NEWS: 9 Things I Learned From Indiana Jones

CELEB: 9 Things I Learned From Indiana Jones

Or, what passes for Indy these days. That may seem harsh but, yeah, he's not the man he was in his prime. But, somehow, shockingly, despite that creaky trailer... Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn't awful. It's kind of fun. And easily in the "not horrendous" category. Bravo. Maybe it was my lowered expectations but, yeah, not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.



Still, there were some moments that really came close to sucking, no doubt thanks to the non-writing, writer of the film, Goerge Lucas. Fucking A. Ah well, here's what I learned, good and bad.



***SPOILERS***







****COOL?****







***OKAYHEREWEGO*****





1) Black leather "greaser" jackets are laughable. Like, they no longer work when used to convey "cool." Or even as basic apparel. Maybe when Brando went with it. Maybe it had some luster years later when the Fonz threw it on. But not now and not when set in the '50s. It's hokey.



This goes for the real world too. A million cheeseball agents are in fact, wrong.



2) Shia LaBeouf is a tool. Well, I didn't technically learn it in this movie, but it was confirmed. And it's not that he even does a horrible job. He's fine here. But, also a tool. How do I know that, since his acting his fine? Just a sense.



3) George Lucas' insistence on shoving cute animals down our throats in every movies he touches is out of control. Fucking ewoks-- I mean prairie dogs. God damn I was ready for them to start dancing like the gopher at the end of Caddyshack. Ahh and then the monkeys. Close-ups of adorable CGI monkey doing hilarious things, not needed at all in this movie.



4) Harrison Ford is surprisingly jacked up for a man of 65. He's takes his shirt off at one point and is kinda huge. I'm not sure what my point is, but, yeah, he's a force. Which makes the fact that Shia is supposed to be a tough guy and yet, is completely dwarfed by Ford, kinda hard to swallow.



5) Every single ancient temple shown on film will eventually explode. Often after you solve it's mystic riddle but sometimes even when you do something simple like move an idol or grab a torch.



6) Even Spielberg (or Lucas?) isn't above occasionally borrowing an awesome technique for killing a guy onscreen. In this case, the blowgun reversal trick seen first in "Young Sherlock Homes." I thought Spielberg had a hand in that one which would mean he stole from himself but, according to my half-assed Google search, that's not the case.



7) A photograph of Sean Connery conveys more depth and weight and does a better job acting in this movie than the actual Cate Blanchett.



8) The "Crystal Skull" is the worst prop in movie history. Really, how much did this thing cost to make? It looked like a lucite ball filled with crumpled saran wrap. Bill Murray's bowling ball from Kingpin had more wonder to it.



9) It was awesome and quite refreshing to see Indy, or any aging male star, finally date/hook-up with/romance someone close to his own age.



Sure, it was undercut somewhat by the fact that in real life Ford is dating someone close to 30 years his junior, but hey, at least there's finally a film version we can applaud.









TheCoolerKing is excited for the great and once again dominant, Wanderlei Silva!

I was seriously disappointed in this movie. Like you said, it wasn't awful, but it just wasn't Indiana Jones. It was the cinematic equivalent of trying to shove a square peg in a round hole, it just didn't fit with the first three movies. George Lucas needs to realize that shoveling a bunch of dazzling special effects on and audience just won't make up for a poor script.

Fifteen minutes into the movie I got this strange sense of deja-vu. You know, like I had already seen it before. And then this awesome 80's TV themesong music popped into my head. Da-da-da-da. Duh-da-duh. The fuckin A-Team, man! I thought Hannibal, BA Baracus, Face, and Murdock were the only people that could miraculously survive a barrage of machine-gun bullets from only 5 feet away. No, I forgot, Neo from the Matrix - he can do that too. But now Indiana Jones? WTF! And really that was among the least outrageously over-the-top elements of the movie.

bravo on the review!

Both Spielberg and Frank Marshall were exec producers on YSH.

BTW I had lotsa fun with this and Cate Blanchett totally has my number just with her eyes. Even in Hot Fuzz she's irresistable.

One of the things I think Spielberg and Lucas don't understand is that what made their older films enjoyable was due, at least in part, to their being created before the introduction of CGI. Seriously, there was something that was fun about watching them pull off that tank scene in The Last Crusade that wouldn't be half as interesting if it was remade with CGI. Imagine how boring that very first temple scence in Raiders of the Lost Ark would be if it were reproduced through CGI.

Bill Murray's bowling ball in Kingpin is such a beautiful work of art.

I don't care for Indy so therefore I won't be seeing it but just from the commercials I'm convinced that there is some kind of editing done to make Harrison Ford look younger and more "Indy" like.

I felt reduced walking out of the cinema. I felt humiliated by this film. I learnt that Spielberg is so much more than a bad filmmaker; he's a dangerous lunatic. What's the idea behind this film? That if you want to find things out, then you're fully deserving of the most horrific violence and ultimately death.

