Indiana Jones 4

Review including Spoilers Below :)

SPOILERS

Well...not what I expected for sure. The film was WAY TOO KING KONGISH. The color pallete wasn't something I liked, I sensed that from the first trailer I saw. The CGI was fairly cheesy in a lot of parts, almost like they wanted it to feel old Hollywood but adding that kind of perspective and lighting on old hollywood with new age color just doesn't fit right...

The movie seemed awful slow too, too much explaining of what's going on. I know he's a smart guy but there was 10x more searching for clues in this. From room to room, another clue, "what's that mean", "it means this", move to another room, etc. That continues for quite a while without much interesting things to keep you fixed on Ford.

Some choices lines in this films were cringe awful, from Ford himself too. I can't remember them specifically but one of them was something to the effect of "John...my friend" or something lame like that. Yuck. Lots of lines needed some work, or they we're said in the wrong way IMO.

The part with the fridge and the monkeys...easily the worst part of the film in terms of it being awkwardly unrealistic. I felt the tone in the theater where everyone was kinda offbeat about it, not sure whether to go along with it and laugh, or think it was stupid. Lots of other moments like the waterfall stuff, blade that busts through the vehicles to cut them in half, lots of things that would have probably been ok if there was 1 of them....but not this many! It was SPIDERMAN 3 all over again with too many things to tell and the inability to let a few of them go for the stories sake. Trying to please the fans TOO MUCH...and you make it annoying.

Cate B. character didn't have any depth to me, she felt extremely thin, and her "death" at the end was so quick didn't have any kind of qualities where you were happy she died, or the death was spectacular...it was just kinda sudden. Shia was good overall, Marion's character was thin too, she didn't really do anything...I forgot she was in the movie most of the time.

I think the more disappointing part of the entire film was the story itself. With all the figuring out and explaining I actually lost where the film was going. In Raiders you know they are going after the ark, in this that goal they had didn't seem so great...so they lost me in caring that they should even get there. So really that ruined the film a lot of the time. If your not caring about what they are striving for on screen...you wont care about anything. That kinda happened to me. Plus the overuse of different rooms. This room into that, then another spectacle room for 2 mins, then another, then another, then another...bleh.

Gag at the end with the hat, the ark showing in the box, and a few other little nods to the fans were great fun :) I'm glad those were in there.

Lots more to say but if your reading this and thinking I didn't enjoy watching it, your wrong. I did love watching the film in the theater, lots more things I didn't like than I would have thought...but overall a great experience.

I still give it a 6/10

END SPOILERS

I like how this critic sums it up: "Can all be summed up with the thought the film could have been much better, but it could have been much worse."
 
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Weston, it's really interesting what you are saying about Spielberg's directing style. Makes sense to me somehow, did you read that or is this an assumption.
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Its been talked about on the extras of his recent movies...his gradual shift away from storyboarding. I don't know for sure if that was the case here...but from how it looks I really think so.

I think the only things he storyboards are the shots that require pre-vis.
 
Don't forget a lot of the things that makes the old Indy movies great are the unplanned things.

The fight on top of the plane in Raiders was completely improv by Speilberg, the famous joke with the man and the sword was also unplanned b/c they didn't have time to shoot the sequence, the scenes with the truck and him climbing under and such was mostly 2nd unit with storyboards yes but there are shots in that sequence created on the spot by the 2nd unit director that added quite a bit.

Maybe the problem in this movie wasn't the improv style...it was just the script. It was the wrong kind of script to improv lol.
 
I had some friends who watched all three films yesterday too and then went to the midnight premiere. I didn't go over to their house 'cause I knew I'd be tempted to go if I watched the old ones, but I just didn't want to stay up til 3am. Plus I have had terrible luck with midnight premieres that I was stoked about(Superman Returns for one).

Well, I woke up to a hilarious, bitter email about how the movie was like a karaoke version of the earlier films.

I know I'll see it sometime anyway , just for the spectacle, but I am glad I got a good nights rest.
 
KyleProhaska said:
Don't forget a lot of the things that makes the old Indy movies great are the unplanned things.

