May 26, 2008

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull [Review]

Verdict: Good
Review Affected by my pro-archeology bias: Yes

There's no power on Earth that could have made me dislike this movie. Well, I guess they could have made "Indiana Jones And The High School Musical" costarring Justin Guarini. Still, if it's the Indy brand I'm hard pressed not to at least have a good time.

Nostalgia is both the movie's greatest strength and biggest weakness. I mean, if this had been National Treasure 3 I wouldn't have gone to the theater in the first place. Nostalgia softened my mood going into the theater, and several scenes really did tug at the youthful fondness I still have for the series and its characters. On the other hand, there are scenes where the film is intentionally playing the nostalgia card, and by "plays" I mean "shoots you in the face with a nostalgia bullet." The movie takes the fantastic set pieces and action scenes of the original trilogy and tries to outdo them with almost nonstop stunts which frankly get a bit excessive and over-the-top. It's bizarre that this movie has the most scenes at Indy's college and makes him seem the least academic.

But it's not all critiques. Like I said at first, the prognosis overall is good if you're inclined towards this type of movie. Commies make a good enough baddie to keep the series going forward for several films if they want it to. Shia LeBouf doesn't give a great performance, but he's pretty good with a script that doesn't give him much. The effects are good and the stunts, though a bit overused, are good.

I've been waiting my entire adult life to have Indy come back and I had a fun time with him again. It's not all I could have hoped, but it was still plenty of fun.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And, for his age, Harrison still looks pretty darn good. Of course this movie didn't top any of the originals (I didn't expect it to), but it was lots of fun to watch and kept me entertained throughout.

Anonymous said...

I loved it! I went just looking to have fun and the movie delivered. Of course, there were a few things that made me roll my eyes...

I'm usually a big Shia "The Beef" fan too, but this wasn't my favorite of his performances. I did, however, love me some Karen Allen--which surprised me because I find her a little shrill in the first movie.

Anonymous said...

The movie was terrible to the same extent the Phantom Menace was terrible and for all the same reasons. It's absolutely amazing to me that this "film" was directed by Steven Spielberg. For all those reading this, MosBen was also a proponent of the Phantom Menace until he realized it was total piece of crap. I believe he'll wake up to this one day as well. Indy 4 never happened.