Indiana Jones 4 Reviews

[Emperor]

By Garth Franklin

May 22nd 2008, PG-13, 123mins, Paramount Pictures

 

In spite of an over reliance on CG, and one too many obvious moments of George Lucas-involved over-the-top tomfoolery, the latest "Indiana Jones" is a great piece of major studio-produced escapist entertainment. Unfortunately, that may not be enough.

 

Like it or not, the 'Jones' franchise is like the original "Star Wars" trilogy - to a whole generation of now grown-up adults, they are a childhood sacred cow that cannot be beaten or even objectively criticized. With these films, they want another dark adventure masterpiece like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" every time. What they've gotten is very entertaining and exciting, but ultimately inferior sequels like 'Temple of Doom' and 'The Last Crusade'. For many of this franchise's fans, only something of 'Raiders' level would be good enough. Sadly, anyone with that mindset going in will only be disappointed by this.

 

Like the "Star Wars" prequels, real location filming has been replaced by predominantly green screen sound stage work. Moments of truly suspenseful action have been exchanged for CG-enhanced stunts that remove the last vestiges of remote believability. The narrative and the central macguffin isn't interesting enough to justify a sequel, let alone one that took so long to develop. Finally the tone is far more comical, light and flamboyant than even 'The Last Crusade'.

 

Unlike the "Star Wars" prequels however, this is far from an abject failure and sits quite comfortably alongside the quality of the last two sequels. Performances are solid all round, character dynamics are interesting, the pacing almost never falters, the action is frequently gripping, the comedy mostly works, the FX are well done, and no-one can both edit and co-ordinate good old-fashioned set pieces like Steven Spielberg.

 

New characters like Shia LaBeouf's greaser 'Mutt' and Cate Blanchett's Ukrainian Irina Spalko are a great sidekick and foil respectively. She is a less sadistic version of "From Russia with Love" James Bond villainess Rosa Klebb. He seems to have stepped right out of a James Dean movie, yet quickly becomes one of the few young pretty boy sidekicks that you actually find yourself liking. Less successful are Ray Winstone and John Hurt, good actors stuck with the underwritten roles of a treacherous old colleague and a babbling genius respectively, whilst Karen Allen's return as Marion adds little short of some fun moments of family bickering and a familiar nostalgia for fans.

 

The change from 1930's-inspired Christian mythology to a more 50's like science-fiction tale fits the mold far more comfortably than expected thanks to rooting the mystery in archaeological trappings and giving away the 'Chariots of the Gods' inspired angle right from the very start. Similarly the problem of Indy's age doesn't really factor in as the pace is so fast and fun that you really do just go with it and forget about quite a few real world concerns.

 

Unfortunately there are moments where the filmmakers themselves seem to have forgotten any sense of reality and push past the sublimely silly into the utterly ridiculous. I won't give away the details but elements like 'the fridge', 'the vine swinging', 'the waterfalls', 'the prairie dogs' and a scene in which Mutt straddling two cars gets repeatedly hit in the groin will be considered trite moments by some, and unforgivable blasphemes by others.

 

That said despite those few cringe-inducing bits, and the odd perfunctory scene (the quicksand bit is utterly useless), there's some great action as well. The extended jungle chase sequence is the film's highlight, the fire ants are too CG but the whole scene is brilliantly executed, the Connecticut motorbike chase is deliciously old school, and the opening Area 51 fight and escape provide a strong kickoff in spite of Indiana's many hip-breaking falls. Even the attack by skull-faced natives in the graveyard of the otherwise unexciting Nazca scenes is effectively creepy, and their first glimpse is my favorite single shot of the film.

 

David Koepp's script does an admirable, if not always successful, job of meeting the demands of the three principles (Ford, Lucas, Spielberg) whilst crafting a straightforward, tightly structured narrative. Combined with Spielberg's attempts to film the movie like his older works, this does feel like an "Indiana Jones" movie for the most part - certainly far more effectively than last year's mediocre fourth "Die Hard" which never felt like a part of that series.

 

Time will sadly not look so kindly on Skull's abundance of computer animation or lack of a fresh new story with a great hook, but the standard is still far higher than many of the franchises imitators have given us over the years. The good stuff easily outweighs the bad here, and most importantly its a hell of a lot of fun and certainly very well made where it needs to be - currently sitting as my third favorite Indy film behind 'Raiders' and 'Crusade'. There are more than enough great moments to make this a welcome addition to the canon.

[Ararana]

I just saw it last night and well...let me first say I have always been a fan of the originals (who isn't?) That said, thank God for those bad reviews out there! They kept my expectations low and I must say I wasn't disappointed in the slightest!

 

The movie is great. They were able to revive the essence and feel of the originals while dealing with a huge time gap in-between movies and adapting to a new time genre.

 

So if you're still wondering, it’s a good movie. It's no Raiders or Last Crusade, we will never get movies that good again, but this one is defiantly worth seeing especially if you’re an Indy fan.

 

[Emperor]

Nice to know.  That is what I am hoping happens when I see it.  I have my expectations set really low for this one.

[SinisterDeath]

I saw this last night, On the Ultra Screen. <3

 

I have to agree that It wasn't the greatest movie of all time, nor was it better than the arc, temple of doom, or the crusade.

