Posted 24 May 2008 - 03:10 AM
I am still in a state of shock at how sub par this film is IN GENERAL, not just as an Indiana Jones movie but simply as a movie. I expected so much more from the creative minds who crafted this train wreck, and although I hate to say it Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is worse than the Indy I was dreading. 
Matt, you just summed up in those few short words exactly how I feel about this film.
What else about it made it an abomination for you, Royal? Do you like all the other Indy movies btw?
I love Raiders of the Lost Ark. The other two are pale shadows by comparison. But I can still accept them as 'Indiana Jones' films.
But I don't think this one remotely manages to capture any of the feel, even of those ones. Let alone Raiders.
I also thought the film was badly structured, and boring to boot. Essentially, the whole thing felt completely pointless.
Anyway, some rambling thoughts here:
Just about everything about the film struck the wrong vein for me.
After the early reviews, I thought I'd just go in, sit back, and take it for what it is. But what it is is so awful that I couldn't even do that.
First of all, it was good to see the old Paramount mountain return. The fade into the next shot I was fine with. Making a mountain out of a molehill was a fun idea. I didn't have a problem with the CGI gophers, either. They looked pretty good to me, actually. Then we get Elvis Presley blasting out of a car radio.
Now, I've got nothing against 'Hound Dog', or any of the other Fifties songs playing in the film, but we could have had a bit of Williams music sweeping over the titles before we got to that bit. It just seems out of place. I expect this is Spielberg and Lucas thinking they're being bold and different.
As for the titles, it was nice that they matched Raiders and Last Crusade. But then we get HARRISON FORD IN on the same line, and in the same font size. This sounds ultra-nitpicky, I know. But it looked very sloppy to me. And was a sign of things to come.
Then the film starts. However many zillions of dollars they spent on it, this film looks cheap. Really cheap. The bleached out look soon becomes boring, and it's shot like a TV movie. Where's the scope?
Indy and all the others are introduced. But they're not really introduced. They're just there. Then we're straight into the story. Again, no real build up. We're just straight in there.
Cate Blanchett's great in this film, I have to say. She's the only thing that makes it watchable. Even though her character was criminally underwritten. I was quite disappointed by Ford. He barely seems to be going through the motions half the time.
The warehouse scene was pretty weak until Indy swings into action. But even then it felt quite uninvolving.
The shot of the Ark was an unnecessary addition.
The Doom Town sequence was okay. But the resolution with the flying fridge was nonsensical. It was a bit better in the old Saucer Men script. But not by much.
Then we get an appearance by Jim Robinson from Neighbours, wearing an ill-fitting General's (or whatever he was supposed to be) uniform, with a really awful Kiwi-US accent.
Harrison Ford says: "Nucular."
Jim Broadbent makes for a poor Marcus Brody replacement. And Indy, in his professor guise, looks like Will Hay.
That said, the scene with them in Indy's home was just about the only scene in the film to have any kind of emotional impact. But they still managed to pick two of the worst pictures they could find of Sean Connery and Denholm Elliot.
The scene of the despondent Indy getting on the train was alright, too. Then Mutt comes along on his bike. He's okay as a character. I don't really have a problem with him being in the film. Very clunky gun close-up in the diner scene.
The chase scene following this is just a noisy mess. Although the bit where Indy gets back on the bike was quite good.
The Marcus Brody statue's head getting knocked off was in poor taste. At least have the whole thing fall on them.
Then we're back at Indy's place. Wouldn't it have been easier to have cut the chase bit out altogether, and gone straight from Mutt telling Indy about Oxley in the diner to this scene?
Again, this scene is shot awkwardly. Compare this to the scene in the lecture hall in Raiders. It's like Spielberg's just going through the script and knocking the scenes off with very little care.
The map/plane scene following this is quite nice. But it still looks cheap.
The bit in the Peruvian (or wherever it was) town was alright. But Ray Winstone's reintroduction was badly done.
The bit in Oxley's cell was okay. But a bit too talky.
Then we're in the graveyard. And the ropiest indoor exterior set since Hammer Films shut up shop in the 1970s. I'm not sure who the geezers defending the tombs were exactly. But it doesn't really matter, right? Yeah, I know Indy told us they're the living dead. But he still managed to kill one of them, didn't he.
Cheap reuse of the sound effects from Raiders in this scene, too.
When Indy says "Part-time" it sounds like a different (and worse) take than the one in the trailer.
The scorpion bit was unscary. The next bit where they go further into the crypt and find the skull was quite good.
Oh look, a load of Russians with Ray Winstone. But is he good, or bad? And why should we care, since we've never been properly introduced to the character in the first place?
Indy and Mutt are taken to a jungle camp that looks about as realistic as the one in Carry On Up The Jungle.
John Hurt's there too, as Indy's old friend Oxley. But he's gone barking mad, and he's dancing around like Catweazle on speed.
I quite like the shot of the skull when Indy gets hypnotized by it. And Hurt was good here, too.
Later on at the camp, Indy meets his old flame Marion Ravenwood. Mutt's mother! Yeah, Indy, it was that Marion. Remember her now? You didn't think to ask Mutt what her maiden name was, did you? Duh!
But this ain't the Marion of old. She's now turned into a right old fishwife, and can no longer act. But with such bad dialogue and direction, I can't say I blame her for phoning it in. What a waste of a great character.
The quicksand scene was naff, and the plot exposition clunky. And the snake business, although it would have been alright as a quick sight gag, was dragged out for far too long.
The bickering in the truck was rubbish, although I did like the "That was before I knew I was your dad." bit.
This whole jungle chase sequence was one long noisy, fake-looking, confusing, uninvolving, and unexciting, borefest. The CGI monkeys were crap, and so were Mutt's CGI legs.
I quite liked the scene with the ants. The CGI was good here. The bit where Hurt separates the ants with the skull was pretty much the film's only bit of 'proper' Indy magic.
Then we get Marion driving over a cliff, and all that waterfall business. The waterfall bit was okay the first time. But three times over was too much.
Why were those warriors in the temple living in the brickwork? The key to opening the Akator temple (or whatever it was) wasn't exactly rocket science, either.
The scene where they're running down the disappearing staircase was pretty good.
Then they get in the throne room with the crystal skeletons. Okay, I'm still buying the alien concept up to this point. Then Blanchett puts the missing skull in place.
Everything after this point can be summed up with the phrase: WTF???!!!
I haven't got a bloody clue what was actually supposed to be happening here in terms of the plot. Yeah, it's really a spaceship they're in, and these crystal skeletons all unify into one living alien being, and the token villains get sucked up into the void.
But do the baddies actually die, or what? Or are they off on a trip to another dimension?
Some kind of explanation of what was going on would have been nice.
Then we get the spaceship take-off. It's a nice-looking sequence. Especially the bit with the ruins being flooded afterwards. But I'd given up on the film by then.
The scene on the mountaintop was okay, although the dialogue was still clunky. But this, and the following scene, were the only parts of the film where Ford really felt to me like he'd captured the spirit of the old Indy.
Maybe that was the idea, with Indy getting his old spirit back at the end. But to spend the preceding two hours without that Indy was a pretty dull experience.
The closing wedding scene was okay. Although, it would have been a nice touch if they'd walked out of the church arm-in-arm past the camera, like they did at the end of Raiders.
Well, that's about it. I think the basic plot for this film was okay. But the script, and the execution of it, was dreadful.
For me, Cate Blanchett, John Hurt, and some of the new themes in John Williams's score, are the only saving graces of this mess of a film.
