Sunday, May 25, 2008

Is a Fourth Indiana Jones Movie One Too Many?

A. and I went and saw the latest installment of the Indiana Jones series, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," last evening, and without giving away a bit of the plot (for the benefit of those who haven't seen it) I have to say that I was less than overwhelmed.

Coming almost two decades after "The Last Crusade," I will say that Harrison Ford still does a convincing job as an action hero, and parts of the movie were very exciting. However, the overall premise of the film becomes extremely hokey at the very end, and I thought that John Hurt was underutilized and Cate Blanchett was far overused. I suppose that I was hoping for something that matched the fun, 1930s-style action/adventure method used in the earlier films, and while there were glimpses here and there the ability to tell such a story had aged about as much as Harrison Ford's Professor Jones.

The John Williams score was as good as ever, and there were some amusing surprises and allusions throughout the film (you have to watch closely to catch some of them). Overall, though, I'd recommend you save your money and wait for this one to come out on DVD -- 3-1/2 stars out of 5.

7 comments:

Patry Francis said...

Good advice--wait for the DVD.

kc bob said...

Thanks for the heads up.. I think that we were planning to see it this week.

David Blakeslee said...

Can I give a big thumbs up recommendation for Speed Racer though? I will blog about it later tonight, probably. Just saw it today on the IMAX and totally loved it. It's hyper, crazy, completely unrealistic and cartoony beyond belief, but we had such a fun time - I can't think of the last movie I was at that I found so mindlessly entertaining!

Check the trailers online before you pay the price of admission though, just to get a sense of what you're in for, because in many ways it's really unlike any movie I've ever seen.

rdl said...

i passed on it having missed the last one too. my 14 yr. old liked it but then... kids these days - with video games et all - short attention span theatre for sure, plus not our standards either.

Anonymous said...

Ah, but you have to look beyond the story line to see the reasoning behind Spielberg's movie (in fact most of his movies)- the putting "back together" of a family. Considering his own family situation and his divorce, this is Spielberg's way of making things "come out right."

Having been through similar situations, I can sense how his mind works. There are so many of his movies that concentrate on the restoration of the family unit - yes, even E.T. (he was returned to his family and Eliot was returned to his own family...)

Boring it may be on the surface, and not really enticing enough for me to spend the bucks to sit in a theatre to watch, and I probably won't get the DVD (unless one of my kids decides on the gift!!) But just look at the Spielberg movies in a different light - not just on the surface.

Cany said...

Well rats! I was looking forward to seeing it:)

The middle of the original triology was my least liked... a little to whacky for me.

I'm a movie lover, though... and if there are any violins in it, all suspension of disbelief is immediately lost... which is usually in the first introductory minutes of any film.

Sigh.

ipanema said...

i'm waiting for this and see if Harrison Ford is still as agile as before. :)