The fight on top of the plane in Raiders was completely improv by Speilberg, the famous joke with the man and the sword was also unplanned b/c they didn't have time to shoot the sequence, the scenes with the truck and him climbing under and such was mostly 2nd unit with storyboards yes but there are shots in that sequence created on the spot by the 2nd unit director that added quite a bit.

Maybe the problem in this movie wasn't the improv style...it was just the script. It was the wrong kind of script to improv lol.
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Good points.

I still think storyboarding played a large part in the feel of the old trilogy. And even if there were improv moments in the old trilogy...Spielberg had different sensiblities back then. I think they put alot more work into the old ones. Spielberg said himself that filmmaking is more of a recreation for him now than a job. I think thats the wrong attitude.

I also think he is more conscious of the difference between his serious movies and his popcorn films...whearas back in the old days his popcorn films were his serious films.
 
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It's because he has nothing riding on it. He could make Jurrasic Park 4 and 5 back to back and still have any movie he wants to make. Hell, the guy could probably remake casablanca with shia as humprhey bogart and he would still have a career.
 
Open letter to Goerge Lucus

Open letter to Goerge Lucus

Dear George,

Are you ok? You must have a reasonable explanation to what happened to Indiana Jones 4. And while you're at it, you can answer why you ruined the star wars franchise too.

I'm so depressed :(
 
Why is everyone hating on Speilberg, the man is a great director. Just take the movie for what it is, of course its not going to be like the trilogy its 2008! Im going to go see it in 3 hours and no matter how it is the movie is going to be awesome.
 
Saw Indy 4.

A little background. I loved the first Raiders as a kid. I thought the second was good (as a 9 year old child) but on subsequent viewings saw way too many pointless scenes and thought the whole thing was kinda silly (in a bad way). I always felt the third one was for the money. Even at a young age I could sense the actors and director were sending it in.

I probably would've waited for video to see this one, but between the hype and the Roswell storyline (I'm a sci-fi guy), I was intrigued enough to see it in the theater. Because trailers show entire movies these days and about the only chance of blockbusters being good are the element of surprise, I avoided all trailers for the film. I went into this totally fresh outside the barest knowledge about the alien connection. Here are my thoughts.

I compleeeeeeeeetely agree with Kyle about the look of the film and was going to mention it myself even before I read his review. The look is just way off and he tabbed it exactly. It's like they tried to mix the old Indiana Jones look with the new crisper "digitally enhanced" image and it just does NOT work. It gives everything an artificial almost alternate reality that took me out of the movie at first.

I didn't like the opening title sequence. Why in the world would you waste the first 3 minutes of an Indiana Jones movie with 4 characters in a car, racing the army, who you never see again? Why wouldn't you open it with Indiana doing something cool? Sure, I'm comparing it to one of the all-time great opening sequences in movies (the first Raiders), but you have the canvas of your choice - and you are the original artist. Come on. Big misstep if you ask me.

As the movie settled in, however, I have to admit I was pretty into it. Shia LeBastard wasn't half bad but I'm still confused as to why everyone thinks he's the chosen one. He did nothing for me either way. (and the decision to name him "Mudd" - which I can only assume was Lucas' idea because of his terrible naming ability that popped up in the prequels: "Count Dooku"??? - had to be one of the worst naming choices in the history of big-budget film). Harrison Ford does look old, and there's a certain "bad-assness" that is lost because of it, but you still believe him enough in the role to go along with whatever he does.

The thing about this movie is it sort of eases its way into this world and you begin to go with it. It's not the Indiana Jones world. I think that world was lost when it left the 30s and 40s. But it's this new slicker, slightly wackier, world that has some of its own charms.

I would disagree with Kyle about the story aspect as that was what kept me intrigued for most of the film. The action sequences weren't anything special - so the story had to drag me in. And like I said, I'm a sci-fi guy so I may have been more interested than others. We knew they were trying to find the lost city of gold very early on. And we knew that the crystal skull had something to do with it. So I didn't find that confusing or not as clear as the first Raiders at all.

As far as the action sequences go. The first one in the warehouse was boring. I did like seeing the ark in the box though. That brought a smile. I actually liked the reference to the atom bomb testing. Even though i'm not quite sure a fridge would save him. The motorcycle race through campus? Ehh... Don't think that was necessary. The car race through the jungle was mildly entertaining. But whenever I see sequences like that, I always compare them to the speeder bike race in Jedi - and none of them compare. Shia turning into Tarzan was the only embarrassing moment in the film and a huge miscalculation by Spielberg. I actually felt sorry for the kid that he actually had to try and make this look real. Like a kid would just see monkeys swinging and decide to turn in Tarzan. I had to look away.

