What's to like about it: John Williams' score, the amazing de-aging, and seeing John Rhys-Davies again. Plus there were two moments in the movie that I liked: when Jones explained what had broken him, and the end scene's callback to a great moment in the first movie.
What's not to like: everything else. PARTICULARLY that obnoxious, unlikable, nails-on-blackboard woman they forced us to watch in virtually every scene.
What were they thinking? Was there actually some be-bubbled, benighted soul in Hollywood who seriously thought, "Oh, audiences will LOVE this Helena character!"? She was an awful, dispiriting irritant in every scene she weighed down. Smug, snarky, unaccountably self-adoring, shiftless, virtually soulless. Great accomplishment: out-smarting and being faster than an 80 year old man. Woo hoo. "My father was a genius" -- so she gives herself to a life of cynical crime. A cherished friend of Jones is murdered for her lark, and she doesn't even notice. Horrid, horrid person.
And then there's Jones. Broken, bitter, alcoholic, cynical. One touching scene explains why...but it really doesn't work. What a sad, sad note to end this man's life on. Yes, the last scene redeems it somewhat, but it doesn't really rinse the mouth of the sour taste.
*A* movie could have well been made saying farewell to this beloved character.
But it wasn't this movie.
What's not to like: everything else. PARTICULARLY that obnoxious, unlikable, nails-on-blackboard woman they forced us to watch in virtually every scene.
What were they thinking? Was there actually some be-bubbled, benighted soul in Hollywood who seriously thought, "Oh, audiences will LOVE this Helena character!"? She was an awful, dispiriting irritant in every scene she weighed down. Smug, snarky, unaccountably self-adoring, shiftless, virtually soulless. Great accomplishment: out-smarting and being faster than an 80 year old man. Woo hoo. "My father was a genius" -- so she gives herself to a life of cynical crime. A cherished friend of Jones is murdered for her lark, and she doesn't even notice. Horrid, horrid person.
And then there's Jones. Broken, bitter, alcoholic, cynical. One touching scene explains why...but it really doesn't work. What a sad, sad note to end this man's life on. Yes, the last scene redeems it somewhat, but it doesn't really rinse the mouth of the sour taste.
*A* movie could have well been made saying farewell to this beloved character.
But it wasn't this movie.