The Indiana Jones movies are a big part of my childhood, even moreso than Star Wars. The only other movie I could even anticipate as much as Indy IV would be a
Ghostbusters III, but it looks like I'll just have to play the video game for that (which looks amazing!). Needless to say, I tried to do my best to lower my expectations going into this movie, being wary of a sequel after 19 years.
Briefly, I thought this movie was good, but not great. Better than
Temple of Doom, but falling short of
Last Crusade. And certainly better than any of the Star Wars prequels.
The review below contains massive SPOILERS. If you haven't seen the movie, I suggest not reading it until you do.
Yes, there are problems with this movie, and the Mutt/Shia/Monkey swing is one of them. I fully acknowledge that this film isn't perfect, but it's still damn good. This may sound like Spielberg or Lucas talking, but I think a lot of people have the wrong expectations going into this movie.
George Lucas summed up this new Indy movie in the issue of Vanity Fair that come out a couple months back:
So that put it in the mid-50s, and the MacGuffin I was looking at was perfect for the mid-50s. I looked around and I said, ‘Well, maybe we shouldn’t do a 30s serial, because now we’re in the 50s. What is the same kind of cheesy-entertainment action movie, what was the secret B movie, of the 50s?’ So instead of doing a 30s Republic serial, we’re doing a B science-fiction movie from the 50s. The ones I’m talking about are, like, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Blob, The Thing. So by putting it in that context, it gave me a way of approaching the whole thing.
In light of that quote, this makes the aliens (inter-dimensional beings) seem to fit in a tad more. In our minds (the audience) Indy has always been about the occult and mysticism (which I, along with most other people, liked better), but in the Spielberg-Lucas mindset, Indy was always about recreating the type of entertainment they loved as kids (kind of like what Quentin Tarantino has made a career of doing).
The balance between comedy and drama was good (except maybe the aforementioned monkeys), and they hit the nail on the head in terms of references to Indiana being older. The references to the larger Indy-verse were nice too, subtle enough, like the Ark in the Area 51 warehouse (which also appeared as a drawing in
Last Crusade), and reference to Pancho Villa, fully confirming the Young Indy Chronicles continuity status.
Still, there were script issues. I like that Marion Ravenwood was back, but once she was, they didn't give her much to do but drive. The "Mac" character was just awful, and highly unnecessary. Missing was a lot of the slower scenes from the previous movie that were quick, but established the characters a little more, like the dialogue betwen Indy and Henry Jones, Sr. on the zeppelin around the "no ticket" scene, or Marion and Indy in the submarine, or Marion and Belloq, etc.
Overall, a genuinely watchable and enjoyable film, thoroughly entertaining.
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Labels: Indiana Jones, Movies
