Indy 4 Review

I know many like this movie and many are on on the fence. I mean no disrespect to any body with this review as we all have our own opinions and the world would be a boring placed if we all liked the same things...

....But this time you're all wrong...it sucked!!! ;0)

****SPOILERS*****

Indy movies should be in the realm of the semi-believable, and as soon as I knew we were in Area 51 looking for an alien body my heart sank!

The Ark is fabulous McGuffin and the Stones in Temple of Doom where so understated they worked a treat and the Holy Grail was an inspired choice. Crystal Skulls on the other hand turned this fourth installment into a cheap, National Treasure meets Tomb Raider meets X-Files and the whole aliens teaching the Mayan's how to plow a field plotline and draw pictures on mountains does the Mayan's an incredible injustice.

Add to all this some terrible and stupidly conceived comedy moments. CGI Prarie Dogs with cartoon emotions, Mutt turning into Tarzan, CGI monkeys that are magnetically attracted to Russian baddies. The whole Atomic bomb testing and hiding in a fridge nonesense, the constant jabbering about the Skulls every 15 minutes just in case we've forgotten what this was all about. Even the action scenes felt so over-the-top with too much crammed in there just because we can in these CGI infested days. Mutt's sword fight was just laughable, as he manages to balance between two jeeps, perry and attack and get hit in the nuts by plants while travelling at 90mph. The falling down Niagra Falls there times and everyone survives and the Skull is still in one piece. Then there's the whole space ship taking off at the end? I was just clutching my head saying to myself "Please don't let this be a big flying saucer, Please don't let this be a big flying saucer" but alas it was!

For the past few years we were told this would be a film for Indy fans, 30-40 year olds would be the people that this movie was aimed at. How could Lucas' and Spielberg's aim be as bad as the gun totting Russian's in this movie. Lucas has treaded this ground before with his absimal attemp at reviving the Star War franchise, which he admits he wrote for himself and not the fans, and this all smacks of the same badly written, poor dialogue and non-essential craziness he had in those films. Is Spielberg responsible for the alien angle, as he does seems to have soft spot for the bug eyed other worlders?

I can't put into words how dissapointed I was when I left the theatre last night. I had a mix of emotions from stunned to anger. I'd love to see the rejected scripts and hope that these were as bad as the Lucas/Koepp's. After reading a few non-spoiler reviews of this movie before I saw it I was open minded and wanted to love this movie as much as I did the previous outings but as I now read more and more reviews I get the feeling there is some brainwashing going on out there. I can't believe true Indy fans would look at this film and say "Yeah it has a real Indy feel" because it fails almost everywhere. I say almost because I thought Mr Ford was brilliant and his age wasn't a factor or distraction at all. Shia also performed well when not swinging on vines, fencing or combing his hair. On the other hand Karen Allen felt like she'd been out of the acting loop for a while and her character wasn't in keeping with her gutsy, head strong performance as Marion in the first movie. Ray Winstone was a charicature and yeah Indy movies have these but they've been done better. Cate Blanchett's Irina Spalko was very one dimensional compared to previous villains, Belloq or Walter Donovan. There were a few glimmers of true Indy during the search for the Skull but not enough to make this a film I would happily watch again let alone multiple times.

Like the new Star Wars movies this fourth Indy outing will never have room on my DVD shelf and is another poor second-cousin-twice-removed to a series of classic movies I still love to watch over and over.

Lucas and Spielberg sould be ashamed...very ashamed!

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