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Spoiler-Free Review of Indiana Jones
Following last week's sour review of Indiana Jones, Seamus123 links us to
"A spoiler-free review of the brilliant new Indiana Jones film, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Much has been made of the revival of the series: is Harrison Ford too old, is Shia LeBeouf any good and can it live up to the three previous movies? All these questions — and some surprising answers — are found in Den of Geek's review." Personally I'll see it no matter what.
I can deal with LeBeouf in this Jones movie but I've already heard (and I hate to sound like Entertainment Tonight) that Spielberg has asked LeBeouf to carry on as the main character in a string of potential sequels.
Could this be good? Maybe. But I sure will lament the loss of Ford. In any event I hope to god that LeBeouf's character doesn't assume Indie's role or character or name directly in the coming movies. I haven't seen Crystal Skull yet so I can't say if they're setting us up for that the end (I hope not).
You know, I love the attitude of Indiana Jones and everything about the character but I'm going to get tired of it if you keep rehashing it. You know, it's ok to try out new things and introduce new personalities. In fact, it's almost required for the audience not to lose their interests. Hell, I wouldn't even mind if Lucas kept stealing high level plot lines from Akira Kurosawa films--so long as I don't get the same thing in 6+ movies of a diluted film franchise.
I joked with my roommates that we're not far from Lucas re-releasing a "Special Edition" of The Last Crusade where River Phoenix is superimposed with the image of Shia LeBeouf for continuity (a la Anakin Skywalker's apparition in Return of the Jedi). I know he's not the young version of Indiana Jones but I'm so sick and tired of that kind of stuff. Where's Drew Berrymore so she can step in and convince Lucas we should take this chance to replace all the scary whips in Indiana Jones with licorice sticks.
My work here is dung.
I have no doubt this movie will be a huge cash cow.
However, I have absolutely no understanding why.
Please can someone explain to me, why that when the 1st Star Wars Prequel was widely regarded as a crime against celluloid, and the 2nd Prequel proved, if anything, to be even worse that the 1st, that anyone at all went to see the 3rd Prequel.
George Lucas is a filmmaker that has made an extremely large amount of money based on a very small number of good films made more than 20 years ago, while the majority of his work is very poor indeed. One might also say that for Spielberg too.
If you have high expectations for this movie, then might I suggest that you are possibly suffering from amnesia, or are 5.
Is it just me, or is everything WAY too positive in this 'review'? This is less a critique of the film and more of a plug for it.
Things like -
He's really old, but that's a GOOD thing!
- just wear thin on me.
As far as "woa" movies go. Arlington Road was probably the one that caught me the most off guard. But so did Fight Club. No one says you have to watch NEW movies. I'll hear about an obscure older movie and see if I can find it somewhere there are a ton of Independent Films that never got exposure because they predated the internet.
One of my favorite movies is The Man from Earth. Simple, 0 CGI and it's a great discussion and there's even a small plot twist at the end.
Most if not all of the Crystal Skulls are fake artifacts. All of the ones tested date to the 19th century.
The most famous one, the Mitchell-Hedges skull has not been allowed to be studied, but it was reportedly found in Lubaantun in Belize (when it was British Honduras). The problem is, no one acknowledges the finder, Anna Mitchell-Hedges was at the dig, though later her adopted father said in his autobiography (I think) the skull was at least 3600 years old. I severely doubt that it is authentic and believe it is more of a money/attention grab, but it fits well with Indiana Jones since all of the movies have been about mythological objects that may or may not be real.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
There's nothing sadder than adults that go to a children's movie and then are surprised when the movie is "childish." My 6 year-old son thought the movie was great, and I thought that the movie was surprisingly good considering it is a movie featuring a talking semi-truck.
The reality of the situation is that the Transformers cartoon was only good because a) you were a kid, and b) the alternatives were shows like the Smurfs.
This may sound lame ("my brother's sister's boyfriend's doctor says"), but I got the bad news from a nationally syndicated critic who happens to be a total fanboy. Obsessed with DC Comics and Star Wars figurines, etc. etc. He's been doing this for a while, he's generally forgiving with nerd-intended flicks like the recent rush of comic book flicks, and even gave the second F4 flick the benefit of the doubt. But not the new Indy.
And he's convinced the flush of positive reviews in the past few days is coming from LucasFilms flooding the Internet with mixed messages in order to keep the fanboys to attend at least the first week's screenings. Don't be fooled. This movie's poised to be a serious mega-dud.
Old (as in "aged") characters: fine. Old (as in "recycled") characters: lame.
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