Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [use spoiler tags, please]

[Tref]

I saw Indy to-day at the Americana in Glendale. They had the film on so many screens that there was no wait. (It was playing on four screens across the street at a competing cinema, as well.)

I enjoyed the movie, though there were so many missed opportunities and not a single solid kick ass scene, which is sad. I mean, isn't this from the same guy who directed Minority Report? Oh well, Indy was still a lot of fun even if it wasn't totally satisfying. The best summer movie is still, Iron Man.

Tref sez, check it out.

[Moonliner]

I went in fully Ism'ed in that I was expecting Road Runner type gags....

Spoiler:

Still. WTF? A nuclear blast knocks him a mile downrange? Come on....

The whole FBI / Fired / Mccarthyism story line was pointless and lead nowhere.

So were talking the Inter-dimensional version of the peach corps. Ahh yeah.

Why exactly did they fry the brain of the person that returned the skull?

If all 13 is all that's needed to bring these guys to life, how did one get stolen in the first place?

Still it did keep true to the Indy motto. Lose the big prize and lay waist to everything else of any historical significance.

I did like the wholesale slaughter of the natives. That's a bit of a rarity in our PC world. The ants were kind of fun too.

If this was the script they waited ten year for I would be truly afraid to read what was rejected.

[innerSpaceman]

Yes, those umpteen rejected drafts were either some of the worst film scripts ever written .... or among them lies the most brilliant Indiana Jones film ever conceived - - alas rejected by the likes of talentless Lucas.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I'm guessing that some of the lines from the movie where they talked about things Indy did in the intervening time were rejected script ideas.

I haven't read this thread, so I'm sure I'll be repeating stuff but:

Spoiler:

Overall, I feel about the same about this one as I felt about Last Crusade. Maybe even liked it a little less. It was fun, definitely better than the disaster it could have been. But they lost me at interdimensional aliens. Bleh.

And a whole host of other issues of course. After Steve reminded me of the ToD raft ride, I conceded to give the triple waterfall thing a pass, but jeep landing on open-topped duck? Fridge ride? Terrible terrible terrible.

And I know they tried to give themselves an out by stressing that it wasn't really "magnetism" (crystals and gold aren't magnetic afterall), but the utter inconsistency was beyond bad. I mean, throw the gunpowder in the air and it immediately gets pulled through the air. So, umm, why weren't the bullets being pulled the moment they walked in there? The magnetism only seemed to work when people were paying attention to it. Lame.

Other than that, good opening scene. I liked the relationships, through the movie, I liked the banter, I liked the characters. I liked some of the action, but the jungle car scene was waaay to drawn out, which just gave plenty of opportunity for the rubbery cgi to stick out like a sore thumb.

So yeah, luke warm. Enjoyable. Flawed.

[Gn2Dlnd]

I cheered at the use of the "Wilhelm."

I think I liked this movie more than I thought I did when I left the theater.

[Ghoulish Delight]

But wait, there's more:

Spoiler:

I wanted to mention that I think the reason the fridge thing bugs me so much was that the whole scene was 100% superfluous. Remove it from the movie and it affects nothing. Not that I'm against superfluous scenes for the sake of visual gaggery (e.g., I liked the rocket sled scene), but to have a superfluous scene that ends in an absolutely ludicrous moment? Vomit.

And speaking of the rocket sled scene, anyone else notice that they get launched down the track on the rocket sled, stop, the two of them stumble off the sled...and then within a few seconds the convoy of cars arrives? How exactly did the convoy of 1950s jeeps catch up to a rocket sled that quickly?! I know that's a pretty minor nit to pick, and compared to other things, it didn't actually really phase me. But c'mon, that's just lame

[tracilicious]

Saw it this afternoon. I liked it. It was fun, it was action-y, it had Harrison Ford.

But some things annoyed me. The Russian accent. Indi's sidekick, Mac. So unnecessary. The prairie dogs.

I liked the waterfall scene. It was fun. I'll see it again, but not in the theater.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Not that I'm against superfluous scenes...

Spoiler tags are now superflouous, GD. (Hey, can you change the thread title to reflect that?)

[swanie]

I'm taking 2 of the lil' swanies to see it this morning at the Cine Capri. It is the closet thing to Westwood as I can get here in AZ .

We finished watching the trilogy last night and it is amazing how great the series was in my mind's eye but as an adult seeing it, I don't know how much I would revere the series as a whole. I still love Raiders, suffered through Temple, (surprisingly) really enjoyed Crusade, and am going into Crystal Skull with as much of an open mind as I can. I think I'm more excited to be taking my kids to see such an iconic character from my childhood than anything.

Wish us luck!

swanie

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

The Russian accent.

Yes! It didn't connect until the movie that it was Blanchet, but there were several points where I noticed her slipping into a British accent.