Go see this movie. Seriously. I'll wait.
Are you back? Good...let's discuss. I have a strange relationship with Indy movies. I was too young to appreciate Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Temple Of Doom when they came out, and while I thought Last Crusade was great, it was overshadowed that summer, for me, by the first Batman and the second Ghostbusters movies.
It's only been in my adulthood that I have gained an appreciation for the brilliance of the Indiana Jones movies...or at least, the first and third movies. I never have been a huge fan of Temple Of Doom, and I can't figure out why. I've watched it several time, but I'll be damned if I can tell you what it's about. Something about glowing rocks, child slaves, and Thugee Guards.
I approached Crystal Skull with a measure of trepidation. On the one hand, it was Indy, back in the theatres. On the other hand, I'm full aware of how most people view the new movies of long-established series'. The first 3 Star Wars episodes were universally panned by most fan-nerds...and there is no rage quite like Nerd Rage. Personally, I liked the Star Wars Episodes I, II, and III; though not as much as IV, V, and VI. But unlike the fan-nerds, I don't call for George Lucas's head on a pike for this, and instead just believe that the difference in my level of enjoyment is the fact that when full Star Wars Mania hit, I was a child. My head wasn't swimming with mortgage payments, car payments, and trying to figure out how to get in a girls pants. The biggest stressor in my life when Return Of The Jedi came out was what cool ships and action figures from the movie did I was to spend my allowance on, and which ones were I going to have to beg beg BEG Santa Claus to bring me at Christmas.
Having learned my Star Wars lesson, I approached Indy IV with the mindset and there were only a handful of things I wanted from this movie to feel completely satisfied.
1) I wanted to see Harrison Ford get his ass kicked. Indiana Jones is all about action, but where James Bond is able to deliver his ass kicking in a tux with nary a scratch on him when it's over, George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg take great delight in kicking the crap out of Harrison Ford's character. He's very human, sometimes he mis-judges pits that need jumped over, and the bad guys are on the same fighting level as himself. In other words, he gets his ass kicked.
2) I wanted fun bad guys. One of the things that made Raiders and Crusade great were the Nazi's. Everybody know who Nazi's are, they are the universal "evil" in the last 20 years. Temple Of Doom replaced Nazi's with....strange Thuggee assassins. Boring. Crystal Skull forgave Nazi's for Communists. That's good enough for me.
3) I wanted a treasure that actually means something. Raiders and Crusade had Indy after religious artifacts of great significance. Temple Of Doom had him going after...some....strange....glowy rock things for some reason. If you really need me to tell you what the MacGuffin is in the new Indiana Jones movie, then forget it, I'm not going to tell you. You're obviously a crash helmet wearing jackass who is late for dinner at the group home.
4) Snakes. Indiana Jones, in all of his human-ness, hates snakes. They are his kryptonite. Luckily for us, Lucas and Spielberg gave ample opportunity in Raiders and Crusade to have Indy get into situations where had to face his fears with steely jawed bravado. Temple Of Doom had him in a corridor filled with giant insects. Insects don't scare Indiana Jones, so how was that impressive? So I want snakes in Indy 4.
OK, now that I've given you a primer on my opinions of the Indiana Jones Franchise, I suppose I should give you the high and low points of the movie. I'll try to not post any spoilers, but at this point, if you gave a damn about this movie, you'd have already seen it.
Overall, I liked this movie, which is good. Movies fall into two catagories for me:
Movies I want to like, and do like: Independence Day, Christine, Ghostbusters, The Departed
Movies I want to like, but don't like: The Hulk (2003), The Saw franchise, Resident Evil
Anyway...I'm rambling again....as I said, overall, I enjoyed this movie. It was made better by the fact that SWMBO and I saw it at the Drive-In on a warm clear late spring night (everything is better at the Drive-In).
The movie takes place 19 years after The Last Crusade (which came out 19 years ago....go figure) and as such, Indy has aged (quite well as I've heard some women comment). The plot involves some Russians who kidnap Indy and force him to find some Crystal Skull which can help them....well, lets just say it can help them be even more evil and Communistic (in much the same way the Ark Of The Covenant was supposed to help the Nazi's become more...ummm...Naziistic?).
Within the first 30 minutes, we have a car chase inside of a warehouse, multiple vehicle pile-ups, Indy getting his ass kicked, Indy kicking ass, swinging from light fixtures, getting shot at, and a Nuclear Explosion.
So the action winds down (for right now) and I go get some Popcorn and a Bladder Buster of Coke. I get back and people are still talking on screen. The Lost City Of Gold (el Dorado) is mentioned; which makes for the second reference to el Dorado in 6 months at the movies (the wonderful National Treasure II).
Another chase breaks out, this time on a motorcycle, which is a lot of fun. One liners fly just as quickly as the cars are moving. Damn I'm loving this movie so far.
Soon, Indy is kidnapped again....blah blah blah...Soviet's Dancing in the middle of a forest....oh, wait, there's the Crystal Skull....that looks like an....OOOOOOOh, THAT'S what Mark meant about this movie that he didn't like.
OK, so I'm kind of disappointed at that, but so far I'm scoring this movie as a solid 95% on my "How Glad Am I To See This" scale....which means it's doing VERY well.
I can't really give away much more of the plot (it's my blog, I'll change direction mid-stream if I damn well please....go read another blog if you don't like it).
Needless to say, there are several more big action sequences, large man-eating Ant's (as a bug-a-phobe, I could have done without that) and a few more stunts that made SWMBO yell "Oh come ON...that's IMPOSSIBLE!" at the screen.
Overall, a highly satisfying night at the movies, all things Indy were there.
That's the good....but being a fair reviewer, I do have some "bad".
1) I don't recall him every really being referred to as Indiana Jones in this movie, save for maybe once or twice.
2) Not enough references to snakes. In fact, there was only one snake scene that I can remember...but co-star Shia Lebou...Labu...Leb....the geeky kid from Transformers, freaked out a bit at Scorpions, so that set up for what is possibly his fear (and yes I'm going on record right now as saying that I hope to see his character in any upcoming Indy films).
So like I said, my complaints were few, and my enjoyment was huge (seriously...the Quicksand and Jungle Chase scenes themselves are cause enough for my $7 tickets to be considered the bargain of the century), so go see this movie. Right now.
So far this summer, we're 2-0 with our record (Iron Man being the other winner of the season).
Two weeks from now, we're up for a two-some with Kung-Fu Panda and You Don't Mess With The Zohan.
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