| Overall Grade: |
C+ |
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| Story: |
C |
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| Acting: |
B |
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| Direction: |
C+ |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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Indy shows his age
by Christian (movies profile)
Jul 11, 2008
169
of
236 people found this review helpful
I went to the midnight premiere at the UA in Roseville, CA last night, and while I can't say it wasn't terrible, I can't say it wasn't great either.
For starters, as a huge fan of the series, it doesn't fit the mold of the previous three. The overall tone of the movie, and weak character development are both sacrificed, so they can attempt to ram action and special effects down our throats as quickly as possible.
The Indy movies have always been about adventure, mystery and history; this film loosely bases it's plot on the Roswell, NM crash of 1947, so you have some history. From there it becomes a jumbled mess and doesn't recapture any of the magic that makes Indy great. Gone is the research, creativity, problem solving, and pieces of the puzzle to assemble. In it's place is the rambling of a crazy man whom only Indy seems to understand, supposedly because of his interaction with the skull.
Indy's fear of snakes is revisited, but just doesn't seem as fun as in previous films... maybe he's just getting used to seeing snakes in stressful situations? Instead of bugs or rats, we have ants gone wild. However, all we know is that they're big and that there's lots of them - we don't get an eerie or gory story about what kind of killer or poisonous ants they might be. It's almost thrown in as an afterthought - it's benchmark status compromised.
We really seem to lose Indy's love of the adventure, and his hatred of those who disrespect his work. He's all too willing to give in under duress and all but hand over the secrets of how to decipher his latest quest. He doesn't even try to hide the answers or locations, and while Shia weakly tries to escape, he seems almost uninterested in following.
Without ruining the film, or spoiling anything unknown, the dynamic between Shia and Harrison is weak. Harrison almost seems like he's too good to work with the up-and-comer and his old cast-mate Karen Allen. Only in the film's final scene do we catch a glimse of that Indy smile, as if he actually cared about his latest adventure. Or maybe he was just happy it was over. |
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