Indiana Jones and the blah blah Fail *SPOILERS*

I went to see this last night and genuinely think the film should be renamed to "Indians Jones and the Kindom of absolute ****".

The entire film had absolutely zero charisma... none of the old charm and hukour... I don't think there was a single point where I thought to myself: "Yeah, this is the Indy I love"... in fact I barely broke a smile. There was no spark between the characters at all: Indiana Jones' old flame was diabolical in terms of acting and the way she delivered her lines was almost on a cue... and the son was just as bad... truly awful on all counts really, especially with the poorly written "you're my dad" scenes. I mean seriously, how bad can it get?

Add into this some truly, truly awful and frankly pointless scenes such as the monkeys in the jungle who mysteriously decide to help young Indie travel 3 miles via Tarzan vines, the ants which were about as scary or original as my little toe, and any other number of shoddy, almost randomly placed "events" you can name. Car chases were also crap... and the jungle one was far too long.

As for the Aliens theme... well lets be serious, that is not classic Indy at all... it doesn't fit with any good archeology stories, had zero element of mystery, and got to the point where it didn't only border on ridiculous, but it ventured into completely ****ing ludicrous especially at the end with the ship taking off and all the portals crap.

Yet again Lucas proves that he is incapable of adding anything to his previous successes... just as the new Star Wars films proved. How can a film franchise with such pedigree be screwed up so badly?

Script was crap. Acting was unconvincing. John Hurt was wasted on a **** character. No direction of coherence to the scenes, plot jumped about like a 4 year old in a fun park. The list is endless.

I would give this a genuine 4/10. Absolutely shockingly bad, and only serves to cheapen the Indy franchise.
 
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Saw it on Saturday, it was very average - what I was expecting really. The over the top stunts were forgivable, but the ending really spoilt it.
 
This review sums everything up perfectly, he has it spot on... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...al-Skull-First-review-of-Cannes-premiere.html

It's not that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, exhumed after 19 years to be the fourth in this series, is bad, exactly. But it's undeniably creaky.

At its world premiere in Cannes, the audience cheered it in advance, even breaking into a wordless singing of its theme tune. But they ended up laughing at moments that weren’t intentionally funny, and they seemed listless for long spells. Their response at the end was polite but muted.
What made the Indiana Jones series so fresh and amusing back in the 80s was its lightness of touch and its tongue-in-cheek, "ripping yarns" spirit.

That hasn’t quite disappeared, but there’s an awful lot of long-winded explanations of myths, legend and hieroglyphics in this story about Indy’s mission to Peru for a crystal skull that’s allegedly the fount of all knowledge.

Thus, between a series of stunt-driven set pieces, many of them implausibly linked, the film gets bogged down in wearying talk.
Director Steven Spielberg is usually a dab hand at maintaining pace and momentum, but the Crystal Skull contains dull passages.
Its story moves on a decade from where the last Indy film left off. Set in 1957, it starts with Elvis singing Hound Dog on the soundtrack.
There’s a terrific effects-driven sequence in which an atomic bomb test destroys a life-size model town peopled by dummies. There’s even an "I Like Ike" joke; what, you wonder, will the film’s young target audience make of that?

The bad guys are no longer Nazis but Soviets — led by Cate Blanchett, with a Ukrainian accent and a Louise Brooks bob, camping it up like an early-vintage Bond villainess.

Shia Le Beouf plays a bratty young James Dean-style rebel on a motorcycle who joins the hunt and - big surprise - turns out to be not unrelated to Indy.

But oh dear, whose idea was it to bring long-forgotten Karen Allen back to the series? She enters the film late, and mostly stands around with nothing to do. Poor John Hurt has a thankless role as an archaeologist who undertook the mission before Indy and was reduced to a crazed wreck by what he learned.

Curiously, Spielberg has said he wanted the film to have an old-fashioned feel, with fewer computer-generated scenes, and longer shots than today’s fast-cut, breathless action-adventures.
Well, The Crystal Skull is certainly old-fashioned, though not necessarily in a good way. And many of its striking scenes — notably a climax that briefly recalls Close Encounters of the Third Kind — could only be computer-generated.

With a cast clearly pre-fabricated to appeal to all ages, an overstuffed plot and an ageing action hero, it feels born of commercial calculation rather than a story that needed to be told.

