Raiders of the Lost Ark was one of my favorite nostalgic movies. I watched that movie many many times during my childhood, rewinding my tapes to watch certain scenes again and again. I watched it again in recent years and I still love it.
Like everybody else I was really looking forward to this new movie, though I had my doubts about its quality. I didn’t expect it to be as good as Raiders, or even Last Crusade, but I thought I’d have fun with it.
I did have fun with it, but I also had many problems with it. Let’s start with the good. Just watching Indy on the screen with his fedora and whip was a blast. Harrison Ford may be old, but I had the same vibe from him as before. He’s still got it. There were a few jokes about his age, but I had no problem watching him beat the crap out of anyone (complete with those famous punch sound effects).
I also liked seeing Marian back from the first movie, she was the only “Indy girl” that I liked. Her scenes with Indy here are fun to watch, especially when we learn about what happened between them all these years. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get much to do in this movie. She was not as cool as in the first movie, and you might say that she’s just too old for that, but so is Indy.
The introduction of Indy’s son was predictable, a classic passing of the mantle when the character (and actor) is too old. But Mutt isn’t as smart as his father, he was always lost not knowing what was going on and needing Indy to explain things to him (and to us, the audience). That’s not the son I was expect from Indy and Marian. Sorry.
Wow, we’re already to the bad stuff. The action here is over the top. Indy movies were not so over the top in the past. The nuclear blast was a cool effect, but I don’t believe a fridge is enough to survive it. Mutt being Tarzan in the jungle is just ridiculous. He could probably do it after some training, but to the point that he catches up to the cars and lands right on top of the Russian’s car is too much.
The CG effects felt a little bit out of place for me. They might look cool, but they just look fake to me in an Indy movie. I guess it’s just the nostalgia in me, so I admit this is not very objective.
Cate Blanchett is a great actress, but she’s wasted here. Her accent sounds ridiculous, I know that’s what they were going for, but it just doesn’t work for me. I don’t get the reason why she would be in charge, and her motives are also not very clear. At one point she looks at Jones as if she were mind reading him, but it looked ridiculous. Again.
But the main problem with this movie is the script. Aliens?!? I think this was a big mistake, Indy is not a sci-fi franchise, it’s archeological adventures. Aliens just doesn’t fit Indy. Getting past that, the script is just unclear as to why everybody wants these skulls. That final scene of the flying saucer just felt X-Files instead of Indian Jones.
The archeological/historical themes of the past movies were always fascinating, especially in Raiders and Last Crusade. Temple didn’t have much of that, which is one of the reasons I didn’t like it as much. Here there are secret passages and past history, but the majority of them are discovered by Indy’s new found old mentor, not Indy himself. Indy is a follower here, not the leader. That’s just wrong.
Overall I was disappointed by this movie, I didn’t hate it but it didn’t achieve a satisfactory level.
Rating: 2.5 Stars