I liked the big ant sequence. Don't know why. Something about ants that freaks me out, so I was totally with it. And I liked the whole last entire descension into the mayan temple with the aliens.

I will say, the thing that disappointed me, was where was that one cave sequence where Indiana Jones showed why he was Indiana Jones? Where he's able to figure out something nobody else could possibly figure out? You need that moment in an Indiana Jones film. And it was never there.

On a summer fun scale I'd probably give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. As a standalone movie I'd probably give it a 6/10.
 
SPOILERS!!!

Okay. Aliens? Really? Still, the end with the crystal skeletons was a great idea and an awesome image. Bravo to the art department for designing that.

After becoming more aware about what aspect ratio films are shot in and what that could mean visually through lense choices, I've noticed a lot more about what it takes to give a movie its look. With that knowledge, I immediately had an issue with the look of the film. There was a lot of anamorphic flares, more so than I've ever seen in any other anamorphic movie. Did they add some digitally? At times it became almost a gimmick, like the apparent star filter used throughout "Conan: The Destroyer".

Shia LeBouf. I'm tired of this guy. There are too many other young actors in Hollywood that are much better looking, appealing, and appropriate for these parts than Shia and I think the people putting him into every single big franchise film right now are going to see their mistake in the years to come. For example, he doesn't look like Harrison Ford enough to be Indiana Jones' son. The kid from "Sky High" looks more like Harrison Ford than Shia does.

The switch to Communists from Nazis was nice but the opening with them was wierd. I don't know what it was. Maybe because it was like the opening for a different movie rather than an Indiana Jones movie.

The movie itself was fine, I enjoyed it overall. However, there were some things about it that irked me. The jungle car chase/fight scene was really too long and it looked too fake for an ILM job. Maybe cutting that down a few minutes and going right into the ant scene would have made it better. Also, there was this strange thing going on between Indiana Jones and the Communists. It was like Indiana Jones gave in too easily to helping the Communists figure out the puzzles. It went something like this:

Indy - "No, I won't help you"
Indy escapes. Communists catch him.
Indy - "Aw, dang. Well, what do we got?"

At one point it gets to be too much and Shia ends up throwing a fist and giving them a way out for another escape. It wasn't Indiana Jones. He only worked with the bad guys if they made him (ie. threaten a loved one). This time he was almost too eager to solve the mystery than live the adventure.

Good movie, but not a great movie.
 
Ugh...what a disappointment...just lame. David Koepp should be dragged behind a truck. His script was awful. Too many scenes had no dramatic weight, and the scenes between Indy and Marion were scripted like a sitcom. Not that Spielberg and Lucas don't shoulder some of the blame here, but whatever flaws in execution there are I could forgive if the script were better. This movie had so many problems I don't even feel like cataloging them all. What was good? The section where Indy and Mutt explore the first tomb and find the Crystal Skull is pretty solid and reminded me of the other Indiana Jones films. Indy's relationship with his son started out strong but went nowhere in the end...I can't keep reviewing this. It's too depressing. Because of the buzz I tamped down my expectations somewhat, but I wasn't expecting something mediocre....and this film is mediocre through and through.
 
I haven't seen it yet; waiting for my sons arrival from back east ...

But the trailer showing Shia sword fighting while going 'Footloose' style between two cars is exactly the kind of **** I can't stand.
 
J.R. Hudson said:
I haven't seen it yet; waiting for my sons arrival from back east ...

But the trailer showing Shia sword fighting while going 'Footloose' style between two cars is exactly the kind of shi* I can't stand.
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That's actually one of the better moments, believe it or not.
 
J.R. Hudson said:
I haven't seen it yet; waiting for my sons arrival from back east ...

But the trailer showing Shia sword fighting while going 'Footloose' style between two cars is exactly the kind of shi* I can't stand.
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Ha, thats not even the worst part of the chase. You'll know what I mean when you see it...I couldn't stop laughing it was so stupid.
 
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