Along with the AC crisis of ’08, Wheezley and I managed to make it to the movies for the first time since The Bourne Supremacy came out last year. We watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Warning: there be spoilers ahead.
It sucked.
I didn’t expect it to be great, given what George Lucas did to the Star Wars franchise with the three new movies. But Indy 4 wasn’t anything like the other movies. I liked it even less than Temple of Doom, which was just a strange movie overall.
Why didn’t I like it? Mainly because of the alien angle. One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about the Indy movies is that he’s searching for lost civilizations — people who could have really existed, along with a touch of magic. But aliens? In South America? Ugh.
I get what the filmmakers were trying to do. The movie is set in the ’50s, a time of communism and fears about little green alien men. But aliens have never been a favorite thing of mine. (I like fantasy much better than sci-fi). The movie just didn’t show me anything I hadn’t seen before in the other Indy movies –or even National Treasure. The supporting characters were stereotypes, the action scenes were just okay, and I knew what the dialogue was going to be before the actors said it.
There were a couple of things I enjoyed. The opening 20 minutes where Indy’s fighting bad guys in a warehouse full of weird artifacts was the best part of the whole movie. The first time we see Indy is cool too. His fedora blows out of a car, and you see his shadow pick it up and put it on. Loved that.
Other nice touches were the picture of Indy’s dad and old friend Marcus Brody on his desk. No John Rhys-Davies though. Missed him. And the theme music. Still love the theme music.
But overall, I wished we’d gone to see Iron Man instead. Maybe this weekend …
Anybody else seen Indy 4? What did you think?
