Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Review.

I went to see it a second time today. Took my daughter.

One of the things I particularly enjoyed about the Crystal Skull, is something that might be a bit lost on you younger guys - not having lived in that era. In addition to all the 50's stuff, which brought back great memories for me, I was especially keen on the film's portrayal of Mutt.

The reason I say this is because I was very much like Mutt in my younger days. That is, I was a greaser. Always wore my black leather jacket (even in the summertime,) carried a switch blade and was constantly combing my hair, much like Mutt. And then, of course, there was the ever present rivalry between the frat-boys and us greasers - kind of like the little ruckus that broke out at at the malt shop early in the film.

Anyway, I thought it was kind of cool the way the character picked up on a lot of the typical behavior of those days.

He was the kid trying to be tough. Indy calls him on that one several times.

That is something that was very common at the time. Our role models were all rebel tough guys. James Dean, Marlon Brando,...so we all wanted to be tougher than we were.

Mutt/Shia whichever you want to refer to him as, I will say Mutt, because we are speaking of the Character, not the actor... Anyway, Mutt reminded me of a couple of things... He reminded me one of James Dean a bit and two, of Grease...
I didn't find him to be all that tough... I looked at Mutt more of a Faker than a Tough Guy... He acted to tough so that he wouldn't have to fight, because inside he was really a Wuss... Always quick to jump to the Knife to try and scare the other guy down quickly so that there would be no fight...


That was my impression of the Character Mutt...
Shia on the hand, I've seen most of his stuff this past decade, his more important stuff anyway, the kid has been around for awhile... These past few years have been his breaking years though... I would say that his career in Popularity has really taken off since he was in Holes with Weaver in 2003... He did a lot of stuff before that, but as far as being Popular, I would say it started there in 2003...
He is definitely an upcoming star... Most of the people, the older ones and classic lovers in the crowd, that we grew up with are about ready to hang it up and retire or are slowly dying off... We'll see a lot of Shia, no doubt there...
For the most part, I have liked most of what he has done... I don't care to see him interview though, he seems to be a bit stuck on himself, but then again what Young Talented Stars aren't??? He'll learn the business and hopefully straighten out to be an upstanding Actor as Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis...



My opinion of the Indy character... Ford pretty much hasn't changed the Indy character, still slow to act, needs to think things through and make sure of his next course of action... But the Character as well as the Actor playing him has gotten old, and he knows this and shows it... All in All the character and actor are both pretty much the same and lived up to the legend that was expected of both...


Those are my takes on those 2 characters and actors...

Sad to say...I was disappointed in this movie. I guess I thought they wrapped up everything nicely in Last Crusade.

Cate Blanchett?? Normally a brilliant actress. But in this movie, it seemed like her only method of acting was opening her eyes REALLY wide. And the black, shiny bob?? Forget about it. It looked awful. Keep the long blonde hair. Pull it back into a severe braid or bun. Yuck.

The fact that Indiana did not know exactly (or pretended not to) which Mary-Marion Mutt was talking about was preposterous. Hello! Cancel the wedding?

And the fact that Marion gave him such a cheery reunion. I'd of drop kicked him.

The chase scenes later in the movie...don't get me started. One leg on each car with debris hitting you in the um-hems?? Could have lost that in a second.

I guess Lucas and Spielberg have become so powerful, they either surround themselves with yes-men, or don't listen to constructive critism. High adventure and believability aren't mutually exclusive. In this flick though....

Not all bad, but the bar for me was set pretty high after Crusade and Ark.


Edit..... changing to 3 out of 5 stars.
Fantastic insight Stu!!!!

Jen wrote:Sad to say...I was disappointed in this movie. I guess I thought they wrapped up everything nicely in Last Crusade.

Cate Blanchett?? Normally a brilliant actress. But in this movie, it seemed like her only method of acting was opening her eyes REALLY wide. And the black, shiny bob?? Forget about it. It looked awful. Keep the long blonde hair. Pull it back into a severe braid or bun. Yuck.

