Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

A tentpole is a movie that, despite its extremely high budget, is expected to help a studio stay afloat so they can make lots of mid- or low-budget movies — the films I try to cover. But since a lot of these tentpoles are popping up this summer and inundating us with ads and publicity, I can’t completely ignore them. So this week, I’m looking at two of them — an action movie and an action/adventure —  plus a sports doc.

The Deepest Breath

Wri/Dir: Laura McGann

Alessia Zecchini is an Italian woman whose dream — since she was a little girl — has always been to free dive. Freediving refers to an extreme sport usually done in natural settings. While there are many variations, it generally involves swimming straight down underwater as deep as you can go, and then turning around and swimming back up to the surface. The type Alessia competes in involves a weighted rope that she follows when swimming down and up. The deeper you go, the better your chance of winning a competition or breaking a world record. But countless people go deep-sea diving — what sets this type apart? Free diving is done without scuba gear; competitors hold their breath the entire time they’e underwater. (We’re talking two, three or four minutes or longer!) It’s considered an extreme sport because if you swim too deep you might black out and drown. So there are safety divers who accompany you, to mitigate the danger — they propel your body to the surface if you pass out. One such safety diver is Stephen Keenan, an Irishman known for his skills and dedication. The two become close in their repeated dives. But can they remain safe in such a dangerous sport?

The Deepest Breath is a sports documentary about Stephen, Allessia and other free divers both in and out of competition, as well as talking-head interviews with their friends and relatives. I was attracted to this documentary because I love underwater photography — the deep blues, the colourful fish, the coral reefs, whales and orca people might see as they explore the depths. And the photography is quite beautiful. But I hadn’t realized that most of the movie would just be people competing as they swim down and then up again. Free climbing — rock climbing without ropes or nets — is a highly skilled and very hazardous sport. (A great doc called Free Solo came out a few years ago). Free diving is not the equivalent. It’s just about who can hold their breath the longest as they swim up and down a rope, like a human yo-yo. 

There are historical precedents, like women in Japan known as ama (海女) who used to swim topless in deep and rocky waters searching for pearls in oyster beds. But they did it as an occupation, not as a hobby. For the life of me, why do people risk their lives at something so pointless? I also found the movie manipulative: misleading audiences about implied relationships which may or may not have been real, while dropping false hints about the death of certain characters (no spoilers).

If you are a fan of (or a competitor in) free diving or other extreme sports, you’ll love this movie. Otherwise… maybe not.

Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part 1

Dir:  Christopher McQuarrie

Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is a spy who carries out top secret assignments as part of the IMF — the Impossible Mission Team,  known only to Kittridge, his boss (Henry Czerny) who works for the US government, and other members of the team. His mission? To rescue a special key from another agent, Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) and bring it back. But this is no ordinary key. When interlocked with a second, one, this key can activate a lethal  weapon so powerful it makes atomic bombs look like BB guns. The key was stolen from the Russians by an unknown entity, possibly an example of artificial intelligence gone rogue.  Hunt liberates the key, but his plans are interrupted by a new player on the scene. Grace (Hayley Atwell) is a beautiful and glamorous thief, who can pick any pocket and open any lock. She’s working for Gabriel (Esai Morales), a mysterious and ruthless villain who represents The Entity — that unknown person, group or computer program seeking to rule the world. And her nimble fingers soon take possession of the key. It’s up to Hunt and his team to follow her through scenic spots in Europe and get back the key, before the Entity blows us all up. But who can he trust?

Mission: Impossible — Day of Reckoning is a light, fun movie with non-stop action. I find Mission: Impossible movies annoying for their ponderous plots and Tom Cruise-centric focus. This time, it’s funnier than usual, and also has many interesting characters: Ilsa, Grace, but also a deranged assassin named Paris (Pom Klementieff) and a diffident criminal broker known only as The White Widow (Vanessa Kirby). That’s right, this is an action movie with four fascinating female central characters!  That’s rare. The stunts and special effects are really impressive, as is the scenery in Rome, Venice, and across the continent. 

On the other hand, the dialogue in this movie is atrocious. I mean abysmally bad, in some scenes.  A sequence set in the Pentagon may live on in history as some of the worst lines ever written. (Could it have been written by AI? No, it’s even worse than that.) It’s also Part One of a two-part series, so you’ll have to watch another one next year to  tie up the loose ends. 

But if you’re looking for pure summer entertainment, check this one out.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Dir: James Mangold

It’s 1944 in Nazi Germany. Indiana Jones (a de-aged Harrison Ford) is an archaeologist known for his bravery and derring-do. With his side-kick Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), they’re hoping to find a priceless relic amongst countless crates of stolen loot. They are captured and tortured by their cruel adversaries, but manage to escape, along with part of an ancient Greek device invented by Archimedes— the Dial of Destiny. Flash forward 25 years to Manhattan in the late 1960s. Indie is now an over-the-hill college professor, whose get up and go has got up and went. His treasure-hunting days are over, his wife (Karen Allen) has left him and his students don’t care what he says. But everything changes when Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s daughter, shows up unannounced. She grabs the dial and runs off with it to Morocco. She’s not the only one interested in this dial — government agents want it, too, and so does Dr Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) a former Nazi turned NASA rocket scientist who Indie and Basil encountered back in 1944. Indie reverts to his old personality, and complete with hat and whip, he flies off to Morocco. And after some jostling and negotiations, he joins Helena and her loyal street-urchin pal Teddy (Ethann Isidore) on a transcontinental journey to locate the other half of the dial. But who will get there first?

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the latest, and possibly the last of the movie franchise. Considering Harrison Ford is 81 now, I think he carries it off pretty well. Does the movie work? Totally. It’s a family-oriented action/ adventure film. Maybe I like it for the nostalgia factor, which is the basis of the whole series — Spielberg and Lucas made Raiders of the Lost Arc in the 80s in an attempt to recapture the movies they grew up with. But it has enough twists and turns, secrets and surprises, to keep you interested, start to finish. Mads Mikkelsen plays a perfect villain, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is great, too. I actually really liked this one — it redeems the whole series. 

One thing I don’t normally do is compare two movies, but I was struck by how similar this movie is to the latest Mission: Impossible. They both have chase scenes driving tiny cars pursued by gun-crazed drivers — a yellow Fiat 500 in Rome in Mission: Impossible, vs a Morrocan tuk-tuk in Indiana Jones. They both have half of a device with incredible power — a key and a dial — and are searching for the other half. They both have fight scenes on the roof of a fast-moving train passing in and out of tunnels. And there’s a clever pick-pocket — Grace in Mission, Teddy in Indie — who befuddles both the hero and the villains. And each of these tentpoles cost about $350 million each to make: That’s more than the budget of every feature made in Canada that year put together. Which is better? I liked them both, but I’d say Dial of Destiny is the better one. 

Indiana Jones and thee Dial of Destiny is playing now, Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning, Part 1 and The Deepest Breath both open this weekend; check your local listings. 

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.com.