Batutta
Major Contributor
Couldn't be more wrong. The ideas behind Indiana Jones have always been outlandish, it's the EXECUTION here that is lousy. Raiders was mostly shot on location in real settings, with real actors doing real things, which made the fantasy more real. Same with Temple of Doom for the most part, and Last Crusade. This LOOKED phony, with too much of the action undercut by CGI or green screen work, which robs the scenes of suspense. On top of that certain stunts went too far outside the realm of plausibility, like surviving a Nuclear blast inside a fridge tossed miles into the air with atomic force. But this really isn't my main complaint. The script is just bad. The dialogue stinks. There are too many character relationships that don't go anywhere, and which are handled with the subtlety of a sitcom. The stakes are unclear. In Raiders, Indy is going after the ark to keep it out of the hands of the Nazis, who will use its powers to rule the world. In Temple of Doom, he is after the Sankara stones to save the village and free the enslaved children. In Last Crusade, he is trying to get the holy grail before the Nazis do. This is all established by the end of the first act. In this one, he is going after the Crystal skull why exactly? There is no over-arching mission here, its just little mini-missions that keep changing without much urgency. Around mid-way, we learn that the Russians want it for mind control purposes but that threat is never made palpable. Then he has to return it to the temple because it told him to, which is a purely mechanical reason to keep the story moving. And then there's too much EXPOSITION. There is 1 expository scene detailing the history of the ark and where it might be in Raiders, that's it, after that it's off to the races. Here we get scene after scene of tension sapping jibberish. It's like Spielberg thought he had to compete with The DaVinci code and National Treasure. And then the discovery of the object is handled without any mystery. Watch the scene in Raiders where Indy enters the map room and locates the well of the souls. It's wordless, and pure magic. Or when Indy and Sallah finally find the Ark. Here it's like, "Hey what's behind here.", and they pull out the skull with all the majesty of someone finding their lost car keys...Sorry, it just stinks. I'm dying to read Frank Darabont's draft now to see the script Lucas rejected.
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