But, it does have its good/funny parts, it did entertain, and it was overall, an enjoyable film. It wasn't a BAD movie, and I don't believe it had an 'over-relaince' on 'CG'. They just did things in CG, that they otherwise did in corny paper machee in the previous movies. Or, did some stunts, that would be far to dangerous for anyone sane, in CG.

But when it comes down to it all, their were only really 2 scenes that had a lot of CG, the rest probably wasn't noticable unless you were some kind of critic with a bone to pick.

[SBoydW]

3 words: nuclear bomb, refrigerator....

 

It was an overall enjoyable movie. 

 

1. Last Crusade

2. Lost Ark

3. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

4. Temple of Doom

[Mendorah]

ugh.  I hated it.  Sorry guys.  I even thought I went in with low expectations.  I mean, the whole first scene was so horribly forced and contrived.  I kept waiting for someone to yell "cut!" and it be a "making a movie" gag.  Then they started actually looking for the box and I realized, no, it was just Baaad direction/acting/etc.

 

It did get better as the movie progressed.  The sword fighting scene was cool and the end I liked.

 

But I texted people through half the movie.  *shrug*

[Kivam]

Haven't seen it yet.  But the fact that "Nuking the Fridge" is fast becoming the movie version of Jumping the Shark doesn't make me want to run out and buy tix

[F Horn of Valere]

The fridge was a little weak... but lead DOES stop about 90% of alpha rays, and all of beta and gamma rays... :) I'm no expert (which is sad since this actually is a large portion of my job) but with all the decon he got, the lead in the fridge may not be TOO far fetched. Maybe.

 

I liked it a lot... enough that I actually like the rumors that they are considering a 5th in the series due to the 4th's success.

[Majsju]

While the lead in the fridge Might have offered enough protection against radiation, all that bumping around should have broken most of the bones in Indys body.

[F Horn of Valere]

But didn't you know? During WWII he was taken captive and while a POW, a doctor experimented by replacing his bones with titanium. *nods*

[Samuraiflip05]

I haven't gotten to see it yet...I am notorious for enjoying movies others find unwatchable, but i have heard several people who bicker and pick after seeing it about how it isn't like the first three.  I try to warn them not to take the first three in there with them...it is a surefire way to ruin a movie.  Even if the sequel is better than the original, going in expecting the original will leave you disappointed.  ::)

[SinisterDeath]

I rank it like this

Crusade

Arc

Crystal

Doom

 

 

[HighWiredSith]

I haven't written many reviews for a couple of reasons, one of which I just didn't feel like typing out Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull numerous times (copy/paste, yeah, I know, look into it) and frankly, typing IJATKOTKS seems just as ludicrous.  The primary reason was that I left the theater in a bit of stupor - did I like this film - well yeah, but did I like it was an Indiana Jones film - not sure, probably not.

Certainly the original trilogy (or we calling it that now - please God no) had it's Return of the Jedi entry in Temple of Doom (Kate Capshaw = Ewoks, you get the picture) and so there's a part of me that wants to equate TJATKOTKS (ridiculous!) to Phantom Menace.

 

But, with much relief, Shia Lebouf (Mutt - dog, Indiana - dog, boy that George Lucas is one clever cat!) is NOT Jar-Jar Binks.  There are no prequel-esque moments like Anakin's classic "I am haunted by the kiss you never should have given me..." and yet the movie reeked of George Lucas, particularly the final act or second half of the movie. 

 

The one true crime, one that I can never forgive, one that may keep me from any future installments, is the way that Lucas (and Spielberg for that matter) handled the Indy/Marion/Love Child story.  This could have been a meaningful, pivotal, life re-defining moment for a beloved character whose better days were behind him.  Despite a life of unimaginable adventure - here was a man who empty and lonely and frankly, unhappy with his life.  The elements were there, scattered throughout (thanks, I suspect, to Frank Darbount) but were ultimately sacrificed for easy, cheap giggles.  Here's Marion, the fiesty, fiery she-devil in a sexy dress from the first film, aged, goofy, wearing this huge smile all the freakin time and doing nothing - and here's the son Indy never knew he had and within 15 second of finding out he IS his son, he's cracking jokes like hey, it's just another one of those things. 

 

Like so many Lucas commodities, the aspirations at greatness are traded in for cheap laughs or given up to make room for more CGI.  I could have stood the tarzan jungle scene, the weird Close Encounters ending, the surviving a direct nuclear blast in a refridgerator scene, all of it, if so much had not been written off, written over, or just left unsaid for the sake of a simple, cheap knock-off of a story. 

[Silver]

Just gotta mention... Short Round is the Jar Jar Binks of the Indiana Jones movies.

[HighWiredSith]

Gotta disagree - Willy Scott was way more annoying than Short Round - if anyone is going to win the JarJar award it's gotta be her.  I would equate Short Round more to yipee Anakin in TPM - you don't exactly hate him in a Wesley Crusher want to see him suffer a slow painful death kind of way (cause, after all, you know he's gonna turn into the baddest badass the galaxy far, far away has ever seen), but you can't stand to watch him either.