The fact that Indiana did not know exactly (or pretended not to) which Mary-Marion Mutt was talking about was preposterous. Hello! Cancel the wedding?

And the fact that Marion gave him such a cheery reunion. I'd of drop kicked him.

The chase scenes later in the movie...don't get me started. One leg on each car with debris hitting you in the um-hems?? Could have lost that in a second.

I guess Lucas and Spielberg have become so powerful, they either surround themselves with yes-men, or don't listen to constructive critism. High adventure and believability aren't mutually exclusive. In this flick though....

2.5 out of 5 stars.

Not all bad, but the bar for me was set pretty high after Crusade and Ark.

Jennifer has spoken. I really liked it myself. This film gave me just enough to make the statement "In all the good Indiana Jones films, the main villain dissolves in some way.

freepizza wrote: Jennifer has spoken. I really liked it myself. This film gave me just enough to make the statement "In all the good Indiana Jones films, the main villain dissolves in some way.

Cept for TOD... where he was eaten by a Croc. But you're right about the other 3!

-Cub. =o)

Cubase wrote:

freepizza wrote: Jennifer has spoken. I really liked it myself. This film gave me just enough to make the statement "In all the good Indiana Jones films, the main villain dissolves in some way.

Cept for TOD... where he was eaten by a Croc. But you're right about the other 3!

-Cub. =o)

He was still Dissolved, we just didn't get to see it... He was dissolved in stomach acid...

What? Croc-stomachs don't count as dissolving?

-Fred

"Um-hems" love it, haven't heard anyone use it other than my grandmother. Good stuff anyway my turn for a review.

<------=Possible Spoilers!=------->

I liked it. Hate me but I liked it (liked their ending better than Pandora's too, I can hear the hissing already.) Here's the thing with Indy, the 1st one was the best, they missed the mark with the 2nd one but it was still good, and the 3rd was and is my personal favorite. This one was still fun. I can CLEARLY see why people have issues with it, but that is because they are expecting it to live up to the previous films. Everyone has had 19 years to build up expectations and a story for what they THINK should happen in all that time. There is no way they could make a movie to live up to that, I just think people should cut them a little slack. We're lucky Indy even came back. The man is 66, name another 66 year old action star. (There probably is but I am not going there.)

Here's what I think happened and I have been saying this for years. Lucas and Spielberg are too damned busy. Look at all the stuff they produce. It's hard to keep focus on anything let alone how much they do. Lucas has always been the better idea man, while Spielberg the better director (look at the Star Wars prequels for evidence.) Now the reason I say this fell victim to them being busy, is that I felt this movie was very rushed. It didn't really take any time to reflect or let things settle in your mind. They just kinda plowed through all the events and introduced a lot of characters (of which there were too many) for people to wrap their brain around and become involved with. Keep in mind everyone has had almost 20 years to fall in love with characters in the past. I think they could have gotten rid of 2 characters entirely and the story would have been less jam packed. The crazy guy and the "other" relic hunter guy. Neither really served much of a purpose in the script and could have been cut all together, but there are little moments that I can see why they wanted them in there.

As for the script, it's been through hell and back. Many many MANY writers took on the task to tell this story and it shows in the script. They took all the unique ideas everyone had and crammed it into the story. Not that bad of an idea but they just needed to refine it better but seeing as Harrison gave them an ultimatum to film the movie or he quits (he is getting older) I can see why they rushed it into production.

As for the effects, yes they were terrible, but they still fit in with every effect they did for the others. I mean fire up your copy of the DVD's and look at them and tell me just how "real" they look. It does fit so I didn't mind it. My only gripe is that they didn't even look that great, like the "location" they chose to do the scene I thought was rather boring it's just a bunch of pointless crap zipping by. Oh well whatever.

TALKING ABOUT THE ENDING BELOW!

