Indiana Jones 5

[Udvarnoky]

Anthony Ingruber makes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it-cameo in the movie as "Dutch Bidder" at the Hotel L’Atlantique auction. He was recruited as a double for Ford in the 1944 sequence, and I guess they couldn't resist working him in somehow. There he is on the far left, in a shot that was in the first trailer: 

 

[Lagomorph01]

I’ve been avoiding this thread since the IGN review was mentioned, I just wanted to go in fresh, without reading other people’s opinions.

 

But now I’ve finally seen it!!!

 

And to be honest, I really really liked it!

I was really sceptical at first because no movie hero is so dear to my heart as Indy, and I was so scared that there’d be another mediocre at best movie tacked on to the original trilogy. Some of you might remember my scepticism of the de-aging technology and the fact that they shot this digitally. I’m very pleasantly surprised though, and I’ll elaborate in spoiler tags…

 

I do confess that it was hard at first to get used to an aging alcoholic Indy, he didn’t really have the joie de vivre that made the character, and while Ford delivered, I didn’t enjoy this side of him per se. Marion and Mutt felt like they were thrown aside without really a second mention. The payoff for this however I found amazing! We gradually learn about what made him this way, and see a redemption arc for the character, which really works for me. The fact that Indy, and not as much Marion, is the one who can’t bear the loss of their son is really cleverly worked into the story and grounds him as a person. I gett that people didn’t feel for Mutt, and it would be hard to bring back LaBeouf, so this is the absolute best thing they could do with the character. They didn’t bring him back, but his presence is felt throughout the entire movie through Indy. This makes a fine contrast with Phoebe Waller Bridge’s character, who functions as mirror for what Indy used to be, even if she’s more egoïstical and money-based than he ever was. In the end they get to redeem each other, which is kind of the kind of thing which Last Crusade excells in, but Chrystal Skull botched in the father-son dynamic. The ending with Marion was truly heartfelt and moving, and I love that he was able to re-find himself.

 

Some people might say that Indy as a character doesn’t need a redemption arc, but I tend to disagree. After Chrystal Skull he’s left with a family, which means he’s got bagage, so it would be harder for him to go out on an adventure. It’s easier to risk your life when there’s no one else depending on it…

 

This development is brought with a really clever ruthless villain, brought by the fantastic Mads Mikkelson, and fun side characters that mirror an early Indy and Shortround. I also like the set pieces, they bring something fresh to the series that hasn’t really been explored yet. While I was sceptical about the McGuffin at first, I love the wat they made it work. It really ties into the emotional story in multiple ways, and is used cleverly to delve into it, without it getting to dialogue heavy.
The climax too really caught me by surprise. For a moment I was questioning myself if they weren’t jumping the shark with it, but in the end I really liked how over the top, fun and “Jonesy” it felt. It even made for a great emotional choice and a delusional moment for the viewer, which is in my opinion brilliantly resolved.

 

While the de-aging didn’t look very convincing and in a couple of shots really took me out of the movie, I still loved the opening scenes and felt they honoured the character while setting up the story in a great way.

 

All in all, I missed Indy’s joie the vivre and optimistic smirk a bit, but I loved what I got in return. While for me it doesn’t reach the heights of the first three films, (how could they, I’ve been watching those for the better part of my life,) I think this is a good movie and a fine send-off for the character.

[OzzieMonkey]

I think there might be something wrong with me, because I just didn't like it. I felt like a large stretch of it was kinda just going through the motions, certain characters were wasted and the third act was one of the most monumentally stupid things I've ever seen. Maybe at the end of the day it just felt like it was too late to do another one of these, idk. I'm glad there seem to be a decent amount of audiences liking to loving it, but for whatever reason it's just not clicking with me. Time will see if my opinion changes someday.

