Indiana Jones Midnight Premiere Review and First Thoughts

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Indiana Jones Midnight Premiere Review and First Thoughts

By PopSavant | May 22, 2008 | Email This Post

I’m just back from the first showing of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and thought I’d post some thoughts. No spoilers in the first couple of paragraphs.

Before the movie, we were treated to a sneak preview of Mama Mia, starring Meryl Streep. I didn’t quite follow, but I believe the plot involves her having to decide which member of Abba to give to to the Nazis. Turns out there’s not a bad choice. But I digress.

I wrote earlier, based on the trailer, that I was worried that we were heading towards a Phantom Menace style suckfest. My verdict is in: no, it doesn’t suck. Is it great? No. Is it good? Parts.

Going in, my best hope was that it would land somewhere between Raiders (the best of the series by, oh, several miles) and Last Crusade, which was respectable. Temple, of course, is an outright steaming pile, so it would almost take a conscious effort to sink below that.

So, does Indy 4 split the difference between 1 and 3? I’d have to say no; the order of quality is now 1-3-4-2, but 4 does approach three in sections. Not overall, but there some outstanding moments. Is it worth seeing? Yes.

That’s the quick review.

Spoilers Below! Spoilers Below! Spoilers Below!

All right, now that we’ve ditched the faint of spirit, lets proceed. The movie opens with an American Graffiti inspired race scene, and if you’ve seen any movies at all you know something bad is about to happen. This time it takes the form of Soviets raiding an American military base. Area 51, to be exact, so we obviously know what they’re after. Turns out the government has stashed the body of an alien there (um, sorry, that’s “weather balloon” if the government is reading) and the Soviets, led by Cate Blanchett, are interested in acquiring it to further their research into parapsychology. Dr. Venkman is apparently unavailable, so they settle for Dr. Jones, who had a hand in excavating the alien crash site ten years or so ago. The ensuing story introduces us to Mutt Williams, who seeks out Indy for help in locating Mutt’s father figure, one Professor Oxley, who is an old college Chum of Indy’s, by way of a letter from Mutt’s mother. Oxley’s particular archaeological fetish, it turns out, involves crystal skulls – much like the one found on the alien body in Area 51.

The Good:

Harrison Ford still gets the Indy character. Sure, he looks a bit older – “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage” – but not too old, and he slips right back into the right speech patterns, body language, etc., when he’s not being directorally rushed. More on that in a bit, but he’s good for another movie.
I was worried they would write too much forced comedy into the script – again, see the last/first SW trilogy, or Marcus Brody in Indy 3 – but they dodged it.
Some of the scenes are worthy of any of the Indy movies. The motorcycle chase comes to mind.
Karen Allen. After watching Raiders as a kid, I remember sitting around with my friends questioning Indy’s choice in love interest. She’s back, and we were wrong. She works.
Props for fastforwarding to the 1950s. It just wouldn’t have worked to have stuck with the old time period, and the Soviets are fertile ground for suitable bad guys. However, see below.

The Bad

The swinging-on-vines scene. Everyone who participated in the conception, writing, filming, editing, camera work, or in any way contributed to that scene making it into the film ought to go out and throw themselves off the Hollywood sign in shame. It came close to ruining the whole movie, it’s that bad. Only slightly less bad is the very next scene involving our heroes driving off a tree branch which snaps back and knocks Nazis off a cliff. Terrible.
So they didn’t go for forced comedy, but they DID try to make Indy an action hero, running on beams, jumping from obstacle to obstacle, generally doing superhuman things. Indy was always a reluctant hero at best, doing things that just barely worked because he had no other choice. Indy 4 violates that precedent, to bad effect.
The pacing is just bad. Indy 4 feels like it should have been a much longer movie. The film completely rushes exposition, in a lot of cases violating the fundamental “show, don’t tell” rule.
It’s a Lucas/Spielberg move with a kid in it. Okay, the kid’s not in elementary school, but outside of E. T., any movie with one of those guys and a kid doesn’t mean anything good. In this case, it’s not too bad – but just barely. (To be fair, LaBeouf is 21, but he plays a kid in the movie.)

Lots of obvious foreshadowing. Mutt mentions he was good at fencing in boarding school and the main villain carries around a sword. Gee, can’t imagine what’s going to happen there.
Cate Blanchett is okay, but we never get the sense of really hating the bad guys that the first movie provided. Granted, Raiders set a new standard in movie villains, but still. I never felt like it was important that Indy beat the bad guys to the prize in this one. The Soviet heavies are as faceless as any of the canon fodder in a 1980’s Schwarzenegger flick.
Hamfisted parallels between the second Red Scare/McCarthy era and the current political environment. We get your point already.
Way too much narcissism. We get a gratuitous glimpse of the Ark. Okay, we knew it was there. That should have been plenty. The Marcus Brody tribute was nice, but did you have to linger over the picture AND focus on the plaque on the statue AND have the statue affect the outcome of the chase?
I’m not sure if this was good or bad, but quite a few sections played like Indy’s greatest hits: the first part of the movie recreated the chase with the Ark and the Nazis almost exactly, even down to the part where there’s a big fight and the bad guys get obliterated by an airplane (or rocket) engine. Mutt doesn’t care about the treasure but is out to rescue his father figure, Indy is back in South America, there’s even a part where a guy eats a bug. (“They call him Belosh!”)
Indy 2, 3, and 4 have never had the serious aspect that Raiders did. That was what gave the movie atmosphere.
No Sallah. Dude.

The Ugly

While the CG effects weren’t as bad as the trailer made them out to be, they still were completely distracting at a couple of points.

More thoughts later… it’s 3pm and I’m losing the thread here. All in all, don’t take my criticism to be more than it is. Any Indy is better than no Indy, and this one is actually pretty good in spots. The only complaint is that it could have been great with a little more discipline, and it just doesn’t quite get there – that’s the frustrating thing. The seeds of greatness are there, though. I’ll probably see it again myself.

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