Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[brockly]

fuck Spielberg for not having the balls to say fuck Lucas and go with Darabont's script.

how could he? it's not his franchise. fuck Spielberg for not having the balls to say fuck Lucas and walk away from the project and never look back.

spielberg probably made the movie in lucas' defense. to give some false validity to his pathetic delusional theory that fans of the originals aren't settling for anything less than perfect.

it's terrible. fucking terrible. the last half hour enters star wars prequels territory of jaw dropping absurdity. if you have a soft spot for the originals and are as imprudent as me, prepare to be kicked in the balls. again.

[MacGuffin]

*READ AT OWN RISK*


This didn't feel like any Indy flick at all. It was so uninvolving and lacked the humor that goes along with the films. Felt like it was watching people do things that we had no interest in watching, thus placing too much stress on the MacGuffin of the skulls rather than on the characters' search for them. Too many characters relegated Indy to a tag-along role, and LaBouf's sidekick was just so flat. While bringing back Karen Allen was a stroke of genius, apart from their initial bickering, she had nothing to do. There were a couple moments of interest, but when you get Indy outsmart an A-Bomb as an action sequence, it makes you realize that Indy is indeed past his time.

[©brad]

i haven't seen it yet but in a weird way, as a wannabe filmmaker, i find these negative reviews somewhat inspiring. now in saying that i don't mean to suggest i get enjoyment out of someone else's misfortune or misfire. there's no reason not to root for talent. and while i have no interest in how many more millions it's going to make lucasberg, i do want the movie to be great. i want every movie to be great (save those few that are directed by senior ratner, and even then...)

i'm working on a pilot for what i can only dream will be a continuing online series. we're mixing the sound now and i'm so hot/cold with it. i'll go to bed tonight thinking i did something pretty cool, especially given the nonexistent budget and 2 days we had to shoot it (see, i'm making excuses already!) and i'll wake up tomorrow and be sick to my stomach, completely depressed, not even able to look at a single frame of it, wanting to just "move to trash and yes i'm sure i want to delete this item." and then i think, well look kid, you have to stop pretending that what you or any filmmaker does, in the grand scheme of things, is really that important. and then i start to feel really self-indulgent and silly. and then i go to happy hour.

but anyway, the point remains, the fact that a cinegod like steven spielberg can make munich, a movie that blew me away on every level, and then turn around and make something that really missed the mark for whatever reason(s) is kind of comforting. it's like hey, you're never going to get to a point where everything you do is a home run, not even if your paul thomas mutherfuckin anderson. the best thing you can do is just pick yourself up and keep trying.

[Alexandro]

I would say in the end it's a mixed bag, but the balance clearly leans towards the dreadful. The positive reviews for this film when they mention the "fun", "crazy", "ride" this is supposed to be are unexplainable. It seems a lot of critics never really got these movies in the first place. Half of the jokes here are terrific in that old fashioned way Spielberg likes, very free spirited, the other half are embarrasing wannabes, extending themselves way past the point where those things work. There's a moment in which Indy stands up somewhere, looses balance as if he's fucking Goofy on some old cartoon and then falls to the ground, with John William's score pointing every little movement and hammering the joke to our heads in such a way that you just want to look away.

The worst of it all was to go in there and see from the very beggining that all that Spielberg talk about keeping it old school and going along with Janusz Kaminski to be filmmakers of the 20th century was absolute bullshit. Yes, they go for the Douglas Slocombe look, but Kaminski can't fucking help himself and it's allowed to imprint his shiny bleachy shit once again. And even that's not a big problem compared with the CGI orgy this film represents. From the very first single shot on this film it's all CGI, obvious, boring, cartoonish and horribly used CGI. Hence, ever action sequence looks like Spiderman and all the other videogames turned movies out there. And what the fuck with those fucking rodents? Not funny, not inspired, not nothing.

Blanchet, Broadbent, Winstone and even John Hurt are there to be wasted and bring some prestige to the thing. Shia is boring. Harrison Ford seems to be having fun but even he is finally knocked down by the mediocrity of it all. Karen Allen made me wanna punch her in the face. Sorry.

SPOILER
The fucking final scene is just the kind of crap Spielberg the family man has to come up with each time. So Indy finally becomes a dad, and we have the worst ending possible in what's supposed a fun series about an adventurer: he gest married. Fuck Lucas too.

[B.C. Long]

minor spoilers

I knew it was going to suck the second I saw the first frame as a fucking CGI gopher pops out of the ground and smiles at the camera. Was this a parody? I mean seriously, that snake bit and the quicksand? WTF? "Grab the snake!" "Call it a rope!" I understand that all of the Indy films have had humor, but not self-parody. All the stupid little references to other Indy movies completely take you out of the film. Stop trying to freeload on the success of the original trilogy and be your own fucking movie for christ's sake. Maybe I'm too old and to cynical to enjoy movies like this anymore but this did NOT feel anything like an Indiana Jones movie.

[modage]

this is episode I.  worse than it has any right to be.  the tone is completely mishandled throughout the entire film.  it's as if everyone involved had absolutely no idea what made the original films good in the first place.  spielberg should be ashamed of this. 

