May 26, 2008 11:49 PM
Indiana Jones. . . maybe a B -
I am still trying to decide if I enjoyed the new Indiana Jones. I went in with a bitching headache, so I spent parts of the movie distracted by the throbbing pain in my temple; that said, I was still well invested in the plot and the action. However, there were times when it was just falling flat for me. The dialogue during the initial re-introduction of Indiana was. . . not funny? It seemed like it was supposed to be; there were adequate pauses for the laughter of the audience to seep in. It just never materialized because the lines were coming off as just poorly written. It got better, but at times it just was... well clunky.
Beware, there be spoilers ahead . . .
The whole subplot of Indiana falling in love? Well that also seemed just tagged on; mostly cause we never really saw him mooning for his lost love in either of the sequels to the original movie. When he was shacking up with the Nazi chick, are we really to believe that he was secretly crying out for the love of Marianne? We have this odd little family story that was happening and that's fine, I guess (it does set up sequels starring Indiana Jones the III) . . . but the whole movie seemed to be more about "gee whiz, wouldn't this be cool" then actually anything . . . cool.
Don't get me wrong, some of the visuals were great. The extended fight scene during the car chase in the jungle came off much better than I had expected it too during the trailers. Plus I had a reinforcement of my already healthy fear of ants in very large numbers (Florida and her fire ants have forever scarred me!) But the whole alien thing? I don't know. I mean, there is always a sense of supernatural elements in the I.J. films, but this could have been pushing it.
I was also bothered by the whole "Survive atomic explosion by hiding in a refrigerator, while being hurled through the air and then tossed down mountains" scheme. That shit is just whack, yo. I kinda felt like they were attempting to make this movie bigger and better in the others; instead they just kept creating cool visuals and losing all sense of impact that the story might have. I never felt that Indiana or his family were in danger; you know they were going to escape so whatever situation they were put into, well it just didn't matter. I mean, there was more drama when Poppa Jones was shot in Raiders than there was in Crystal placing momma or baby jones in "peril".
It was a popcorn movie . . . But in the battle of summer blockbusters, this definitely falls short to the greatness that was Iron Man.
Posted by beck at 11:49 PM
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