There’s a reason the previous Indy film 1989 was called The Last Crusade. Now it’s really time to entomb this elderly series once and for all.
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How this film got 79% on Rotten Tomatoes i'll never know... classic example of journos selling their soul.
 
v0n said:
500 year old knights, occults and ghosts in ark of covenant and similar far-fetchments are part of the genre.

Aliens are not.

It's that simple.

It's almost as stupid as putting aliens in James Bond movie.
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My thoughts exactly.
It was the wrong type of totally implausible.
 
seek said:
It's a shame they never made "fate of atlantis", that had so much potential.
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Possibly one for Shia La Bouef to star in as apparently that's the direction of the franchise though I seriously hope not.

Mutt Jones and the Fate of Atlantis just doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Saw bits of it again at work last night and still think it's quite a good movie, not the best but certainly not the worst.

Also, I don't really think the Aliens were that out of place as there are a lot of myths about Aliens helping or even ruling Ancient Civilisations. For example, the Nazca lines, as featured in the film, have given rise to such an idea as the early Nazca people who built them couldn't possibly view them properly. Of course the most likely scenario is that they thought their Gods could see them and hence made the images that way but it's nice to believe in the myth as well.

Again, the Indianna Jones films have never been particularly sensible though the have in the past featured more beliveable artefacts, if you believe in them that is.
 
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wedgie said:
The idea of aliens influencing ancient civilizations has been around in many different forms in the past, so I don't think it's a bad fit with Indy fiction at all. The execution could have been done better though without a doubt.
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Although I realise that the two theories aren't mutually exclusive, those that generally believe in the Alien influence on lost civilisations generally believe that it is a replacement for God and modern religious beliefs. To have The Ark, The Holy Grail and then throw in an Alien scenario which replaces typical gods just doesn't sit well with me, they should have left it about made up stuff like God.:)
 
There are varying degrees of implausibility... and the difference with the previous Indy films is that they were never "in your face" implausible, they were much more toned down and discreet... and always gave the impression of real mystery and discovery through the human element of the films.

In contrast this ludicrous aliens plot was loud, tasteless, and lacked any form of subtlety. They could have done this theme 10x better with no UFO's, aliens or interplanar portals involved... they could have just left it where the skull with it's strange powers was the only supernatural element involved... and we were left to largely guess it's true origins through part-written legends. Then the film could have done what the original three focussed on doing... concentrating on the interaction between Indie, his allies, and and his enemies and the race to find the artifact first before it could be used for evil.

Even now i'm still stunned at how truly bad this film was... you just don't expect it from a film written by Lucan and directed by Spielberg, two of the supposed legendary greats of the industry. It's like they've simply lost that film-making magic which they had in the 80's and 90's... maybe they've grown rich and lazy, or simply lost that burning drive and enthusiasm that makrked their earlier ambitious careers.

Either way their reputaiton has been permanetly scarred with this film, and Lucas was already far gone in my eyes after the Star Wars prequels. Truly sad, and possibly the end of an era.
 
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Questionable bits:

1. Nuke + Airborne fridge, stupid but I forgave it
2. Aliens, can't make my mind up on this, I did think to myself afterwards the other films had things like ghosts etc. but still Aliens! In an Indie film
3. The monkeys - Did not like this at all
4. Indie getting married!!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
5. CGI where there didn't need to be CGI

Overall I thought it was a fun film and it did have me smiling throughout but I wasn't overly pleased with some of the above.
 
v0n said:
500 year old knights, occults and ghosts in ark of covenant and similar far-fetchments are part of the genre.

Aliens are not.
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So are you saying that aliens are more or less plausible than ghosts? To be honest, if you really believe that there's not a strong possibility of the existence of extra-terrestrials, you need help.
 
I loved the aliens and I think it was great to bring it into the story, the fact is what ever film they made people would moan that it didn't have this and that in it. Lucus/Spielberg have a love of UFO's and space (past films starwars/close encounters/war of the worlds) so I think its up to them if they want to put it in the film.

