I found it to be an entertaining film. I thought the story line was decent, and to be honest, if you're going to do an Indy film where he's in his 60s this was really the best way. Was it my favorite movie, or even my fav Indy movie? Hell no. But I enjoyed it for what it was.

 

Cairo Swordsman shoots first

 

This film was ok as a follow up and "closure", it even introduce my 8 year-old brother to the character, I can't wait till I show him the other 3.
I must admit, Spielberg once again has proven he's the only one who makes it feel like aliens are aliens, distant creatures with very little humanity to them.
I felt like I was looking at a no ordinary alien, but god/deidity.
Anyone here gets me?

 

and Indy moves his head to the back...and to the left.

to the back...and to the left.

 

 

Ok saw it and enjoyed it. It replaced temple of doom as my third fav indy movie.

 

  at temple of doom hate  

did us fans always felt this way? i only realized i liked it less when i watched it in the 90s and it felt dated compared to 1 and 3. it had the screechy heroine, but at least the tram scenes save it since trams > 700 year old crusaders  

 

The latter, the rot set in when money stopped being a problem and Gary Kurtz stopped producing.

Modern technology may have made the problem considerably worse, but the underlying issue is that he sorrunds himself with yes men and doesen't have to answer to anybody.

 

yak, remind me whos kurtz?

just saw it. it was okay.

great start, mostly perfect. the intros, setting the tone of the era as part of the story, the reminders of past series, great, even the how to survive a nuclear blast. I'm glad to see this at the movie, watching it in HD on the small screen, it'd be harder to hide/mask ford's age, so I thought he looked believable in those early action scenes. lol at doctor jan itor.

the scenes with broadbent were great. he really brought weight to the situation and era.

so far so good up until the cemetery bit, great chemistry tween the old guy and young fella. hey that dude looks like ernie reyes. oh hey it is! Atta, atta! the scene after the capture was okay too. blanchett is great. then we get to the jungle clearing contraption thingie. hmm.

then comes the over the topness (oh hey guy, whatabout the fridge scene. oh you, shush). it wasnt just the jungle swinging mutt, the whole fencing while getting hit in the nads while bridging two moving vehicles. argh.

now we get to the ant scene. oh this is cool.

and then oh hey the vehicle lands on the tree and look at that launches nicely into the river, yay! only way to top this is if they go over a, nay, a series of waterfall...eh? haha, thats clever.

then they get to the temple and get chased by natives, this is familiar, how will they ward these guys off?...that was convenient. then comes in the spectacular effects laden set pieces (they shouldve called this one indy jones AND family and the KOTCS) but thats okay cuz u get nice character bits in between.

.....

why did you have to show the alien?  

i thought the revelation that the aliens were inter dimensional instead of just space faring was nice (but then why the maps visible from the sky? hmm.) but the they couldve just shown alien dude in silhouette instead of a full close up. sigh.

oh hey more CG in the escape sequence (but the revolving valley of rocks was cool). aaaaaaaaand a nice cute ending to wrap it up, yay!

conclusion? i like the movie...in parts. the over the top stuff felt like overcompensating, but it was great to see indy again and the little stuff that went on with his life since we last saw him. a solid B to C plus, and thusly:

1>3>2>4

2 was great thx to shortround and tram scene. 4's act 2 made 2's surviving a plane crash by parasailing a raft seemingly pedestrian.

 

Hey smang, I was right.
You owe me 5 bucks.

 

Kurtz was the produer on American Graffiti, Star Wars and Empire. He met Lucas when he went with Coppola to look at the editing of THX-1138 and ended up being a major part in the production of the above films.

They fell out after ESB, althougth the reasons vary depend on who you listen to. One version is that Lucas blamed him for it going over budget and schedule, another is that Kurtz walked away because Lucas was getting more interest in making films that were flashy spectacles rather then ones that were actually any good.

He went on to do Dark Crystal, Return to Oz and some assorted TV stuff.

 

hmm. i dont recall this guy from my reading...

i dont think its so much as lucas having yes men about as much as hes just a recalcitrant about doing things. i always think its an interesting topic to to discuss where lucas jumped the gun from being genius to madman. for instance, makind the SEs was the work of a madman, but issuing the non SEs most recently is genius (well, sales genius at least).

 

bucks? don't you want pounds?

 

Yeah sure, that'll do.

 

I woulden't be surprised if doing Last Crusade after 6 years of irrelevence made him realise that SW and Indy were his limit, hence Young Indy and eventually the SE trilogy to test whether there was still money to be had with SW. Maybe part, or even all, of his current madness is a result of him trying to convince himself that he is still a hot creative talent and not a sell out.