[Sadbrush]

Saw it three times. Bottom line, I enjoyed it. But I've been going through a lot lately with this film, trying to process my feelings and reconcile my expectations, and of course the ending. It's not a perfect film by any means (and the de-aging technique is certainly a bit wonky and distracting), but I think it manages to honor the legacy. I was never a Crystal Skull hater (I just read Jason's review, and Jesus Christ, he pummeled that film into oblivion), but it obviously felt very different from the first three (and even the games). Now that Kingdom is no longer the "final" Indy film, I'm able to put it into better perspective and just treat it as another one of his many adventures (including the Young Indy series, which also felt tonally very different compared to the films). Having experienced them all chronologically in the past month (Young Indy, Temple, Raiders, Crusade, Crusade: The Game, Fate of Atlantis, Kingdom and Dial), I kind of feel like I've accompanied this character through his entire lifespan, and so I'm feeling a bit lost and empty at the moment. Not unlike how I felt at the end of Return of Monkey Island (which also took me a damn long time to accept it was "over"). There are not that many franchises left that I care about these days, so it kind of feels like I'm in a state of mourning.

[Udvarnoky]

4 hours ago, Sadbrush said:

(I just read Jason's review, and Jesus Christ, he pummeled that film into oblivion)

I spent a lot more of the review on Skull than I set out to because, having made the decision not to use spoilers, it became the most useful way to articulate my general response to Dial by contrast.

Skull and Dial are kindred sequels, because they’re both up against the same challenge: How do you tell a story about an aged Indy that necessarily puts the character outside of the era he was designed to operate in? How the two movies deal with this problem is highly revealing. The decisive difference is that Dial comes off as a movie that knows what it wants to be about. We can attack the screenplay, but it at least feels like it has one. Skull feels like they shot a story outline that happens to have dialog in it. I find it highly objectionable because it is in essence incomplete material. The truth is I can talk all day about individual things in Skull I admire, and individual things in Dial I consider defective, but that’s all just exercise. There’s an aggregate effect with a movie, where it either works for you or it does not. I walked out of Dial satisfied, while I walked out of Skull deflated, and that’s going to color my whole perspective, as it ought to.

I also decided that I needed to divulge where I was coming from walking into Dial to explain why I might have been prepared to forgive a lot, because where I was coming from is inescapably informed by the last installment. Though I’m negative on Skull, there’s a narrative around that movie based primarily on internet talking points (aliens, Shia LaBeouf, whatever) that I don’t want anything to do with. In short, the reasons you’re “supposed” to dislike Skull are largely unrecognizable to me. I personally dislike Skull because I find it to be an inert, unshaped bore filmed by somebody who didn’t want to leave the country and desperately wanted you to know how addicted they are to Classic Softs and mist machines. Already we’re hearing how it’s “illogical” to tolerate Dial’s zanier choices as some sort of hypocrisy due to common complaints against Skull. (Oh, if only outlandishness was Skull’s problem!) The CGI “fakery” I see in a similar light – I’ll commiserate with anybody who thinks Dial is too VFX heavy. But the fact is that Skull looked fake even when it was real – that’s how gratuitous the issue was. I just can’t overstate how lethal the aesthetic of that movie was for me, and how much of a rebound Dial managed to be on this score, even shot digitally and despite the fact that it features a goddamned machine-learned Indy (and obviously so at that) for twenty-five minutes.

So in the end I gave a lot of ink to my actual problems with Skull (as opposed to what the received wisdom says) to try to orient the reader to the areas where I was going to be particularly susceptible to some redemption. Already it’s looking like my perspective is one of the more generous ones, and hopefully all the knocking on Skull served the purpose of contextualizing that rather just reading as gratuitous.

[Vainamoinen]

I blew my solo movie theatre venture on Asteroid City, so this will likely be a Blu Ray thing for me ... still nobody going with me.

[Gins]

21 minutes ago, Vainamoinen said:

I blew my solo movie theatre venture on Asteroid City, so this will likely be a Blu Ray thing for me ... still nobody going with me.

 

Funnily I think I'd also have a hard time finding somebody who cares about Indiana Jones... makes me sad.

[TimeGentleman]

I did not like it at all. Full spoilers in the hidden section below.

 

Where Crystal Skull was cartoonish to the point of stupidity, this is bland to the point of soulessness. There's no flair, no wit, no excitement, no sparkle.

