Indiana Jones and the Holy Crap did that Suck

I was so excited, I had a counter on my blog and everything. I love Indiana Jones, I love all three original films dearly. When I heard they were making a fourth I wasn't sure but my hopes were brought up when they announced the reason they had waited so long was that no script good enough had come forward, and now after all this time they finally had it. About a third of the way through the movie I thought, "OK, any minute now there is going to be a twist or something, this will become a good film, after all they waited for this script, they finally found something worth making." I now place Steven Spielberg's sanity in question along with George Lucas and Harrison Ford. So you wait and you wait and THIS is what you made, THIS was it?

It had no tension, the characterization was terrible, the villain was laughable, the CGI pretty much ruined any feeling of suspense generated by the action, and some of the sequences were just flat out retardly corny. Shia LaBeouf swinging through the trees like Tarzan (and I mean that literally, if you imagine that and how silly it would look you are about right) with Monkeys who for some unknown reason are now on his "side". Ugh!

Quick Indiana Jones fact: Did you know that you can survive an ATOMIC BLAST by hiding in a lead lined refrigerator. Not only that but when you fly half a mile from the blast and hit the ground with all that force you can get out of said fridge and walk away from it? Now I know, and I am dumber for having seen that.

There are a lot of things I can and will say about this movie so those not wanting to wade through the rant can stop here if you like:

I see a lot of movies, a LOT of movies, and of all of those movies I have never NEVER been so disappointed with a film.

*REAL SPOILERS BELOW*

The plot: Aliens… with Crystal Skulls. The guy that wrote chariots of the Gods would be proud. I read somewhere that this is no different than the crazy artifacts in the first one, and maybe my faith affects this, but those things have a sense of reality to them. The Ark, the Grail, the Shankarah Stones are all founded in a real world parallel. Crystal Skulls activating a city of treasure?!? Ah yes I remember my grandfather regaling me with that oh so popular tale. So many things were left dangling, and in a lot of ways this reminded me of I am Legend. There was a lot they wanted to do but rather than focusing on a couple of those things they focused a little bit on a whole bunch of things. We will bring back Marion Ravenwood and try to do a love story, we'll have an alien skull, we'll throw psychic powers in there, we'll have Indy being under suspicion for being a commie, and we'll throw in things in passing like Indy being at the original Roswell crash site. An honorable mention goes to the now trademark George Lucas style of falling in love. One line. One line, and its like he never abandoned Marion, never left her on her own, like she never got married to another now conveniently dead guy. I swear I actually heard Star Wars running through my head, "I killed a bunch of Sandpeople." "Oh Annie I love you." WHAT!?!

The characters: First of all, there is an almost audible pop when Harrison Ford finds the Indy character again. At first he is clunky and very poor at delivering his lines, and then out of now where near the half way point of the film he gets into it again. It is one of the weirdest performances that way. I wonder if George Lucas secretly directed the first half… Cate Blanchett cannot pull off a Russian accent, you would swear she was just talking through marbles in her mouth it was that bad, sometimes it drifted into British and it was never ever consistent. The character she is given to play screams "I'm an Indiana Jones villain" from the clothes she wears that are different from everyone else to the sword she wears which is never explained beyond she likes it. Hell, she doesn't even get to die in a satisfying way. Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Black is given nothing to do except smile and look happy even in the most crazy of circumstances. Shia laBeef, cleverly named Mutt Williams (get it? Their dog didn't have a good name so he got the crappy dog name Mutt.) And then there's the greedy double crossing Mac McHale, who Indy inexplicably forgives over and over again despite the fact that he clearly has pathological issues with lying.

The effects: The first thing that made me apprehensive, that made me feel like I just might have walked into a trap? The friggin CGI gopher at the very beginning of the film! These little critters are apparently quite comical, I guess. Really they just seemed very out of place. And it only got worse from there. One of my favorite Indy scenes is in Last Crusade when Indy is hanging off a tank barrel by the strap of his bag, nearly getting ground into the rock wall beside him. It felt tense because you could see that in a sense they were really there, the dust tumbling over his hat, Harrison acting his ass off to sell the moment. All three previous films have a lot of moments like that, the rock crusher fight in ToD comes to mind as well. In this one, ALL of those scenes are done with CGI elements. At one point Mutt is straddled between two vehicles having a swordfight with the Russian villain. In the old days this would have been done practically, right there on the set with real bushes threatening to hit Mutt in the balls, but here it is an obvious and brutal CGI shot. It looks just terrible. The same goes for the killer ants sequence. In Raiders, real snakes gave you a sense of holy crap, in ToD the insect tunnel seriously amped up the eeeeewwww factor, and the rats in Crusade were really there clinging to their hair. CGI ants, BAD CGI ants are not going to scare any one. This movie is the A1 example of why CGI can be used waaaay to much these days when practical effects would be better. The crazy thing is, CGI is MORE EXPENSIVE than practical effects. *sigh*

    So there you have it, my rundown of Indy IV. Believe it or not I left some stuff out, but I think I've made my point. Maybe you will like it, and I wouldn't judge you if you did, but as far as I'm concerned the last time I saw the real Indiana Jones he was riding off into the sunset with Marcus, Sallah, and Henry Jones Sr.. I wonder if he knows there is an imposter out there…