I'm not really sure whether the shoddy release of letterboxed laserdisc OT masters was a sales ploy to make people buy better copies later on, an artistic ploy to try and make the SEs look better or just another example of Lucas living in his own bizzare world.

 

lucas sold out, by buying in.....into himself  

it seems that, action wise, they wanted to make it as outlandish as the mummy movies (which while only above average worked really well in copying indy), proving that that kind of story/characters can still work with the scale of action in todays movies.

at the other end of the spectrum you movies like national treasure and da vinci code (yes i know it adapts the book, and is not quite the exact same genre) which used less action but ended up with too much exposition.

they just need to find that balance of grandiosity without becoming absurd, but i suppose it is hard with the kind of competition you have these days where theres at least a half dozen effects intensive epic movie vying for audience during summer blockbuster season.

i guess they had to top act 1 and went for the extreme.

 

Here is a CNN blog that discusses who exactly is to blame.

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2008/05/26/indiana-jones-and-the-great-divide/

The Marquee Blog Watch Showbiz Tonight on Headline News « Back to Blog Main
May 26, 2008
Indiana Jones and the great divide
Posted: 10:43 AM ET

The holiday weekend is almost over and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” has earned a ton of money -– just short of a record amount, as a matter of fact.
Harrison Ford plays Indiana Jones in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

But has it earned goodwill? Plenty, but not an overwhelming amount.

Rottentomatoes.com’s Tomato Meter stands at 79 percent -– very good, but not the 93 percent posted by “Iron Man” a few weeks ago. “Crystal Skull” received a 67 from Metacritic.

And for every Roger Ebert, who points out that you can only compare Indiana Jones films to other Indiana Jones films (and has high praise for them all), there’s iReport contributor borisvukov, who called it “absolutely horrible.”

But what fascinates me is how many reviewers lay credit (or blame) at Steven Spielberg’s feet. Yes, the man is the director (and in an auteur universe, the director is all), and he’s as much of a draw as star Harrison Ford and producer George Lucas. (And I can remember, when “Raiders of the Lost Ark” came out in 1981, Lucas was the main draw — Harrison Ford was a “Star Wars” supporting actor, and Spielberg, though championed as the man who directed “Jaws” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” was coming off the flop “1941.”)

Anyway, I’d say Spielberg is the reason “Crystal Skull” works as well as it does. What other director could pull off the opening game of chicken with such effortless suspense — and over the credit sequence, yet? Who else could handle that nuclear ghost town sequence with such wit?

No, I’d say the movie’s problems (and a chunk of responsibility for those problems) lie with the script (by David “Mission: Impossible” Koepp) and — yes — Lucas, who wanted to do something along the lines of “Indiana Jones and the Martians from Mars.”

Lucas may know his action tropes, but Harrison Ford had him right during the production of “Star Wars” when he said, “George, you can type this [crap], but you sure as hell can’t say it.” When the pulp overwhelms the wit in “Crystal Skull,” the film feels like what Lucas probably had in mind. What Lawrence Kasdan or Philip Kaufman could have done with this material!

So, what side of the “Indiana Jones” divide do you come down on? Where does the film rank among the four? Comment below or send longer reviews to us at iReport.

– Todd Leopold, CNN.com Entertainment Producer

Filed under: Uncategorized • movies

 

The only real problem I had with this movie was the attempt to shoehorn the crystal skulls into the Chariots of the Gods theory.

Raiders and Last Crusade seem to indicate that Indy is at his best when dealing with judeo-christian artifacts. If they make a fifth movie, I hope it's to do with the remaining Nazis and the Lance of Longinus.

 

that'd kick arse. I just saw the movie last night, and I enjoyed it. I was expecting a fun, witty adventure (that's all any of these are) and that's what I got. Honestly the only part that really got me was the swinging through vines, and the climax. I kept waiting for Ford to reveal the alien hadn't said "gift" but something else, or some kind of explanation. I mean, she was a "bad guy" so it makes sense that she was killed for her greed, but it still felt "off".

 

Considering Spielberg's reluctance to have Nazis in Last Crusade, as well as his dealings with Nazis for Schindler's List, I really don't see Nazis being in another movie, if there is one.

Plus, the real trick for these films is finding a suitable item to serve as the macguffin, and aside from the Lost Ark, just about every artifact left, Judeo-Christian or otherwise, is just not strong enough to support a movie. That's why Henry, Sr. played such a prominent role in Last Crusade and why Mutt was so important to Crystal Skull.