I am a fan of the Indiana Jones movies and I certainly wanted this one to be good. The movie isn't terrible but I came away disappointed.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has all the pieces of an Indiana Jones movie but it seems like a pale imitation. Harrison Ford seems happier and more into the role than he has been in many other of his recent roles. The problem is not with him but with the cartoon characters in the film.
Cate Blanchett makes a poor choice for the villianess. She's an anorexic looking Russian with a bad accent who is more skeletal than formidable. She spouts some nonsense about reading minds and you think that this is her motivation, but that idea, like most of the other ideas in the film, is not developed.
Shia LaBeouf plays the young sidekick to Indy. He is part parody of James Dean, part Fonzi from Happy Days. This isn't strange considering George Lucas wrote the story for the film and he seems to be dragging up some of the 50's ideas he had in American Graffiti. After all, the movie does start with an interesting 1950's car scene with bobby soxers in a hot rod taunting a military vehicle.
Jim Broadbent, one of the world's great character actors, is absolutely wasted in a small role as the Dean of Indy's university.
Karen Allen returns from the first Jones movie as Jone's love interest and although their renewed romance is an integral part of the film it is not convincing or developed.
Given the lack of character development in this film, which you can excuse since this is an action film, the action sequences should have been spectacular and, aside from the fun opening sequence and one after that in the first half hour, the rest of them are not as good as they should have been. The GCI in the last third of the film looks absolutely awful, not at all up to the standards you expect nowadays, especially with Lucas involved in the film.
This film is not terrible by any means but it will leave you wishing it would have been made better. And it should have been given the stature of Spielberg and Lucas. Let's hope there is no sequel.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has all the pieces of an Indiana Jones movie but it seems like a pale imitation. Harrison Ford seems happier and more into the role than he has been in many other of his recent roles. The problem is not with him but with the cartoon characters in the film.
Cate Blanchett makes a poor choice for the villianess. She's an anorexic looking Russian with a bad accent who is more skeletal than formidable. She spouts some nonsense about reading minds and you think that this is her motivation, but that idea, like most of the other ideas in the film, is not developed.
Shia LaBeouf plays the young sidekick to Indy. He is part parody of James Dean, part Fonzi from Happy Days. This isn't strange considering George Lucas wrote the story for the film and he seems to be dragging up some of the 50's ideas he had in American Graffiti. After all, the movie does start with an interesting 1950's car scene with bobby soxers in a hot rod taunting a military vehicle.
Jim Broadbent, one of the world's great character actors, is absolutely wasted in a small role as the Dean of Indy's university.
Karen Allen returns from the first Jones movie as Jone's love interest and although their renewed romance is an integral part of the film it is not convincing or developed.
Given the lack of character development in this film, which you can excuse since this is an action film, the action sequences should have been spectacular and, aside from the fun opening sequence and one after that in the first half hour, the rest of them are not as good as they should have been. The GCI in the last third of the film looks absolutely awful, not at all up to the standards you expect nowadays, especially with Lucas involved in the film.
This film is not terrible by any means but it will leave you wishing it would have been made better. And it should have been given the stature of Spielberg and Lucas. Let's hope there is no sequel.