Now for those of you still reading this here is why I liked the ending better than Pandora. It's essentially the same thing but Pandora's ending was more . . . unrewarding to the build up. I know the villains got theirs in the end but it was still kinda uninteresting. I mean when Tex fell down that shaft in the temple THAT should have been included in Tex escaping the ship/temple as it collapsed around him! You don't have to agree it's just my opinion. Now if you notice Indy did not fail on this aspect, it was WAY more grandiose than I had anticipated, I actually loved it. They nailed it with the cover-up in that the temple became a lake and whatnot. Actually it reminded me of the ending of the X-Files movie more than anything but they did it right too. So yeah Pandora's ending should have been more like this one. In terms of this ending for Indy, I thought it was alright. I was a little confused why nothing really was resolved or happened in terms of drama but it was still cool. Actually there was another flaw I noticed. This movie didn't really have heart.

The best things to come out of the Indy movies was it's heart. The love story between Indy and Marion in the first one, Indy and Short-Round in the 2nd, Indy and his dad in the 3rd. The 3rd was my personal favorite for sentimental moments. You can tell they tried to implement sentiment into this movie but again fell victim to it being hurried along to tell the next part. Pick any scene you have issues with I am sure the key to it's problem is the lack of heart . . . with the exclusion of the truck part . . . and effects but that's all minor.

Another thing to remember is that these movies are homages to the serials of the past, none of them were anywhere NEAR as successful . . . or good as the Indiana Jones flicks. For Spielberg and Lucas they are just making films that honour the films of the past. I think this movie falls well within the criteria they set for themselves.

So looking at the movie, was it rushed? Yes. Was the FX lame? Yes (except for the end.) Was the heart lost? Yes, but just because it was rushed. Looking back at the experience overall, I enjoyed it. I had my jumbo pop and a bucket of popcorn and I had a good time. That's all a movie should be and that's what they delivered on. Is this my favourite Indy? Hell no, but I still liked it but that's my 2 cents.

**** stars outta 5.

P.S. I am gonna go watch it again tomorrow.

Nice review...


I just wanted to add, world wide over the Memorial Day Weekend, Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull brought in over 311 Million Dollars... That's the 2nd highest Memorial Day Weekend Intake... Falling just 2 Million shy of beating the Record holding Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which pulled more than 313 Million last year...

What I noticed about the movie was that the fight & chase scenes were primarily used to create humor rather than tension or suspense. This movie for me had a feel unlike its predecessors; it was more like watching Young Indy Chronicles, but much older. It didn't take itself too seriously but still sought to be enjoyable. I think that the sheer unbelievability of so many of the events in the film were a result of seeking for this humor.

Personally, I missed the tension in the fights and chases that existed in ROTLA & TLC. But since fans of the series were mostly going to watch Indy, not Mutt or Marion (in fact, when I saw the movie, there were people who were surprised to see them in it; I thought everyone knew), they couldn't create the same tension using the same character(s) because they're so old now. I think that's why they decided to cross the border of absurdity. Do I feel the movie suffered because of this change? Absolutely. Do I feel it was a bad movie? No. Do I feel it will ultimately hurt the franchise? Not really. I feel this movie was to tease the passing of the torch (or bullwhip or fedora, if you prefer) by introducing us to the character that will become the driving force of the franchise if another movie is made. I feel this is why Mutt didn't get to wear the fedora at the end, as well as why his birth name is Indiana Jones III, because this movie's a test to see if people like the character. If they do, they'll make more movies continuing the timeline into the 1960's. If not, they'll probably go the route of the upcoming Clone Wars movie & series & base a few new adventures in time periods after 1938, but before 1957. Either way, Lucas wins.

Hammerhead

I must agree with Jen on Cate's hair, it looked hideous! Surely the Russians have some petite blonde's in their squadrons?

Joel wrote:I must agree with Jen on Cate's hair, it looked hideous! Surely the Russians have some petite blonde's in their squadrons?

They couldn't do that, then you wouldn't look at her like the bad guy, you'd be too busy drooling over her and then we'd really be upset when she gets killed off...

I have to disagree about Cate's hair.
I absolutely love the bob style, and it *must* be in black.
Christina Ricci's character, Trixie, in Speed Racer also used the same style to very great effect.