Spoiler

Even ignoring the CG deaging which is often betrayed either by a lifeless digital gloss, or the more restrained acting style and drooping face of modern day Ford, the prologue is uninvolving, shot through with a murky day for night and missing the point of an Indy prologue - to start at a breakneck pace with something different to the rest of the movie and even the past movies. This is an anonymous Nazi chase full of CG figures jumping over train cars. It's Indy's Greatest Hits, made by people who seemingly have never actually seen the other movies. As with the entire movie, it lacks that Spielbergian verve that even Crystal Skull showed at points, and doesn't even show any of Mangold's strengths - the framing is careless, the action muddy and the cinematography flat.
The script is begging for a Tom Stoppard rewrite, to trim it down and maybe put some actual jokes and characterisation in there. Teddy is a charmless Short Round knock-off, Waller-Bridge gives it her all with Helena but has nothing to work with, and Indy himself has been given the Force Awakens makeover - he's now a failed husband and father who doesn't have the will to live anymore (pretty funny that they gave Mutt a nasty pointless offscreen death via 'Nam, though). Sallah and Marion are wheeled on and off stage for some quick fan service (along with some other clumsy box-ticking like a ten-second sequence of bugs crawling over the heroes, or Indy throwing out a Kali mention for no good reason), and the villains barely exist. The action sequences mostly involve Indy driving a CG vehicle because that's all he can do now. It's too goddamn long at over two and a half hours, 26 minutes more than the now second-longest of the franchise, Last Crusade (which could have done with chopping out that Alexei Sayle scene and being a couple of minutes shorter itself). And, somehow, even the big finale of Indy traveling back in time is carried out with as little energy as possible and tanks the entire movie.

Crystal Skull may have been awful, but at least it was an awful Indiana Jones movie. This is just some charmless 2020s schedule-filler wearing an Indy mask.

[Mintopia]

I really didn't care for KotCS (I will however defend it against any criticism for aliens being involved), but this just worked for me. Enjoyable, at no point was I checking my watch or thinking it had run too long. Some parts were pure nostalgia bait but that's OK by me.
 

Spoiler

Did anyone else get Fate of Atlantis vibes from some of the scenes in Tangiers, the diving and the exploring of the caves towards the end? Along with the graphicos reminding me of the sun/moon stones.

I'm unsure whether to rate this higher or lower than Temple of Doom, definitely needs a further watch to clarify.

1. Last Crusade
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Temple of Doom / Dial of Destiny
4. A long way behind: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[Staple Remover]

my definitive Indiana Jones ranking:

1. Raiders

2. Last Crusade

3. Fate of Atlantis

3. Dial of Destiny

4. Crystal Skull

5. Infernal Machine

6. Temple of Doom

7. Emperors Tomb

8. Temple of the Forbidden Eye at Disneyland

9. Nearly episode of Young Indy

10. The Monkey King script

11. The specific episode of young Indy with Harrison Ford playing a saxophone

Rock bottom of the list:  the piano crane level in Staff of Kings

 

[Lagomorph01]

17 hours ago, TimeGentleman said:

I did not like it at all. Full spoilers in the hidden section below.

 

Where Crystal Skull was cartoonish to the point of stupidity, this is bland to the point of soulessness. There's no flair, no wit, no excitement, no sparkle.

  Reveal hidden contents

Even ignoring the CG deaging which is often betrayed either by a lifeless digital gloss, or the more restrained acting style and drooping face of modern day Ford, the prologue is uninvolving, shot through with a murky day for night and missing the point of an Indy prologue - to start at a breakneck pace with something different to the rest of the movie and even the past movies. This is an anonymous Nazi chase full of CG figures jumping over train cars. It's Indy's Greatest Hits, made by people who seemingly have never actually seen the other movies. As with the entire movie, it lacks that Spielbergian verve that even Crystal Skull showed at points, and doesn't even show any of Mangold's strengths - the framing is careless, the action muddy and the cinematography flat.
The script is begging for a Tom Stoppard rewrite, to trim it down and maybe put some actual jokes and characterisation in there. Teddy is a charmless Short Round knock-off, Waller-Bridge gives it her all with Helena but has nothing to work with, and Indy himself has been given the Force Awakens makeover - he's now a failed husband and father who doesn't have the will to live anymore (pretty funny that they gave Mutt a nasty pointless offscreen death via 'Nam, though). Sallah and Marion are wheeled on and off stage for some quick fan service (along with some other clumsy box-ticking like a ten-second sequence of bugs crawling over the heroes, or Indy throwing out a Kali mention for no good reason), and the villains barely exist. The action sequences mostly involve Indy driving a CG vehicle because that's all he can do now. It's too goddamn long at over two and a half hours, 26 minutes more than the now second-longest of the franchise, Last Crusade (which could have done with chopping out that Alexei Sayle scene and being a couple of minutes shorter itself). And, somehow, even the big finale of Indy traveling back in time is carried out with as little energy as possible and tanks the entire movie.

