Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Was there something wrong with all of us in the '80s that we thought these were such good movies? Because I'm here to tell you that in 2008, Indiana Jones sucks. Plasticky, cheeseball, put-George-Lucas-out-of-his-misery sucks. At least he didn't throw Jar Jar Binks into the film but you can tell he probably came close, settling for some ridiculously bad CGI prairie dogs instead.

All the hype over Harrison Ford being "so old" was much ado about nothing. His age doesn't factor into the movie at all.

What does factor in is how George Lucas is perilously trapped in another dimension where old-timey villains (Commies! Scary!), lame special effects and cheesy backdrops are de rigueur. I dare you not to notice how incredibly fake and studio-setty the scenery is in this movie. I'm pretty sure I saw at least one set that was used on The Goonies and the entire car-chase-in-the-jungle scene was definitely filmed in the Ewok forest. Sigh.

The plot of Crystal Skull feels like George Lucas went back to his cast-off notes from three decades ago and mashed them all together in what he must have imagined to be a trifecta of intrigue. Reds! Aliens! Peruvians! Huh?

It's all cobbled together by the search for a skull of some master race of aliens in a lost city. Indiana Jones is naturally the only person who can translate all the clues leading to the skull. Did I mention it took him approximately one millisecond to solve a half-dozen complex riddles written in dead languages? Even Harrison Ford seemed to be annoyed by it.

The villainess of the film, played by Cate Blanchett, is the worst parody of a Commie I've seen since the Russian lady on Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. (Admit it, you watched.) But the bigger point is that I feel Commies are a little, how should I say this, not interesting at all today? No? Is it just me?

I know the spirit of Indiana Jones is light fare and I should have watched the movie with a bit more suspension of disbelief but for the love of god, I nearly lost my mind in the Commie car chase scene when Indy & company managed to dodge approximately 9,000 rounds of machine gunfire shot from ten feet away.

It is time to put this series to bed. And while we're at it, let's put George Lucas to bed as well. The kind of bed that sits in a room with bars on the window and in which there is no interior door handle.

5 comments:

mollysusie said...

Ha! Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling! Don't remember the Russian though...

Anonymous said...

My husband titled this movie "Indiana Jones gets old and doesn't want to die alone." I HATED the monkey scene and stupid Shia LaBueff. I agree, goodnight George Lucas. You stopped being good at casting after 1989.

Kaycee And Russ said...

I keep moving this further down my netflix queue hoping my husband won't notice. I hope to soon delete it all together!

Kaycee And Russ said...

Oh, and this is Karma- because you should have gotten the second season of Dexter next.

Motley Queue said...

Kaycee is right...we should have just rented Dexter first instead. The disc is coming today and I can't wait!

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