Indiana Jones vs. the Martians

[davywavy]

To my dismay, it seems my wariness regarding this was justified - Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is final, definitive proof (as if any were needed) that George Lucas must - must - be prevented from writing any more scripts. By force, if necessary.
To summarise the major problem I have with the script; unless your hero is Superman, you can't have them survive someone dropping an atom bomb on them in the first reel without wrecking any sense of danger or threat you might to try and build later. After all, what's a dozen commies with guns compared with several megatonnes?
The problem that George Lucas has as a writer is that he has no sense of proportion. In his head, if something is cool, then having a that same thing million times is a million times cooler. So - shrug off a punch to the face = cool. Shrug off 4,000,000 tonnes of TNT = coolest! and the problem that Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has is that's it's George Lucas trying to write the coolest thing he can possibly imagine by taking all the things that were great about Raiders of the Lost Ark and making them even bigger.
Which makes them, you know, even cooler.

It's a shame the script is so poor, because the cast do their best to make it work. Shia leBeuf takes the usually thankless role of sassy teen sidekick and remarkably makes it into a likable character I didn't want to smack round the head with a cricket bat. Harrison Ford is, well, Indiana Jones - only older - and Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood not only has a picture in her attic, but she's plainly having such a great time that it's impossible not to enjoy every scene she's in.
Even the scenes with shocking script and plot, which is most of them.
There's some great scenes - a motorcycle chase early in the film has the lightness of touch and fun that one expects and I found myself thinking "If the rest of the film is like this, it's going to be great!", and there's some good spooky shenanigans in an old Conquistador cememtary. Alas, these scenes are the exception rather than the rule, as the rest of the film follows Lucas' mindset that a five minute chase sequence in military vehicles in Raiders of the Lost Ark was cool, so a fifteen minute one will be three times better and not tedious after a while, or falling over one waterfall is funny so it follows that falling over three waterfalls will result in people having to be stretchered from the auditorium having been overcome with mirth.
I could go on about the plot holes and so on, but there's not much point. Just remember the plot holes in Revenge of the Sith and we're looking at a similar level of consistency here, but at least we don't have to contend with Balsa Boy this time round.

Julius Ceasar had a man whose job it was to follow him round and remind him that he was mortal. Lucasfilm needs to hire someone whose job it is to follow George Lucas round and rugby tackle him whenever he looks like picking up a pen.

Overall? Three stars out of five. Wait for it on TV.

Comments

[flywingedmonkey.livejournal.com]

The monkeys! Oh sweet jebus, the monkeys!!! That bit made me cry like a newly orphaned toddler.

JmC
Cooler than cool

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I had mercifully edited the Tarzan sequence out of my head. Curse you for reminding me.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You see - one monkey in Radiers of the Lost Ark was cool, so hundreds must be hundreds of times cooler.
That's how it works.

[flywingedmonkey.livejournal.com]

But that was was a REAL monkey!
JmC
The CGI- it burns!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Just imagine how much better Lucas could make, say, Jonny Weissmullers Tarzan the Ape man if they let him loose on it!

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

You forgot the hidden cities guardians getting annihilated for no reason other than to show the bad guys were hard & evil.

Or the sub RotLA ending, without the 'This... This is history' speech


Is there anyway we can do some sort of class action lawsuit to make him stop doing remakes / sequels? Something along the lines of 'your movies are so bad they destroy the original enjoyment of the first one so give us the money (plus interest) that we gave you all those years ago'

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I did find myself wondering where the women and children of the lost tribe were. And, for that matter, their dwellings and farmland.
And why a group mind entity would take against communists so.
And...

Oh, why bother?

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

George Lucas makes a terrible movie = rain is wet

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

He's made two and a half good films in the last thirty one years! What's your problem?

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

which was the half? (and i was referring to the remakes)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I reckon Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith add up to half a good film between them.

[rssefuirosu.livejournal.com]

troo dat.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I did rather worry about those poor tribesmen who's job it was, apparently, to be plastered into the walls to wait for an intruder to come along. I mean, didn't that rather pale as a job description about the first five years? Not to mention really negatively impacting on their ability to do anything when the intruder arrived.

"Must leap from wall an attack. Damn. Muscles atrophied. Will now fall over".

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Yes, I wondered about that too. What are the terms of employement? The pension plan? Do they take shifts?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

It must be a very complicated shift change pattern, what with the plasterers and builders having to come in every time.

I can't help but feel that giving them a nice straightforward staff room would have been easier, if less dramatic.

Still, I got to see Indy marry Marion, so all my childhood daydreams were vindicated. I always did find Temple of Doom hard to watch, what with that interloper blonde floozing all over Marion's man!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Is it just me, or does everyone else think that Karen Allen has aged remarkably well?

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

No...I think she looks fab, and has aged without looking like a scary plastic woman (a la Nicole Kidman).

The cast, in general, rocked, and I think without them we would not have been sheltered from Lucas' script to the extent we were.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

Karen Allen = love, fo' sho'

I still want to go see the film despite the shit storm of reviews just because she has one of those smiles that just makes you go YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

She was, for my money, the best thing about the film. Bless her, she's so obviously loving every second of it that you can't help but get caught up in the scenes she's in.

[rssefuirosu.livejournal.com]

I consoled myself by thinking there were secret tunnels and passages behind the carvings from whence they could spy out and, if required, leap through the carvings to attack with added ferocity and surprise element.

Please do not rob me of this thought.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Those would be the secret tunnels and the like which the Conquistadors used to get in, steal the head of the powerful psychic alien, and get out again without tripping the 'one use only' entrance and exits used by our heroes?

[rssefuirosu.livejournal.com]

Exactly the same tunnels it happened like that there were no plot holes in that section whatsoever.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I believe that Lucasfilm have a vacancy for someone just like you.

[rssefuirosu.livejournal.com]

Many shitty film studios have a vacancy for someone just like me. I highly prize my ability to rationalise everything which is wrong in a film I enjoy. e.g. I thoroughly liked Doomsday.