Bored with movies about beautiful people who are indestructible: ‘Indiana Jones 5’ director James Mangold

Director James Mangold says movies often become about beautiful people who are ‘just like Teflon’. That’s why the filmmaker likes to put his characters in ‘crisis’ to drive the drama, something he did with Hollywood star Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

In Dial of Destiny, Ford returns as the titular character, now on the cusp of retirement as a professor of archaeology, who is forced to go on a thrilling, adventure to help his estranged goddaughter, Helena Shaw, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

The plot of the fifth Indiana Jones film has thematic similarities to Mangold’s Logan, a movie fronted by Hugh Jackman’s mutant Wolverine, who was also in his twilight years. Drawing parallels between the two iconic characters, the American director said in order to make a good story, the protagonist has to be facing something.

“We all face ageing and death. We all face the world changing around us and having to adapt. In Logan’s case, he was about 250 years old when he passed… “Frankly, I am bored with movies about beautiful people who are indestructible. I think that it’s just a snooze. Honestly, I have no connection with it. I am not beautiful and I am not indestructible. So the reality is, it’s just kind of simple,” Mangold said.

He added, “Often films are about watching the tactics of the protagonist as they navigate explosions and throw a couple of smart lines and then the thing ends.”