INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL [2008] review
June 22, 2008 · Print This Article
Just got back from watching INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, the climax of 7 weeks spent in the Indiana Jones universe. It was a good enough climax. I think CG is the ruin of all modern films, and it definitely lessoned my liking of CRYSTAL SKULL. As compared to the analog action glory of RAIDERS, the CG ants and groundhogs and monkeys and human characters brought me out of the realism.
That said, the mostly analog opening 30 minutes of the film were all pure Indy. I loved Indy’s introduction in the film, the way he outsmarted a whole outfit of Russian soldiers, how he just used his brain and his fists, which I believe is the essence of Indiana Jones. He’s always at least one step ahead, and if not, he’s got the guts to get ahead.
The entire diner scene was classic Indy. It was also damn, damn funny. I ha-ed twice, once when someone was confused for being a mailman and another time referring to a knife. Great comedy. I like Shia LaBeouf. I like his gimmick. Every time he pulled out his comb, that was gold.
As I had heard, the ending was a bit ludicrous, and the characters did seem a bit indestructible, and as I mentioned before, the entire CG ants I could have lived without, but otherwise there were enough classic Indy moments to make it a good adventure, especially the first half.
I liked the pause the film gave for Indy to acknowledge the passing of his father and Marcus. If only Sallah could have somehow made an appearance or at least gotten a reference!
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I couldn’t understand the whole story and the ending was…..bimyo!
But I actually laughed many times. so it was ok movie.
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Hi Aya…thank you for commenting! It was great to see a movie with you for the first time! Indy!
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I agree that the first half was great! Toward the end, after the CG ants, it was like, so what?, many time, especially after Indy talked to the skull.
I liked the young guy very much! Holes, in which he debuted, is one of my favourite movies, and he did a good job as he did in Holes. He is soooooo terrific!
But, because of the very last scene, I give it three stars. It was funny and entertaining enough though.
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Yeah, the whole scene with Indy looking into the skull, I could have lived without that.
I don’t know why director’s use CG, it still is far, far from realistic enough to be believable and not take a viewer out of the movie. It’s like, ok, time to include a video game portion of the movie.
Or maybe it’s more than just the fakeness of CG, is the fake concepts CG allows the director to put on screen. Seeing someone get carried into a hole by ants, no matter how good the CGI, won’t look realistic because it can’t really happen. I know the point of movies is to show the fantastic and unreal, but there have to be limits to the suspension of disbelief established by the movie itself.
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I enjoyed the whole of this movie, effects notwithstanding- though generally I am one to dislike special effects. In this thing the ants, well, I can handle it. If you don’t like it, just chop it out in your mind.
The ending doesn’t bother me either. I suppose it does tie two disparate genres together, but hmm. What came before worked well enough that I could forgive it easily.
A note on CG- I loved The Matrix because the most amazing things we saw on screen were done with real film shot, with some CG rounding out the edges. Bullet time and revolving cameras were both great film-making revelations. Then Matrix 2 went entirely CG, and suddenly it’s just not interesting to me anymore. It’s just a fancy cartoon. It’s not real-world physics manipulated, it’s totally imaginary.
Lebeouf- I also thought he did a great job in ‘Holes’- that’s a good movie. Caveman!
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