Crystal Skull may have been awful, but at least it was an awful Indiana Jones movie. This is just some charmless 2020s schedule-filler wearing an Indy mask.

We must’ve watched two totally different movies. Are you sure you went into the right screening room? 😜

8 hours ago, Mintopia said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Did anyone else get Fate of Atlantis vibes from some of the scenes in Tangiers, the diving and the exploring of the caves towards the end? Along with the graphicos reminding me of the sun/moon stones.

 

Nope, you’re not alone! I had the exact same feeling! I’m glad at least some of the setting made it into the movies!

[TimeGentleman]

5 hours ago, Lagomorph01 said:

We must’ve watched two totally different movies. Are you sure you went into the right screening room? 😜

 

People have different opinions on movies, it's okay.

[LuigiHann]

Saw it tonight. I didn't hate it. It kind of dragged in the middle there. The ending managed to surprise me, which tends not to be the case with big blockbuster films, so I'll give it credit for that.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I went in with very low expectations... I came out having really enjoyed it! Could it have been better? Yes. Did I miss Spielberg's staging in the slow moments? Yes. Was everything just a bit too much CGI? Yes.

 

BUT I still enjoyed it. Its spirit won me over.

 

Whereas Raiders was perfect action. And Crusade added comedy and character. Destiny added even more character and a fair bit of emotion.

 

I loved that final scene, especially.

 

So mine is:

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark - Perfection!
2. Last Crusade - Connery! Comedy! Action!
3. Dial of Destiny - Nostalgia! Emotion! Action!
4. Temple of Doom - Action! Not much else.
5. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - A confused movie with some nice moments

 

Edited July 10, 2023 by ThunderPeel2001

[Aro-tron]

I enjoyed it. The ending was a big swing, which my date thought was ludicrous, but I thought it was great. There were a few points which felt too much like they were just remixing elements that people remembered from the earlier films, so I enjoyed that the ending felt surprising and like it was at least about something.

 

To me, the de-aged Indy looked only a little better than a Zemeckis motion-capture film from 15 years ago, but even the present-day scenes had a computerized sheen that was distressing to me. Harrison Ford is old! To me the question of how they tackle that is some of the appeal of a new Indy film, and 'AI-brushing out wrinkles' was not a satisfying answer.

 

Still, I liked the overall story of film. Waller-Bridges was great, and played off of Ford really well.

[Thrik]

Maybe it was my expectations being exceeded after the, er… not so convincing performance I watched recently in Rogue One. But I thought the whole de-aged sequence was excellent. It felt Proper Indy and although my eye kept looking for the usual uncanny valley gaps, I gave up quite quickly and just became immersed in it as if I were watching lost footage.

 

it probably doesn’t help that the cinema was not great and it won’t hold up so well under the ruthless scrutiny of my home OLED, but I thought it was a shockingly large jump from efforts in this arena even only a couple of years ago.

[ThunderPeel2001]

On 7/12/2023 at 5:43 PM, Aro-tron said:

To me the question of how they tackle that is some of the appeal of a new Indy film, and 'AI-brushing out wrinkles' was not a satisfying answer.

 

I don't think Ford would have let them remove any wrinkles. He's quite happy with his age. Even when they did Crystal Skull, he didn't want them to change him in any way: "This is how I look" is what he's reported to have said (or maybe I heard that through someone who worked on it, I forget).

 

On 7/12/2023 at 6:01 PM, Thrik said:

I thought the whole de-aged sequence was excellent. It felt Proper Indy and although my eye kept looking for the usual uncanny valley gaps, I gave up quite quickly and just became immersed in it as if I were watching lost footage.

 

Agreed.

