ViewGuide

Created Jun 23, 2008 10:55AM PST • Edited Jun 23, 2008 10:55AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Bad 1.0

   My overall feeling after watching this movie was, “Really? That’s just too bad.” I’ll be honest in that I was expecting to dislike this movie. What I was expecting to dislike and what I actually disliked, though, was two different things. I didn’t think Harrison Ford could pull it off. Much as I love the guy, I don’t think of him as a great actor. All his characters are variations of the same guy. Overall, I love that guy, but it is pretty much the same. We love Indiana but how different is the character from Han Solo? Not very. But I thought Harrison actually pulled it off. He’s an old dude, but he did it. I thought I would like Cate and Shia. Didn’t. Hated them. Good actors wasted. And the story was terrible. It felt more like a bad – well worse – sequel to the Mummy than it did an Indy movie. So it ended up being a tragedy not an action film for me. They had a great cast, Harrison can still pull it off, but it just fell flat on its face and leaves you hanging your head.

4. Acting

   Barely OK 2.0

   Overall the acting was not so good, but Indy and Marion were great to see together. Their interaction felt like it was pulled right out of Raiders and it couldn’t have been more welcome in this crapfest.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

   As I’ve said before, I was expecting to hate Harrison Ford. And the first time you see him in the movie, you actually kind do. He sounded more like Harrison from Air Force One than Indiana Jones. When he’s at the military base talking about past military experience I forgot I was watching an Indy movie completely. But it just takes a little bit into the film for him to pick it up and the last half of the movie is pitch perfect as Indy. He was fun to watch and I was really impressed with his overall performance.

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

   Karen Allen was great. She still has that attitude, that sass, that played so well off Harrison in the first Indy movie. She may not have aged as gracefully as Harrison, but she absolutely holds her own. There wasn’t one part of the move where I didn’t enjoy her.

7. Female Costars Awful 0.0

   Cate Blanchett sounded like she was straight out of a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode. She was really bad and really over the top. Not that Indy villains are the most subtle bunch, but this was way too much. I couldn’t stand listening to her as I kept expecting her to say “moose and squirrel” in that stupid Russian accent.

8. Male Costars Bad 1.0

   Normally I like Shia. I really do. In Transformers where he says to Megan Fox “I think you’re more than meets the eye,” I laughed till I cried. I thought he pulled it off great. Here, however, he’s a joke more than anything else. Little man with daddy issues trying to be all tough and it just doesn’t work at all. During the car chase in the jungle he starts to look like a young Indy (which it seems they are setting him up for) but then he swings through the jungle on vines with a bunch of monkeys and loses all credibility.
   Ray Winstone was just kinda there. Not nearly as fun or as cool as John Rhys-Davies as Sallah. Now there was a fun sidekick.

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    The movie looked decent. You could tell that none of it was filmed on location and it was pretty distracting at times. You look at the previous Indy films and this gets really sad because so much was done on location. Yeah its cheaper and more practical to do green screen nowadays, but is it really worth it?

11. Direction Good 3.0

    The directing was good, but it took a bit to get going. With Spielberg you know you’ll get quality, but I thought that with as strong as Indy was at the end, that the character should have been stronger at the beginning. Plus I charge the director with holding a flick together, but you could tell there were about 8 different scripts they were working from for this.

12. Play Good 3.0

    Despite a few scenes that felt just wrong, it wasn’t bad.

13. Music Really Great 4.5

    Great. John Williams is the king. I noticed they used the Indy theme much more in this one – almost like they felt the need to keep reminding us we were watching an Indy movie.

14. Visuals OK 2.5

    You could tell a lot was filmed on green screen and while there were some damn pretty parts, overall it distracted me more than I would like. Oh, and the prop for the crystal skull was the cheesiest looking thing I’ve ever seen. It was awful.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.5

    Not much of any. Language was tame. Not very suggestive and the violence was minimal.

17. Sex Innocent 1.5

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Polite 1.5

21. Reality

    Fantasy 5.0

    Holy crap this stuff could never happen. Ever. Even if you’re Indiana Jones – one of the biggest badasses out there – you cannot do what was done in this movie. You cannot step into a lead lined fridge and survive being in the middle of a nuclear explosion. You especially can’t be thrown hundreds of feet in the air and just roll out of the fridge like nothing happened. Those kinds of things happen more than once and it will make you angry by the time you are done with this movie.

22. Circumstantial Fantasy 5.0

    Nope. Everything was too easy in this movie. Even for Indy, it was too easy.

23. Biological Fantasy 5.0

    I’m getting angry about this movie again. So I’m going to stop. I’ll just say it sucks move on.

24. Physical Fantasy 5.0

    Nope. Not only do you not survive a nuclear explosion in a fridge, but you also can’t take a boat over 3 very large waterfalls and not leave your seat in that boat. Doesn’t happen. You can’t swing through the jungle on vines perfectly to catch up with everyone else.