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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.
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.