You’d think October would be prime time for spooky season, and you’d be right.
Prime Video just added a slew of high-quality horror flicks that are sure to make you scream, but Watch With Us isn’t in the screaming mood this weekend.
Instead, we’re shining a spotlight on three powerful men: James Bond, Indiana Jones and the president of the United States.
Daniel Craig killed it as 007, but he never quite topped himself after his first outing as the British super spy, Casino Royale.
We also recommend you stream Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Primary Colors, a political comedy featuring John Travolta as a fictional U.S. president who looks and acts a lot like Bill Clinton.
‘Casino Royale’ (2006)
Master criminal Le Chiffre’s (Mads Mikkelsen) job is to bankroll terrorist organizations, and he’s usually pretty good at it. But lately, he’s been encountering one problem he can’t quite solve — a new agent named James Bond. After Bond prevents a bombing attack in Miami, Le Chiffre is out millions of dollars, and he needs to quickly get that back. The best way to do that is by entering a high-stakes game of poker at a ritzy hotel in Montenegro, but his plan goes awry when he discovers who is sitting with him at the poker table — Bond, James Bond.
The Bond franchise got a shot in the arm when Casino Royale burst onto the scene, introducing Craig as 007 to the world and showing then-competing spy franchises XxX and Jason Bourne how it’s done. Director Martin Campbell understands that a good action film builds to its set pieces rather than smashing one explosion after another. That results in a spy movie that takes its time building its complex storyline and equally complex characters. Craig is perfect as a newbie Bond still adjusting to his custom-made tux, while Eva Green might just be the best Bond girl ever as the beautiful and wily Vesper Lynd.
Casino Royale is streaming on Prime Video.
‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ (1989)
In late 1930s Europe, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party are gathering immense political and military power, but they want more. Hitler is obsessed with acquiring the mythical Holy Grail, which is rumored to grant anyone who drinks from it eternal life. He thinks he’s found it by kidnapping a religious scholar, Henry Jones (Sean Connery), whose journal entries provide clues as to the Grail’s exact location. The Nazis’ plan is almost perfect, but there’s one flaw: Henry is the father of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), and the archaeologist-turned-adventurer has no intention of seeing his estranged dad harmed or the Holy Grail claimed by evil men and women who want to conquer the world.
After a brief foray into darker territory and an uncomfortable child slave plotline in Temple of Doom, the Indiana Jones franchise righted itself with The Last Crusade, a spectacular thriller ride that is equal to, if not better than, the original, Raiders of the Lost Ark. The film’s not-so-secret weapon is the central relationship between father and son. Ford and Connery make a terrific comedic duo, with Indy constantly having to save his helpless father from all sorts of trouble. This sequel ends in such a satisfying and decisive way that you wish Spielberg and company left the series on a high like this one instead of going back to the well for rapidly diminishing returns in the awful Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and the so-so Dial of Destiny.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is streaming on Prime Video.
‘Primary Colors’ (1998)
Everyone loves Jack Stanton (John Travolta) — even his enemies. And as a Democratic nominee to become the next president of the United States, he has a lot of them. But the Southern governor knows how to work a room and get people to like him. One of them is Henry (Adrian Lester), who joins Jack’s campaign because he believes what Jack is selling — truthfulness, openness and change. But as Henry gets to know Jack and his coolly strategic wife, Susan (Emma Thompson), the more he realizes Jack isn’t the shiny symbol of hope he wants him to be — and that Jack campaigns on.
Based on a scathing 1996 tell-all novel by Joe Klein, who initially published the book anonymously, Primary Colors is an entertaining and cynical look at one man’s rise to power — and how that one man is pretty much Bill Clinton in everything but name. While Travolta’s performance never rises above impersonation, it’s still a good impersonation, and the cast around him is fantastic. Thompson is very good as a wife who is more of a shrewd political player than her husband is, while Kathy Bates is immensely funny and moving as a longtime friend of the Stantons who is dismayed to realize they might be just as bad as their political enemies.
Primary Colors is streaming on Prime Video.