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by ThunderPeel2001

[Gins]

Not seen the movie yet (😭), but I do find it noteworthy that certain movies like this one are discussed a lot with this meta stuff (Ford's age, CG effects, directors...) as reference points instead of the movie itself ("the scene with de-aged Ford" instead of "the scene with younger Indy working for the government")

 

Last Crusade had a scene with a younger Indy and that one didn't look like Ford at all because he was River Phoenix. That scene was probably put there, because they wanted to tell that story and not because they wanted to brag that they found a guy who looks just like Harrison Ford. That scene is "the scene with young Indy on the train" and not "the scene with Ford's young body double".

 

The scene in THIS movie was probably conceived first with "now that we have this technology to not have to hire Alden Ehrenreich (who would have probably been cheaper), how can we tell a story with a de-aged Harrison Ford?" and then they came up with the time travel stuff, because they also couldn't quite make the WHOLE movie with de-aged Ford (even though I'm sure some exec would have loved the idea), and hinged the rest of the movie on that to justify the effect. As a result, the FX are the subject of discussion, and not the story the movie tells.

 

They could have told a time travelling story already in the eighties if they'd wanted to, but they do it now and act as if it was only made possible thanks to this ground breaking de-aging tech.

[Lagomorph01]

You make a good point, @Gins. I think the reason for people to discuss the de-aged Ford instead of the younger Indy is because that, and the AI they used to pull it off, is a hot-topic at the moment. Plus, since it’s conception it has mainly been used to show off bells and whistles instead of adding to a story.

 

Then there’s the fact that casting a younger actor for a teen version of a character has been done countless times, and is (maybe therefore) easier to swallow for an audience. The fact that this steers away from the uncanny valley effect (because we as an audience all see and know it’s a different actor) makes it easier to divulge in the suspension of disbelief, whereas with de-aging, it looks almost real but not quite, so we subconciously go looking for mistakes as to prove we’re being tricked.

 

I was sceptical at first, because the feel of the Indy films, to me, relies very much on practical effects and the grit that comes with filming that way. A CGI de-aged Ford to me sounded like everything it shouldn’t be.

However, I stand corrected. In the light of the story ánd the fact that this is the last Indy movie, I think the prologue scenes work very well. They not only set up the McGuffin and the bad guy, but also show us how far Indy (and we as an audience) have come since the character’s heydays. The de-aging is far from perfect, but I think It’ll become less distracting with multiple views.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Lagomorph01

[LuigiHann]

7 hours ago, Gins said:

The scene in THIS movie was probably conceived first with "now that we have this technology to not have to hire Alden Ehrenreich (who would have probably been cheaper), how can we tell a story with a de-aged Harrison Ford?"

 

I wouldn't think it was that cynical. I think it's reasonable to assume the conversation started with "How on earth do we make a movie about an 80-year-old Indiana Jones?" Having the prologue set in an era much closer to that of the original films is a natural choice from a storytelling perspective, linking the new elements to familiar ones. It lets them tell a story set in 1969 that still feels connected to the Indiana Jones we know. I think they would have written it largely the same way even if they had decided to go with a lookalike/impersonator for 1940s Indy, though I'm sure the tech emboldened them.

 

And yeah, I'd probably refer to the prologue as de-aged Indy sequence too, mostly because that's how everyone else talks about it, but also because that tech feels so new and potentially jarring. Whether it works for you or not, it's interesting to discuss how the technique was used. I think they did a pretty good job not calling too much attention to the effect, filming the character more or less exactly as they would have otherwise. And I wonder if a generation from now when all of the movies are "old," whether new viewers will hone in on the de-aging specifically or if they'll look right past it. 

 

No real spoilers, but musing on the themes:

Spoiler

I am curious how they landed on Time Travel as a theme, generally speaking, since to me it didn't feel inherently motivated by the availability of de-aging VFX. People have noted that it fits thematically well for a movie focused on recapturing the past, and that it ties in interestingly with Jones's profession as an archeologist and history professor. But I'd also note that as 1950's sci-fi films motivated the "alien conspiracy" plotline in Crystal Skull, the 60s was the era of La Jette and Doctor Who among others. I don't think it's as precise a match for the zeitgeist of the era as what they did with the 50s, but I can see how it plays in.

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by LuigiHann

[Aro-tron]

In terms of the themes, I have a meta-theory of the mcguffins of the Indiana Jones films that is only speculative, but at least amuses me, and the new film slots into it well enough - the idea is that each chronological Indy film deals with a newer form of spirituality. The first three films do this very clearly: Temple of Doom has its roots in Hinduism, while Raiders is about Judaism, and Last Crusade is about Christianity.

 

I think one reason they struggled with what to do about a fourth film is that if they continued that trajectory, the next logical step would be to have a mcguffin connected to Islam... which I think would have been probably impossible for either Lucas or Spielberg get right. They're also not going to do a more modern organized American-born religion like Mormonism, Christian Science or Scientology for similar reasons.

 

Instead, Crystal Skull jumps straight to "new age mysticism", a more modern, but less specific kind of spirituality. I think that's part of where the story fails, because no one making (or watching) the film has any real reverence for this belief system. (This is also a problem with Temple of Doom, but it at least goes to great lengths to show a whole variety of rituals of the Thugee cult, so that it at least feels tangible). There's a line in Dial of Destiny about "it's not what you believe, but how hard you believe it", but hardly anyone in Crystal Skull really believes in the aliens at the end of the film.

 

That brings us to Dial of Destiny, where

Spoiler

one of the best story choices the filmmakers made was to have the believe system at the center of the film be mathematics. It allows Indy to come face to face with a belief system that is essentially his own religion: rationalism. This is why him meeting Archimedes makes the time travel gimmick worth it, compared to having him confront someone like Julius Caesar or Achilles.

 

The other great story choice was placing this belief in rationalism in context of the Moon landing, a great triumph of rationalism and mathematics. It establishes Indy in a time that is rapidly transitioning away from a place where superstition and spirituality inform decisions, to one where math and numbers are what produce miracles. The villain in Dial is undone not by insufficient reverence for the divine (as in the first three films), but by incorrect number crunching.

 

I feel that the plot mechanics of how they achieved this thematic resonance were kind of shaky (did it really have to be a portal in the sky?), but that's just nit-picking.

 

Then there's a whole other question about how the film deals with time and with aging. I quite liked the fact that the villain was

Spoiler

trying to turn back time to the era of classic Indy films, just as many fans (and license holders) probably wish they could also return the franchise to a perpetual loop of 'Indy vs Nazis'. It was nice that they didn't lampshade this meta angle, but the idea of being unable to return to past glories probably would have hit harder without a prologue that used technology to de-age our hero and remind us of the series' past glories.

 

[Thrik]

I don’t know if it really needed to be a portal in the sky, but DAMN did it make for one of the best crescendos to chaos I’ve seen in cinema.

[Lagomorph01]

On 7/15/2023 at 7:32 AM, Aro-tron said:

  Hide contents

[...] but the idea of being unable to return to past glories probably would have hit harder without a prologue that used technology to de-age our hero and remind us of the series' past glories.

 

But if the de-aging technology is unconvincing, doesn't that only underline that idea?

Man, this movie's got a lot of layers... 😉

[ThunderPeel2001]

Ok, well damnit, let's do this: I'm throwing my fedora into the ring and declaring that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull IS NOT THAT BAD.

 

I've just re-watched it for the first time in 15 years, and well, fuck. It didn't bother me nearly half as much as the first time I watched it. And the things that did bother me, weren't the same things as in 2008.

 

Gophers? Didn't give a fuck. Monkeys? Didn't give a fuck. Ants? Didn't give a fuck. Been caught in a test site (and yes, they really did make a model street filled with houses and dummies and blew it up just to see what the US family unit would look like after a nuclear megaton was dropped on them). It was tense! They even telegraphed that aliens were real in this story in the first scene, so I don't know why I was so surprised at the end, the first time around.

 

None of that bothered me at all.

 

Watching Dial of Destiny (which I also enjoyed) the one thing I really missed was this (Spielberg's beautiful direction). And the first half of Skull has a ton of Spielbergian flair. He knows how to let the quiet moments breathe, and still be interesting. He knows how to make the camera be a funny participant in the storytelling. The guy truly is a master (the older I get, the more I appreciate him).

 

The bad parts of Skull this time around? Well the second half of the movie is quite dull. The CGI smothers the world and makes it feel less exciting. Although Dial was riddled with CGI, too, there's something about Skull's world that just feels... dull. It might not even be the CGI. It just feels as though we move from one sound stage to another.

