Well, went to see
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom fo the crystal skull - I know I was all bold before, but now everyone has seen it and I feel embarrassed to be jumping on the band wagon last night. Orange Wednesday, so got Minor_Furie in for free so it was good.
Are we ready for an epic_furie review? :lol:
There may be spoilers ahead
The films annoyed me immediately with 'cute' CGI. Yeah, this film is going to have no CGI :roll: It gets going okay, I liked the American Graffiti kind of start, and I liked the way they kept Indy from view initially - kind of bringing him into it almost slowly. Seeing Ford as an aged Indy was a real shock though. I've not seen Ford in a film for years, and he's aged and it's a shock. Still, they try to keep the action going and gently ease you into the 'old' Indy.
I wasn't impressed with the whole 'hokie religion' telekenesis/telepathy bit at the start though. It was all a bit Star Wars really.
The film carries on in a very similar story form to the original and third films - which works. Action, university, discovering mystery, fly off to solve mystery, sub mystery, main plot, action, action, action.
Sadly, the whole Mutt/Marian story is obvious from the trailers - it's hardly a Luke/Vader moment. They make light of it, but you can't really polish that turd.
There's a lot of solid references to the Young Indiana Jones series, and more than the occasional nod to the original three films - and this is were one of my biggest gripes comes - it wasn't actually an original film. It was just a collection of nods and references to Lucas' and Spielberg's prior works. The whole film was just a great big tribute to both their early films. Yes, they were both great once, but surely they can do something new?
They also took the piss at times too. Yeah, Indy is a survivor and it's based on those serials where the good guy also cheated death, but they put their tongues too far in cheek at times - most notably with Mutt and the monkeys!
There were also scenes cut, and bad editing which made some of the action and story flow a little off. The two guys attacking them in Peru in the graveyard - it was never explained! There was always a reason in the old films - there may have been a slight hint as to why, but it was never followed up.
The biggest problem for an Indy film though is that there are no memorable set pieces. Think of any Indy film, and you remember the boulder rolling, or the Nazi burning his hand in Nepal, or the mine train cart, or the bridge cutting scene, or Indy and his dad in the fireplace, or the entire end sequence of Last Crusade. Each film is just a collection of superb set pieces, linked together by a story woven around them. Lucas went at this the other way (much like he did with the new Star Wars) and created a story first, then fitted in the action. Lucas is poor at telling detailed tales, but great at creating action - I don't understand why he thinks he's Tolkien, he just isn't, and he should stick to what he's good at!
Phew, are we nearly done yet. My final gripes are with the effects. I wasn't chuffed with the in your face CGI which was unnecessary. A film like this doesn't need it, it doesn't need cheap laughs with a CGI rodent. Worse though was the skull. It's
Crystal Skull, not
Plastic Skull. It looked, sounded and was handled like a lump of plastic all the way through. For what is a major prop in the film, most of the way through, it needed to be spot on, and it wasn't - even slightly.
Well, that's all the bad stuff out of the way
The original Indy films set the level for all action films in the future to meet - they're the milestone, and I don't think anyone has got close since. Everything about them is spot on - the pacing, acting, script, direction and story are all spot on - even Temple of Doom! KOTCS also doesn't meet up to the milestone set by the original trilogy (I think it's better filmed and made than ToD, but I don't think it's as enjoyable a film to watch) - but it certainly comes closer than any action/adventure/superhero film I've seen since Last Crusade was released 16 years ago.
So, it's not a great Indy film - it's weak in all the areas the others were strong, but Lucas and Spielberg are STILL great artists (not as good as they were maybe, but still great) - and it does shine through compared to most of the formulaic CGI nonsense churned out mass production style from Hollywood.
So worst of the series, but still a decent enough film - 3.5/5 (3 as an Indy film, 4 as an action adventure) :lol: