Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
HARRISON FORD in
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
CATE BLANCHETT - KAREN ALLEN - RAY WINSTONE - JOHN HURT & SHIA LaBEOUF
The entire Indiana project comes across as very formulaic, even more than the other sequels. It's just a question of moving from one set-piece to the next, most of which we've seen before - many times. The early one involving an atomic bomb explosion had the better chance of being at least pretty good - you can't really go wrong with me when it involves an atomic blast. But, then we have this fridge hurtling a mile, carried by the force of the explosion, with Indy inside (lucky, eh?). When it lands, would not the human being inside it be smashed to pulp - hello? Flesh & Bone? Or is it comic book stylistics? Ah, yes. Here we come to the key in all this.
This is, in essence, another comic book come to life. Indiana is just the latest super-hero, largely invulnerable to harm. By this early point in the film, I ceased to care or wonder if he would be hurt in the remainder of the film; if a hero survives an atom bomb blast, there's really no chance of anything else hurting him during the rest of the movie. Later, we have the 'killer ants' sequence, the other one which had a chance to interest me. These scenes, again, are out of some comic book - and not one aimed at adults or even teens, but at 8-year-olds. At one point, the ants carry a villain down into their nest, as if he were weightless. This reminded me of a few of the cheesy films made for the Sci-Fi Channel in the past decade. What is it with Spielberg, Lucas and the rest of the crew who put this film together? I guess their target audience was 8-year-olds, that's all I can figure.
The attitudes of these guys in charge are indicated by some comments which made their way to the public. Apparently, at an early stage, they weren't sure whether the story would be moved about 20 years into the future from the last Indiana movie. No, it sounds like some people needed to be convinced that Harrison Ford really was older. There was a comment made (by Spielberg or Lucas) that Karen Allen looked exactly the same as in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). OK, she aged well and looks good for her age, but come on! Let's not get carried away. See, these guys really needed a reality check, in many respects, and no one gives them this. No one has the guts or the need to.
It was Lucas who insisted that the storyline contained aliens. Spielberg, to his credit, didn't want that; he'd done enough films about aliens in his career. But, George Lucas cannot get enough of those aliens (many of the films involving Lucas involve aliens, in case someone is not aware of this). When he wasn't making much headway about aliens from outer space, Lucas changed tacks to 'other-dimensional aliens.' Spielberg finally gave up and we get all this alien stuff at the end thanks to Lucas. Thank you, once again, Mr. Lucas. BoG's Score: 6.5 out of 10
Last edited by BoG on Sun Nov 16, 2014 4:48 pm; edited 4 times in total
Re: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
As long as they were producing comic books as movies, maybe they should have gone another route, combining Indiana adventures with another series of sci-fi films, say, maybe...that Creature From the Black Lagoon? Someone had that idea:
script and art by Tom Holtkamp / published in Starlog#300; July,2002
script and art by Tom Holtkamp / published in Starlog#300; July,2002
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