Roll on number 5 :D

Indian Jones and the search for the C3PO city of Gold
 
Willis said:
I loved the aliens and I think it was great to bring it into the story, the fact is what ever film they made people would moan that it didn't have this and that in it. Lucus/Spielberg have a love of UFO's and space (past films starwars/close encounters/war of the worlds) so I think its up to them if they want to put it in the film.
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I think most people don't realise there's a body of belief saying that extra-terrestrials gave their mathmatical and astromonical knowledge to the Mayans and the Egyptians. Some of their knowledge was very advanced for its time. Bringing such a theory into the film is no more ridiculous than any other myth, say, that of the holy grail. Ancient alien relics fit the archaelogical theme with just as much validity.
 
Lysander said:
So are you saying that aliens are more or less plausible than ghosts? To be honest, if you really believe that there's not a strong possibility of the existence of extra-terrestrials, you need help.
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It's a possibility, not necessarily a strong one unless you happen to be in possession of information denied to most. It will also probably depend on how you wish to define extra terrestrials, if it includes basic life forms such as bacteria then yes, it becomes a pretty strong possiblity, if intelligent life then the chances are less so. Unless you adhere to the view that the strongest evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life is that they haven't tried to make any contact.

Lysander said:
I think most people don't realise there's a body of belief saying that extra-terrestrials gave their mathmatical and astromonical knowledge to the Mayans and the Egyptians. Some of their knowledge was very advanced for its time. Bringing such a theory into the film is no more ridiculous than any other myth, say, that of the holy grail. Ancient alien relics fit the archaelogical theme with just as much validity.
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I'm aware of the theory but there is something about aliens that just doesn't fit in the series quite so well. I'm not even sure why, it just seems out of place although it is, as you say, as valid from an archeological point of view.
 
Lysander said:
I think most people don't realise there's a body of belief saying that extra-terrestrials gave their mathmatical and astromonical knowledge to the Mayans and the Egyptians. Some of their knowledge was very advanced for its time. Bringing such a theory into the film is no more ridiculous than any other myth, say, that of the holy grail. Ancient alien relics fit the archaelogical theme with just as much validity.
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Oh come on stop being such a pedant, it's blatantly obvious what people mean with the complaints about the Aliens theme. The whole point about the Indy films are that they are grounded in Earth-based superstition and supernatural themes... adding Aliens and UFO's into the mix, and as appallingly badly as they did in this film just doesn't suit the Indy themes, and never will.

The whole alien story would ironically have worked much, much better without any aliens in it whatsoever.
 
Lysander said:
So are you saying that aliens are more or less plausible than ghosts? To be honest, if you really believe that there's not a strong possibility of the existence of extra-terrestrials, you need help.
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How can people still be aruging this is beyond me. It's not about what's more plausible, it's about the difference in genres! The only thing Crystal Skull has in common with the rest of the series is the action-adventure element to it.

Indiana Jones 1, 2, 3 and the Young Indiana Jones series are all fantasy-fiction. Fantasy-fiction focuses on the supernatural, mythical and magical but not aliens.

Simply put Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is science-fiction and not fantasy-fiction like everything else in the series that has preceeded it.
 
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z0mbi3 said:
It's not about what's more plausible, it's about the difference in genres!
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According to whom, you?

Wiki said:
Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of technological and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three
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You just can't please everyone. If it had been in sync with the other three there'd probably be a slew of people saying "it was too similar to the others and didn't allow the series to develop".
 
Lysander said:
According to whom, you?
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Yes! No one said ghosts, knights and magic are more believable than aliens. What has been said is that there's noticeable change for the worse in the plot of Crystal Skull compared to the plots of the previous three films, a change that I attribute to the difference in genres.
 
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Richdog said:
adding Aliens and UFO's into the mix, and as appallingly badly as they did in this film just doesn't suit the Indy themes, and never will.

The whole alien story would ironically have worked much, much better without any aliens in it whatsoever.
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Sorry George I forgot that you wrote it and it was up to you to decide what goes in it. ;)
 
Alien theme a bad thing? at least it's more "realistic" than Ghosts and demons entering your body turning it almost inside out then you disolve into a gooey mess then suddenly vanish into thin air and THEN the ark at which said ghosts came out of suddenly closes itself shut.

Oh Nooooooo it's no way more realistic than that!

FYI, sarcasm :p

Get a grip folks, it's Indiana Jones, it's meant to be like this .
Whether it's IJ1,2,3 or 4 and it was a good movie either way.


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On a more serious note, the REAL crystal skulls
 
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