In the first film, The Nazis want the Ark to take over the world. And since this is Old Testament stuff, then it's fair that there's an Old Testament ending, with wrath of God for the non-believers.

This film treads the same path, but with crucial differences. The Soviets are up to something similar; they want a magnetic skull so they can take over the world - obvious when you think about it. But the film (and its predecessors) also says that it's not wrong just to nick stuff for your own purposes, because that's exactly what Indy is up to. It's only wrong if you nick too much, like Ray 'love-a-duck' Winstone.

When they get to the temple, there's not much gold around; its basically just information, or wisdom even. (Really useful stuff probably, about how to draw massive spiders in the dirt.) Eventually Russians all die, apart from Spinko, who seems to just want to ask the aliens (Yeah aliens. Christ.) some questions (tell me everything!) So they do the obvious thing and set her on fire. And she gave them their skull back!

There's no morality to it, like there could be in the first film. The aliens are just a dangerous bunch of bastards, and if you fuck with them, you're out. Indy isn't a pure soul; he's just a fluky prick.

It's so simple - there are things in the world (or even universe) that you shouldn't question, and if you do, they'll kill you. Best to just fuck about around the edges, pilfering minor artefacts. This is what Spielberg believes, and he wants you to believe it too. The Old Testament story from Raiders wasn't at random; it's just the purest expression of Spielberg's bizarre death-wish fantasies.

Where's all the hate from anyway? Spielberg must sit up at night fantasising about killing people in various brutal and grotesque ways.

Burned to death by a jet engine

Eaten by a swarm of carnivorous ants

Having your skull set on fire from the eyes out by a 'collective' of aliens

You'd have to think long and hard to come up with this stuff. He ought to be locked up. Rant over.

PS What's really stupid that this was made after rejecting a script from Shyamalan, because this is precisely the sort of nonsense that he gets up to.

ok ,gotcha rental movie.

i watched the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull yesterday and i liked it
#7 made me laugh a lot

+1

They like using CGI because it's cheaper, but it's not better, and putting in more CGI effects because they cost less is not preferable to a few really well done standard effects. CGI is best used to clean-up standard effects, or to create inorganic environments (Star Trek did really good CGI for all of their space shots).


For TheCoolerKing, I'll dispute that 50s style leather jackets are not bad across the board, it's just a little twerp like LeBeouf can't pull the look off.

Right on. I went with my daughter last night. We had a great time, but the movie was formulaic rather than fresh.

Wow. I think you're reading way too much into this. It's not Schindler's List. It's pulp. It's meant to be a crowd-pleaser, and nothing more.

Also, this was better than Temple of Doom. Shia LaBeouf is way less annoying than Kate Capshaw.

There were 3 reasons why the new indy film sucked.
1. There was no Nazis... you can hate nazis a lot more than the russkis.
2. To much special effects.
3. The story was hokey.

Hey Disco, you're boring.

Great review. Pretty much agree with everything. Specifically the whole Shia being miscast, even if he wasn't totally awful.

They jumped the shark in the first 10 minutes with the refrigerator scene.

Yeah, but Kate Capshaw was supposed to be annoying. And I'd take Short Round any day over Shia LaMuff.

That doesn't make it any better.

Yeah, but Karen Allen - Shia > Short Round - Capshaw.

I guess I agree with that math but overall, I'd take any of the first three over this one.. By the way, bad title. "Crystal Skull" sounds like something you'd buy during Hot Topic-day at QVC.

As, um, questionable as that moment was, even in a world built on suspended disbelief, I thought the "Shia learns to vine-swing by watching monkeys" was ten times worse.

yup, shia wasnt actually jumping from vine to vine, it was actually over sharks, everything else was dealable with.

i liked all the little references to the previous films...though it was really the least Speilberg and Lucas could do, after all i hear they now sleep on mattresses filled with money and the crushed dreams of Indy fans

Is it official yet? Can we close the book on Lucas' ability to make great movies anymore?

I thought it was a steaming pile of shit. Why start all these themes and not resolve them? Why don't the characters in this movie develop at all? Why is this 60 year old Indiana Jones still fucking invincible? The first third of the movie was nostalgic and the rest was just complete poop.

No doubt; that makes it much worse. These are the themes that do not have to be presented - they're assumed. You can use them in a kid's film, and it doesn't seem to matter. It's not saying you're reading too much into the last Superman film, to say he's supposed to be Christ-like; because it's laden with imagery. So this is similar; it has a moral (or morals) like any story, and it's really obnoxious.

Also true. I can't go on; I'm going to lose my mind if I keep talking about it. I feel dirty having been a part of it. Molested.

It's meant to be a crowd pleaser but it isn't.

And at least Kate Capshaw is a nice piece of ass.

That Shia video was hilarious.