Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Suckiness
May 24th, 2008
Me thinks that I spoke too soon with the top five movie let-downs because we have a new contender. Â Actually not a contender, we have a clear and present winner of the title.
I actually didn’t want to look forward to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in the first place, when it was announced my initial reaction was an issue about the age of Harrison Ford (which is completely unfounded I might add) tinged with memories of the new Star Wars and War of the Worlds.
But then the trailer came out and I began to slightly hold out hope that it was going to be as fun as the previous ones. Â Actually over the last week or so after coming down off the high that was Iron Man I was downright excited and rushed out to see the film this morning.
It’s not to say that there isn’t some great stuff in the film, it’s just really thin on the ground and outweighed by the other crap. Â The actors are all great with what they’ve got and I blame two men, Spielberg and Lucas.
Now there are going to be some spoilers, I’m not going to give the major plot out but I will elude to it, let me just say that the trailers for this film have completely ignored the plot and not focused one little second to the actual theme running through the film.
Now the spoilers will begin, if you are really excited to see this film and don’t wish to be tainted by my negative take then I suggest you come back tomorrow.
You see it is hard not to discuss plot points directly in order to explain the problems this film faces and how wrong it is. Â Please believe me when I say I desperately wanted to love this film!!!
Here goes…
Last chance…
Spoilers begin now…
- Unnecessary gophers. Â If you seen the film, you’ll know what I mean and if you like them I can’t help you.
- Unnecessary car sequence.
- Area 51 is guarded by five guys in total?
- Area 51 seems to store a lot of empty boxes, or boxes full of saw dust.
- Area 51 is a very unimpressive matte painting.
- Magnetism is not selective by object
- Where was the smoking man?
- Unnecessary nuclear explosion
- Completely bullshit way of surviving a nuclear explosion
- Unnecessary subplot about FBI that just goes away
- More effing gophers?!?!!?
- Forced introduction to Marcus Brody replacement
- Bad production stills from previous films being passed off as ‘photos’
- Statues heads don’t fall off so easily even for a joke
- Indy loses his hat! Â No he doesn’t go back and get it, he cold loses it and then it shows up again
- Bad Australian/Russian accent
- Wildly comic bookish main villain
- Indy trusts the guy who double crossed him again and then is double crossed again like an idiot
- Plot stolen from Chariots of the Gods and the X-Files
- Crystal skull obviously plastic as it seems to weigh nothing despite being supposedly solid crystal
- Forget the gophers we now have monkeys
- Unnecessary and stupid swinging on vines scene
- CGI ants that give up for no reason
- Completely and utterly ridiculous falls over waterfalls in car/boat three times
- Villains would be unable to follow heroes through to the end but did somehow, which was handy because otherwise they would have missed the;
- end of X-Files Fight the Future with less snow
- horribly done doors blowing open
- finally I was annoyed that the Close Encounters greeting tones weren’t played
Ok that list is longer than I expected and frankly I’m sure I can add some more to it but I’m kind of feeling a little betrayed because they took a character from my childhood and put him in an awful movie. Â And it didn’t have to be that way because like I mentioned the actors are all fine except for the villain and I have no idea what happened to her!!
It also makes me kind of sad that this is getting such good reviews that don’t address any of the problems, or the plot, like they’re being cautious because no one says bad things about Indiana Jones.
I hope they make a fifth and they make it better to wash the taste of this one out of my mouth.
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Categories: Movies | Tags: Indiana Jones, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | 21 Comments
First thing that comes to mind is, as the poster suggests, the ‘man in the hat’ himself Indiana Jones. Of course I’m a huge Indiana Jones fan, I can’t imagine anyone who loves pop culture and movies not liking Raiders of the Lost Ark. I am however greatly concerned about the new film. All this talk about his age and I’m worried this film is going to look ridiculous.
at least every third year (granted I’m usually a year behind). I suppose though he knows he’s cool so why mess with something that is already working for you even though the rest of the world moves on in style etc.
