Surprisingly, no one else stepped up to review the latest (and last?) Indiana Jones flick. Here’s my SPOILER-FILLED thoughts for those who have seen it.
You’d think that Steven Spielberg (E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and George Lucas (Star Wars) would be able to make a good movie about aliens.
Actually, in truth, the fact that the hook was about aliens, and that the crystal skulls had weird powers, didn’t bother me at all. It did bother me at the end when Ox tells us “they’re from another dimension.” Seriously? Why? Was that supposed to be a twist that somehow didn’t matter? I can’t think of a good reason to put that in the movie, and it works just fine if that line is just dropped. (Additionally, we probably could have ditched Mac long before the end of the movie.)
I like Shia LeBouf, and I thought his character worked fine as “Son of Indy”, but he did have a few moments where he approached Mary Sue status. (Lot of that going around.) Able to drive a bike in a car chase, that was fun. Somewhat gets lucky about his guesses and has some powers of observation, so far so good. But “expert fencer” strained things for me. Marion Ravenwood managed to save it for me by doting on him to improve his stance, and all the while driving at high speeds through the jungle.
In fact, I thought she was great, and needed more screen time than she got. It was also pointed out to me by a friend that the omission of a drinking contest scene for her in this movie was inexcusable.
The action scenes, something that both Spielberg and Lucas usually do well, were well done. I wanted more bull-whipping, but we do get some awesome swinging right away in the famous warehouse (and man, those Commies were darn close to knocking over the Arc of the Covenant and being in really a lot of trouble.)
All the classic Indy parts were there. Hat jokes, ophidiophobia, betrayal, villain getting more than she bargained for, nasty jungle dissolving, riddle solving, and a needlessly complex dungeon. There were also some nice continuity nods, and the great idea that Dr. Jones has been running around being a badass between movies.
I already mentioned some of the stuff that bugged me, but something that is not what I would want in my Indy movies are CGI critters. The prairie dogs at the beginning… if you’ve got to use them, make them the real things. The alien at the end was right on the line for me, though I didn’t understand why they merged except to look cool. I thought the ants looked very good, and suitably deadly and yet squishy.
Overall, I seem to be in the minority among people I’ve talked to about it, but I thought it was still a solid and fun movie. It may end up ranking as the weakest Indiana Jones movie, but that doesn’t say much!
Last?
You seriously think so?
Did you miss the last scene with the hat, or what?
If that wasn’t sequel bait, I don’t know what is.
Fair enough, though it seemed more like they were trying to set up Mutt with his own franchise… which of course, is nothing without Harrison Ford. He owned that movie.
Agreed, though Mutt was a fairly strong character as well, IMO. I could see him doing well in a spinoff series, especially if Ford stays on as a side character.
“Son of Indy”
or
“You’re named after the dog?”
In any case, we should try to keep the comments spoiler-free, for the sake of those of us who read the comments through RSS.
(By the way, my first comment after seeing the movie last night was that Mutt reminded me (personality-wise) of Captain Mal Reynolds, of Firefly. My fiancee agreed, so I don’t think I’m crazy.)
Yea, I was wondering why this didn’t go up by Saturday, especially having seen the movie on Thursday night…
I agree with most of what you said. I too, had a lot of fun with the movie. The fencing thing threw me for a second until I thought back to the conversation Mutt had with Indy in the market about dropping out of school. He rattled off a list of “silly prep school things” and included fencing among them. Sounds to me like he did a bit of fencing in school.
I find myself liking senor LeBouf more and more with everything I see him in…and personally, I enjoyed this one more than Temple of Doom, even though the whole extradimensional psionic alien thing was a stretch…I would’ve gone with just 2 out of the three…but I’ve seen stranger things…
https://critical-hits.com//2007/04/02/inq-of-the-week-showdown/#comments
I enjoyed the movie and overall I thought your review was spot on. On the “dimension” comment I have to disagree. I find the entire idea of aliens incredibly farfetched scientifically speaking, but if you are going to have them why not have them interdimensional? It is just as “plausible” as any other explanation.
My main complaint with the movie was that there were too many characters vying for attention; I really would have been far happier with Indy, Mutt, and Marion. Everyone else was a distraction from the real reason I saw the movie – to see Indy again.
Rev: I watched it on Memorial Day in the afternoon after my midnight showing plans fell through. Usually one of the other writers watches it at least on the opening weekend, then writes a review (I have them trained well!)
Marvin: True, I remember the line, but then an expert fencer against a Russian soldier across a two moving cars stretched it a bit for me.
Dan: I guess it was the part about the other three ships having crashed in Russia. It made sense if they came from outer space, but teleporting from another dimension just seemed like they tossed it on without remembering what had already been said.
I agree with you on the main complaint: those three were awesome, didn’t need as much Ox, the Dean, or Mac.
This comment contains SPOILERS.
