Gotta agree with the Doc on this one.  Not a horrible film, but not great.  I give it 2.5 stars out of 4.

Why?  In short ...

SPOILERS BELOW!






1.  Indy survives a nuclear bomb explosion in the beginning of the film by hiding in a fridge.  A fridge that flew miles through the air after the bomb exploded.  He emerged unscathed.  What is he, Wiley E. Coyote?

2.  After Indy emerges from his fridge, computer animated gerbils (whoops … prairie dogs) look at Indy in amusement.

3.  There is some inexcusable faux 'Tarzan' action involving ‘Mutt Jones’ swinging from vine to vine, etc.

4.  There are many scenes of cars falling over huge waterfalls with no injury to the people inside.

5.  A car hits a tree while falling over a waterfall; said tree flings upwards after the car continues to descend, smacks evil Commies, killing some of them.  Said car lands safely.

6.  There are many utterly irrelevant native 'savages' who appear only to be pointlessly killed (twice: once at a necropolis, once again at the 'hidden city').

7.  According to the film, aliens visited earth in ancient times for no apparent purpose. (To teach ancient peoples the wheel and agriculture?  But only in South America?  I guess that South Americans -- unlike Egyptians, Sumerians, Chinese, Indians, etc. -- weren't clever enough to figure this out themselves.  I guess that explains why they remain pointless savages only to be shot in 1957.)

8.  There is a pointless double-cross sub-plot.  The double-crosser is, of course, British (albeit with a lower-class accent).  A semi-intelligent Indy, betrayed once by a smarmy lower-class Brit, would never fall for such duplicity a second time.  He has a PhD for Christ’s sake!

9.  The movie posits idiotic and unnecessary alien complexity.  No, no, dear friends, the aliens are not from another planet!  That would be banal.  They are from another dimension!  (Oh yes, that added a lot of important depth and detail to the story.)

10.  The aliens seem retarded and/or psychotic.  They grant a wish to the plucky lowly humans who restored the ‘crystal skull’.  And then, in the process of granting that wish, kill the people who asked for it (included the sexy Soviet Cate).  WTF?  I guess that these uber-intelligent aliens are anti-communist to the core!

Quote from: Akrasia7.  According to the film, aliens visited earth in ancient times for no apparent purpose. (To teach ancient peoples the wheel and agriculture?  But only in South America?  I guess that South Americans -- unlike Egyptians, Sumerians, Chinese, Indians, etc. -- weren't clever enough to figure this out themselves.  I guess that explains why they remain pointless savages only to be shot in 1957.)

No. Indy tells you: they are tourists collecting the phat lootz, they just happened to base themselves out of South America...

Quote8.  There is a pointless double-cross sub-plot.  The double-crosser is, of course, British (albeit with a lower-class accent).  A semi-intelligent Indy, betrayed once by a smarmy lower-class Brit, would never fall for such duplicity a second time.  He has a PhD for Christ's sake!

Also: An utter, even VAST, overuse of foreshadowing, sucking all the tension from said double/triple/quadruple cross... (Um... double cross indy, then doublecross My Cate, then doublecross Indy again... makes it... carry the one... bah...)

Quote9.  The movie posits idiotic and unnecessary alien complexity.  No, no, dear friends, the aliens are not from another planet!  That would be banal.  They are from another dimension!  (Oh yes, that added a lot of important depth and detail to the story.)

How did he know?

Quote10.  The aliens seem retarded and/or psychotic.  They grant a wish to the plucky lowly humans who restored the 'crystal skull'.  And then, in the process of granting that wish, kill the people who asked for it (included the sexy Soviet Cate).  WTF?  I guess that these uber-intelligent aliens are anti-communist to the core!

Well, the burning My Cate's brain out was one of those 'be careful what you wish for'...

A co-worker mentioned that the movie was shooting to emulate the genre of the late-50s aliens from space craze.  Slamming Indiana Jones in there is somewhat jarring, but in that light, it did a fairly good job.

In my earlier post, I was referring to this timeline/universe:

http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/WNUsitemap.htm

...and in The Indiana Jones timeline, you see this:

QuoteMarch 1916


YOUNG INDIANA JONES AND THE CURSE OF THE JACKAL, PART II (Indy joins the Mexican Revolution, and then decides to go to Europe to fight in WW I - Pancho Villa, General Pershing, Lt. George Patton, Indy's friend Remy Baudouin)

Which was referred to in the new movie.

...Also:

Quote1950

Indy is in Wyoming, helping to save an Indian relic (see YOUNG INDIANA JONES AND THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUES)

Thats linkable here:
 http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Indy.htm


- Ed C.

The latest Indy seemed more of a Lucas exercise in CGI excess than a pulp adventure flick.  But, it's certainly watchable and if your an Indy fan, then you might as well see the (likely) last (Ford) Indy flick.  Shia was actually better than expected but I have no desire to see him take over the roll.  I give the film a C+ for an Indy fan and a B- compared to typical summer blockbusters.  If that makes any sense...

Reading threads on TBP, etc., I think one of the keys to appreciating the new movie is getting it straight in your head that it's 50's pulp, not 30's pulp. I didn't care for the movie in the theatre - I'll watch it again when it comes out on DVD and see if I like it more betterer.

Seanchai

Dear God in heaven, I've finally seen this monstrosity.  I'd been putting it off for months, but it finally showed up via Netflix.

