Saturday June 7th 2008
The new Indiana Jones…
…what a disappointment, in my opinion.
Last night, Molly and I met up with Sparky, Seth, Perry and Alison at the Black Bull for some drinks and some eats, prior to making our way down to see “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull“. I didn’t have high hopes for this movie, partly based on what I’ve heard, but mostly due to the fact that a lot of the times when directors and movie companies try to revive a previous franchise, they also try to “modernise” it, in an attempt to appeal to today’s generation. More often than not, the result is a poor representation of the original franchise.
That is exactly what happened with the new Indy.
Ignoring the use of computer graphics and chomekey for a bunch of the scenes, the story just didn’t have the same feel as the previous Indiana Jones movies. Personally, I rank them in this order:
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- The TV commercials that played prior to the movie
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The Last Crusade is by far my favourite and I thought it was an amazing story that dealt with religious overtones, and at the same time had a underlying feeling of a battle between good and evil. There was a sense of wonder, anticipation, excitement, and I really felt like I was there with Indy, and couldn’t wait to see how he would get out of the situations he found himself in. The other two movies were good in their own regard, but they didn’t captivate me in the way that the Last Crusade did.
But this new one, 19 years after the Last Crusade, seems to have lost what the previous movies had. The story had giant holes in it, it was easy to guess what would happen next, the enemies seemed over the top, and the movie just didn’t seem to try and test the intelligence of those who watched it. Seems that these days, people expect a movie to throw everything at you, explain everything, so you just sit there, turning your brain off, taking it all in. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just didn’t seem to engage the mind, mostly because it was so over the top.
I’m glad that I bought the three original movies on DVD, as I will watch them over and over again, without ever getting bored. This new Indiana Jones movie, however, is one that I have viewed once, and don’t plan to subject myself to a second time. Basically, it’s another case of George Lucasism: releasing more movies in a franchise that should have been left where it ended in the 80s.
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