When my wife and I came out of the cinema yesterday afternoon, after seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I started thinking about how to summarize what I thought of the film.
What would I say if I had only 140 characters or less in which to say it?
Indiana Jones 4: weak story but a good yarn, boys own stuff. Best actor: Cate Blanchett. 2nd: Henry Jones Junior.
I did think it was a pretty good film, a good example of the kind of adventure story that I read as a kid that included a far-fetched tale, a thin plot and was a hugely enjoyable adventure to boot.
Of course, it is an adventure, part of the series that began in 1981 with Raiders of The Lost Ark.
But I don’t make comparisons with any of the previous Indy films, and I’ve seen them all. I have the videos from the 90s as well as the DVD collection released a few months ago.
This is a stand-alone story for me notwithstanding a few audio and visual references to the earlier tales (and which only real fans will likely recognize).
I don’t want to spoil everything if you haven’t yet seen the movie so no blow-by-blow commentary here (there’s a good plot summary on Wikipedia if you do want that).
Just a few observations:
- Harrison Ford is very good and exactly as I expected, but Cate Blanchett was terrific as the chief bad guy (pictured above). I reckon there’s lots of potential for more of ‘Irina Spalko’ in future.
- Shia LaBeouf was equally good in the character of Indy’s (unknown to him) son. I first saw him in a small role in I, Robot, then as the lead in last year’s Transformers. A young, talented actor to pay attention to.
- I couldn’t see the point of Ray Winstone‘s character as the traitor spy. It seems to me he added little to the story: the film would have easily survived without that character.
- Great to see Karen Allen, the first movie I’ve seen her in since Raiders.
- John Hurt was, well, John Hurt: largely magnificent.
- The alien spaceship sequence at the end of the film took a real stretch to believe. As I said above, though, suspend your disbelief when watching this film.
- Not too much in the way of computerized special effects as far as I could tell. A nice change in a modern movie.
While I did enjoy this film, it’s interesting reading what some other have had to say, especially some negative views (Olivier Blanchard’s being the most passionately negative I’ve read so far).
But no matter what people have to say that’s negative, I think this film will be a huge commercial success.
Quite a worldwide marketing machine is now in operation to promote not only this movie but also the whole Indiana Jones franchise.
So I suggest you nip along to your nearest cinema, cough up your cash for a ticket and just enjoy the adventure.
Related post:
- The Hobson & Holtz Report – Podcast #346: May 19, 2008: commentary on marketing Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford on seesmic (starts at about 14:26)