[Ghostboy]

it's as if everyone involved had absolutely no idea what made the original films good in the first place. 

Same with all the critics who keep giving it good reviews.

[72teeth]

well fuck, by no means is it an Indy film, but as just a night out at the movies... i had fun. and i liked it...

 .... hey what's that over there!!! *runs like hell

[Redlum]

Spoilers ahead....

Since when did an Indiana Jones movie start ripping off The Mummy franchise? From Ray "you'll get yours" Winstone to the imploding Mayan temple.

It's annoying how some people deflect criticism of this film by citing its supernatural or mythological elements - thinking that they somehow somehow negate it's stupidity. There's a difference between not being realistic and just being plain dumb.

Some of the visual effects were excellent but the majority didn't even need to be there, such as the homage to Caddyshack. The jungle car chase felt like the actors were on a revolving Keystone Cops backdrop.

The extra-terrestrial plot was given no gravitas despite having the potential. Nobody seemed impressed with the Crystal Skull nor when a giant spaceship takes off in front of their eyes (a scene which the X Files movie manages to pull-off perfectly and with greater awe). The Shankara stones invoked more power in one shot (see the moment when Indy swags three of them from the skull altar in Temple of Doom) than the Skull did in the entire film.

Shia LaBeouf somehow managed to be more interesting than Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Cate Blanchett and Karen Allen. And despite an inner-ear infection affecting his balance Indy exhibited far greater physical dexterity and capability with daring acrobatics than ever before. Unfortunately his enthusiasm for archaeology seemed to have detoriated; displaying little excitement at discovering the temple which he spent a year looking (and contracted typhus) for. I know he's older but if he inherited any of his fathers traits he should have been "as giddy as a schoolboy" at several moments. As he was when he discovered the second grail marker in The Last Crusade or uncovered the Arks location in the map room in Raiders.

I did enjoy the opening credits, Indy's initial reaction to seeing Marion and the waterfall sequence but I think I'd realised that these moments of relief can't even to attempt to redeem something so fundamentaly flawed by the time Mutt made friends with the monkeys.

[meatwad]

The first hour of this movie is pretty decent. From that point on it just gets embarassingly bad to ever greater degrees. Yikes.

Understatement of the year. There were moments where I was embarassed to be sitting in the theater. Not much more to say.....waste of talent, nosedive during the second half, horrible cgi.

[Chest Rockwell]

I'm not going to get fired up about this like everyone else, but this movie certainly lost a lot of what made the Indy movies charming. It felt, literally, like a bunch of old guys sitting around trying to be young again. The beginning mostly just had shoddy writing (and gophers), but it went on to sink further and further, culminating in an alien and a gigantic dimension ship, both of which I think everybody could have done without.

There were only a couple of moments that I thought worked: the preps/greasers fight, Karen Allen's reappearance (her role from there on seemed a little off), and Indy snatching the hat from Shia.

[MacGuffin]

Spielberg movie angers Russia's Communist Party

Members of Russia's Communist Party are calling for a nationwide boycott of the new Indiana Jones movie, saying it aims to undermine communist ideology and distort history.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" stars Harrison Ford as an archaeologist competing in 1957 with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

It hit Russian screens Thursday.

Communist Party members in St. Petersburg said on a web site this week that the Soviet Union in 1957 "did not send terrorists to the States," but launched a satellite, "which evoked the admiration of the whole world."

Moscow Communist lawmaker Andrei Andreyev said Saturday "it is very disturbing if talented directors want to provoke a new Cold War."

[Myxo]

There's just no joy in this film at all. Watching it felt like a chore instead of an adventure. I can't even recommend it to diehard Indiana Jones fans. I agree with MacGuffin and his post above. Why even bother making another Indy flick without the swagger of a great filmaker?

Speilberg is better than this and he must know it.

[md]

Three words: This film sucked.

Three more: The Dark Knight.

[Fernando]

SPOILS

I went to see this with the lowest expectation possible and still it managed to let me down, the bad rep. it has so far (here) is fair, so I fully agree with the following comments:

fuck Spielberg for not having the balls to say fuck Lucas and walk away from the project and never look back.

the last half hour enters star wars prequels territory of jaw dropping absurdity.

This didn't feel like any Indy flick at all.

when you get Indy outsmart an A-Bomb as an action sequence, it makes you realize that Indy LUCAS is indeed past his time.

The positive reviews for this film when they mention the "fun", "crazy", "ride" this is supposed to be are unexplainable.

And what the fuck with those fucking rodents? Not funny, not inspired, not nothing.

Blanchet, Broadbent, Winstone and even John Hurt are there to be wasted and bring some prestige to the thing.

I knew it was going to suck the second I saw the first frame as a fucking CGI gopher pops out of the ground and smiles at the camera.

this is episode I.  worse than it has any right to be. 

horrible cgi

Since the beginning the script had many problems so I knew the story had to be weak, so putting that aside what I can't understand is the awful CGI, like they didn't care how it looked, just terrible. I had a small hope (before the bad reviews) that Spielberg could pull it off but obviously Lucas had the final say in this ( see dumb cgi rodents (so darn funny!) ).

Fuck Lucas and his stupid sense of humor.