 

And if the world isn't interesting, then the inter-character drama had better be... but it isn't. Despite there being the opportunity for some fantastic Connery/Ford style banter, it falls flat. Harrison Ford is the only person truly in the movie. And, I have to say, Shia LaBouf, too. 

 

Whatever you think LaBouf as a person, he easily gave the second best performance in Crystal Skull. He fully commits to every scene, and makes it work... unlike (astonishingly) John Hurt, Ray Winston and Karen Allen. The three of them all look like they're on a film set. It's so weird (although Hurt improves).

 

Ray Winston's character, "Mac", is unbelievably uninteresting. He is such a lazy writing device for why Indy is in Location A and then Location B. "Cor blimey, I'm a traitorous scamp!" then "Just kidding, let me give you a reason to go over here instead" then "Nah, I really was! Tee hee!". Easily the worst character in the film.

 

Karen Allen's Marion is just... off, too. She doesn't seem like the angry, strong-willed woman we all know and love. She should be looking out for her son, and angry with Jones for the fact that he abandoned her. But she looks like Karen Allen, happy to be working on an Indiana Jones movie again. She's having far too much fun.

 

Watch the scene where Mutt finally sees the fractured mental state of Oxley. He can't believe how much his father-figure has lost his mind. Watch Marion... she just looks lost in the background. As if it's the first day on set and Karen Allen hasn't figured out who Marion is yet. Shouldn't she be comforting her son??

 

(One of the reasons why I loved the final scene in Dial was that Karen Allen knocked it out of the park -- Marion was truly back. Even in that tiny moment, she was there again. It was glorious.)

 

And Cate Blanchett is utterly wasted... no threat, no charm, no sex. Her character an accent in a wig. 

 

The secondary characters seem like they're in a cartoon. Ford must have noticed it! Why was it allowed to continue?

 

When Karen Allen was working on Raiders, she talks about how she did her best to ensure Marion was real in every scene. Not just a helpless damsel in the background. She suggested things to Spielberg and he went with them.

 

The best example of this is the fact that, in the original Raiders script there's no scene in the tent with Marion and Belloq. She's just captured. Belloq says a line or two, she puts on a dress, and Toht turns up. Allen didn't think it felt real -- and why did she put on the dress? Her co-star, Paul Freeman, agreed. So they both went off and wrote a scene together. They gave it to Spielberg, he loved it and added it. It's one of my favourite scenes in the film.

 

Everyone (except Ford and LaBouf) on Skull seems like they just turned up to work and expected Lucas and Spielberg to have figured everything out. Like they're not invested and phoning it in. Or maybe there was behind the scenes problems that I don't know about. Either way, the difference is stark.

 

And the ending... sigh.

 

Ok, so the ending isn't shit because there's a UFO in it. The ending is shit because I didn't care about any of it. I didn't care about the MacGuffin. I didn't care about the aliens. I didn't care what happened to Mac or Oxley. I didn't care what happened to Cate Blandchette. I barely cared about what happened to Marion and Mutt. It was boring as fuck.

 

So rant, over. Yes, Skull isn't great, but... it's also not terrible. The first hour is actually pretty good. The major problems only really rear their head in the second half. And it's still fairly enjoyable until the damn ending.

 

Oh, and one final thought: Unlike in 2008, Harrison Ford looks young in Crystal Skull now 😅

 

For any nerdy Indy scholars, here's the original tent scene from Raiders as scripted -- what a difference Allen and Freeman made!

 

INT. MARION’S TENT
Belloq has been talking to the still-bound Marion. He has
removed her gag. He is impatient, angry, uncomfortable.
Caught between two forces.

BELLOQ
Believe me, you made a mistake. If
you would just give me something to
placate them. Some bit of
information.

MARION
I swear to you, I know nothing
more. I have no loyalty to Jones.
He’s brought me only trouble.
He wants to believe her.

BELLOQ
I cannot control them.

Marion’s frightened look shifts suddenly to the entrance of
the tent. There are a few new arrivals there -- Shliemann,
Govler and Belzig. Belzig carries a black leather case. He
steps forward and smiles at Marion.

BELZIG
We meet again, Fraulein.

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by ThunderPeel2001

[Thrik]

Well, shit. I was ready to go with your notion that Crystal Skull wasn’t so bad and then you gave me a thousand reasons solidifying my memory of its awfulness. 😅