I liked the movie on the whole. I appreciated the continuity nods (i.e. Ark of Covenant, Indy’s dad and his friend, etc.). I also like how they were able to substitute one group of bad guys for another (Nazis replaced with Commies). The needlessly complex dungeons were great, as usual. And there were plenty of fun action sequences with well-timed humor mixed in.
I agree with some of the other posters that some of the action sequences were a little too ridiculous for me, such as 1) the fencing sequence, 2) the monkeys coming to the aid of Indy & co, and 3) the waterfalls. Indiana Jones has always been filled with ridiculous action sequences, but these three really were way, WAY, past the limit of previous movies, in my opinion.
The other thing that bugged me was the alien thing. Indiana Jones has always been about mystique/magic/paranormal, but in each of the previous movies the paranormal ‘thing’ was religious based. Ark of Covenant: religious. Heart-burning sacrifices / Vodoo / Mind-control black blood: religious. Holy Grail: religious. All of a sudden we step out of the religious sphere and into the outer space / inter-dimensional / alien sphere? When did that happen? I guess they ran out of good religious artifacts to base movies around.
Sultan: I think they used aliens because the movie was set in the 50’s. They transitioned from the old style 40’s pulp which was more about the supernatural to the 50’s that was dominated by aliens and science fiction. That part didn’t bug me at all (though I know it did many others.)
I felt during the whole movie that I was the product of a contest where everybody writes Indiana Jones fanfiction and the winning entry gets made into a real movie. Everything was there, and it wasn’t bad, but there was something just a little off that kept it from kicking ass like the other movies.
One thing that stuck out in my mind is that whoever was writing the script had a weird wish-fulfillment thing involving Marion Ravenwood. They wanted her and Indy to meet again, fight for six seconds, and immediately fall in love and it’s right back in the saddle again! Indy and Marion on adventures just like the old days! Woo!!!
Except now it seems like the whole crew is having a great time and smiling and having fun instead of being scared and trying to survive. The old movies would add something amusing in for a moment of levity, here I feel like I’m watching the scene in “Evolution” where they inexplicably start singing along to “Life is A Highway” while riding in a jeep on the way to go fight the monsters.
I guess I just wanted it to take itself a little more seriously. That and Marion Ravenwood, both back then and now, looks exactly like my mom and that creeped me out. 🙂
@Original Sultan –
While it did feel a bit out of place, the crystal skull was indeed religious mythology.
@ Graham
You are right, the skull was religious. But the ‘magic’ behind the skull’s powers was not religiously based, as was the case with the artifacts in the other movies.
And I guess what it comes down to is that in the other movies, the magic behind the artifacts wasn’t really explained – the ark was just the power of God, the grail was simply magical/spiritual, and the cult simply had magical powers…period. There was really no explanation. In this movie, advanced alien technology explains everything. I think that makes everything lose a little mystique – something that didn’t happen in the other movies.
But the ‘magic’ behind the skull’s powers was not religiously based
I’d say that’s debatable.
That said, I agree that removing the mystery of it was… odd. None of it was really from the technology, but the being itself. But you are right, it did lose some mystique.
I remember reading up on crystal skulls when I was in my superyouth…there were all kinds of theories about them then, alien remains among them…
I was very disappointed with the latest installment of Indy. A little fantasy is wonderful, but it is sad to see a movie about the “greatest archaeologist/treasure hunter the world has ever seen” riddled with so many inaccuracies. For example, why after one scene of Peruvians speaking Quechua, do they suddenly all switch to Mayan? Mayans are from Mexico and other Central Amercian countries. They never existed in Peru, which is in South America. Also, why is El Dorado built like a Mayan city? There were a least two scenes with sculptures depicting the Mayan Rain god Chaac. What happened to the Inca? The Inca had their own set of deities, and their own unique style of architecture.
I have to say that as soon as I heard the title “Crystal Skull” my heart sank. It was very disenchanting to see Lucas stoop to using the theory of Aliens bringing everything good and decent to the savages of the Americas. Not only is this theory washed-up, but it is also racist. When will people just accept that yes, people from Central and South America were and are extremely intelligent. They developed technologies and science that were thousands of years ahead of their time, and no, I’m sorry but Europeans had nothing to do with it.
I also have to agree with most of the other negative comments posted. The monkey scene? Come on. That just took the movie from Indy-funny to Indy-campy. And what was with the “living dead” and the natives of El Dorado? What purpose did they serve besides providing a few more savages to kill?
Finally, you know a movie is bad when the first comment out of your mouth during the credits is “Wow. That was less accurate than Apocalypto.”
Indiana Jones 5: A Wizard Did It
Well, at least it wasn’t as inaccurate as…
DEATH CURSE OF TARTU!…
(Yes, it’s a movie…look it up…)
Haven’t seen it but my wife been trying to drag me to it. Looks like a lot of fun and i did like the first three. Does sound like they could have chosen a better plot though. Aliens? Hmm
Oh well I’ll have to do an Indiana Jones marathon and then go see it.
I do get the feeling that Indiana Jones to my wife was what Cap’n Jack is to the girls today though.
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