to a seasonal shelter several days north of his current location . . . . . and with a badly injured patient.

When a clearing in the weather conditions prevail, Overgard decides to cut his losses and make a bid for civilisation and salvation. Clearing his makeshift camp inside the plane of all equipment that might prove useful, he loads up the sledge packing the woman as comfortably as he can on top, wrapped tightly in a sleeping bag and head gear, covered with the tarp and tied down. As so his journey begins. For the first couple of days Overgard makes good progress, with the fine weather holding up. But progressively the climatic conditions worsen which sees Overgard dig out an ice cave in the snow one night, take refuge in a narrow cave on another only to be attacked by a particularly aggressive and hungry Polar Bear, and shelter behind their upturned sledge in a whiteout on another.

He makes slow but steady progress but reaches an impasse when his path is blocked by a tall rocky outcrop. He clambers to the top to see what is on the other side. Once there, below him the valley stretches out in the distance making for seemingly easy passage for him and his patient, but he must first haul his patient up the steep rocky incline. He is determined, but fails in his attempt, not once, not twice but three times. He then calls it quits and resigns himself to going the long way round which will add another five days at least to his journey time.

And so he beleagueredly makes his way onward. The woman continues to slip in and out of consciousness. One night the pair shelter under a rocky outcrop, and falling asleep, Overgard awakens the next morning to find the woman barley breathing, her stomach wound worsening, and a trickle of blood emanating from her mouth. He believes she is close to death and decides to cover her up, and continue his journey alone. Before he has ventured less that one hundred metres he falls into a crevice in the snow and is knocked out. He comes around with his leg pinned under a boulder.

Struggling to free himself he is all but spent. Giving one last heave ho, he musters what little strength and resilience his has left and yanks his leg free in spite of the agonising pain it causes. He gingerly limps his way out of the crevice to reveal a large bloody gash in his lower leg. He returns to the woman who is still alive and is able to muster the word 'hello' to him. The pair continue their journey once again, with Overgard painstakingly pulling on the sledge with his one good leg while doing it tough with the other.

Later the scenery opens up to reveal greenery and a lake in the distance. There he he sees a helicopter land by the edge of the lake and two airmen get out of it. After a distress flare seemingly does not attract the attention of the helicopter crew, Overgard sets his jacket on fire and holds it aloft waving it about frantically in the hope that they will see that. When the helicopter appears to be flying away and is out of sight, he lies down next to his patient, believing that now all hope is lost. In the closing frames we see the helicopter touching down immediately behind.

Mads Mikkelsen carries the full weight of 'Arctic' on his shoulders, and it pays off. Despite the gruelling nineteen days of principle photography he puts in a compelling performance that might just rank as the best of his career to date. Joe Penna keeps the action and the drama at an even pace in the fairly brisk less than one hundred minute run time, although the trials, tribulations and challenges faced along the way are genre specific that we have seen plenty of times before (and in that I'm thinking 2017's 'The Mountain Between Us'). That said this is worth the price of your ticket for sure to see this bleak harsh unrelenting tale of conviction against the odds, man versus nature, courage overcoming real adversity and the power of the human spirit to never give up. 

'Arctic' warrants four stars of the Odeon Online clapperboard out of a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-