I...can't...get...the...stupid...out...of...my... head!

Now, I can guarantee you this isn't nerd rage.  I liked the original movies well enough, but they weren't favorites or anything.  And frankly, I don't think the two sequels aged well at all - I can't really even watch them in one sitting anymore.

No, this movie simply offends me on an intellectual level because its just so dumb and poorly made.  I swear I could write a doctoral thesis on all the things wrong with the film.  And that's with completely ignoring the very subjective things like "plausibility" or the alien stuff.

Chapter 1 - "If you're going to set the movie in fucking Peru, try at least reading a Wikipedia article about it first".  Cuzco is not next to the Nazca lines which are nowhere near the Amazon, Peruvian folk music does not sound like Mexican music, and the fucking Mayans are in Mexico - even Donald fucking Duck comics knew that Incans were the ones in Peru.  I've never been to Peru, and am not real great with my knowledge of geography, but even I know that's basically the equivalent of the heroes travelling to Houston to see the Space Needle and then having a chase scene over the Brooklyn Bridge all while talking about the nearby Eskimo igloos.

Chapter 2 - "If George Lucas puts in one more pointless cutesy obviously CGI critter scene in a movie, I'm going to shove his balls into a meat grinder."

Chapter 3 - "When you have to resort to obviously ripping off such substandard, derivative fair as National Treasure and the Mummy then clearly you've lost your touch."

Chapter 4 - "Why the fuck did you hire one of the best known and prolific British actor veterans to just mumble and drool through the whole movie?"

Chapter 5 - "Are you really so out of ideas that you need to keep repeating the same scenes over and over again?"  I mean, seriously, everything that happened in the movie happened at least two or three times.  If you cut out the redundancy, the movie would only be like an hour long.

Chapter 6 - "Why are there so many scenes in this movie that have nothing to do with either plot exposition or character development?"  The structure of the film was atrocious.  I'm still completely unsure how some scenes were supposed to logically flow together - it's like the story was edited in the style of an excited 8 year old rambling on about something.  You get the overall gist, but following the individual pieces of the story is a chore.

Chapter 7 - "Dude, seriously, I also watched Saw V today and it had a more coherent screenplay.  That's just sad."

If you watch the extras on the DVD, you'll discover why the aliens were extra-dimensional and why there were aliens in the first place. Doesn't make it right, but it explains why.

EDIT: Spielberg tried to curb a lot of Lucas' stupid ideas, but I think his resistance was eventually worn down.

Quote from: Seanchai;212868Reading threads on TBP, etc., I think one of the keys to appreciating the new movie is getting it straight in your head that it's 50's pulp, not 30's pulp. I didn't care for the movie in the theatre - I'll watch it again when it comes out on DVD and see if I like it more betterer.

Seanchai

Bingo. Remember that Lucas is a dude who is using Indy to essentially remake the movies he liked to watch as kid. What really disconnects the latest movie from the previous ones is the source material. YMMV from there, but at least understand the man's POV first.

Quote from: brettmb;261784If you watch the extras on the DVD, you'll discover why the aliens were extra-dimensional and why there were aliens in the first place. Doesn't make it right, but it explains why.

Spoil us. I don't want to get the DVD.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;261872Spoil us. I don't want to get the DVD.

Seanchai

The gist was that Lucas wanted to do a 50's Flying Saucer B-Movie starring Indiana Jones. Spielberg was against it, because he's sick of aliens and UFOs. Lucas removed the flying saucer as a threat. Spielberg didn't want any aliens, so Lucas convinced him that they were extra-dimensional rather than extra-terrestrial -- basically, they were aliens, but weren't.  And there was more aurguing like this... Spielberg likely just got tired of arguing about the stupid ideas and agreed. So basically, Spielberg saved it from being a REALLY bad movie, but not enough to make it a good movie.

I was bored even with the action scenes, which were just ridiculously conceived and nothing at all original. While the original Indiana Jones movies weren't completely original, the action scenes were mostly realistic as far as suspension of disbelief goes. The action scenes in this movie were just way too over the top, especially the sword fight and waterfalls (which were already done).

Brett,

Is it at least Netflix worthy if you were an Indiana Jones fan?

Quote from: Drohem;261907Brett,

Is it at least Netflix worthy if you were an Indiana Jones fan?

That's how I saw it -- I'd say yes. You may like it more than I did. My grandfather liked it and said that I was too critical (but he always says that about me).

Cool, I've added to my list.  Honestly, from what I've seen of the trailers and commercials, I'm not holding my breath that this is going to wow me.  In trailers I saw some over-the-top stuff that was obviously CGI.

As a long-time Indiana Jones fan, I enjoyed it. It's Fifties pulp, not Thirties, as it pretty much has to be. But it's still pulp, and swinging on jungle vines is a staple of the genre, so I don't really understand all the fuss about that, nor the ridiculous carping over unrealistic survival scenarios. As for the fury over the CGI prairie dogs, it's five seconds of screen time total and a lot less over-the-top than "chilled monkey brains!" from Temple of Doom. I don't see how it's the least bit worth focusing on.

Crystal Skull had everything I wanted in an Indy Jones film: bullshit archaeology, fast-paced chases, gunfights, swordfights, crumbling temples, sneering villains. Nothing will ever top Raiders, IMO, including the other two sequels, but I had fun at the theater, and that's all I wanted.