First, apologies for the lack of updates. I took an extra half class the past semester (Japanese!) and that with karate with a general sense of ennui and constant daydreaming and confusion about what I’m supposed to be doing with my life combined to make me not want to write much… now, let’s get on with it:
I think, in a small way, that I grew up with Indiana Jones, watching the movies on TV so often that I didn’t buy the DVDs until only recently. I remember that when I was really little, we went to an Indiana Jones performance at a theme park and I cried so much when the giant boulder rolled out to squish him that my parents had to take me out of the theater. (Now that I think of it, sorry to the anyone I bothered in the audience! lol)
And, of course, I’ve always loved Harrison Ford, especially after Star Wars (the infamous “I know”), and though his voice has that old man gurgle to it now, I still love watching him on-screen. But I knew that the new Indiana Jones movie just wouldn’t be the same, maybe after I read on I Watch Stuff what the running time would be for the new movie. And watching the movie confirmed my suspicion – two hours is much too long for a strictly action movie, especially if it’s Indiana Jones. I think several scenes could have either been cut or shortened.
For example, the chase sequence in the rain forest. Honestly, who came up with the part where monkeys teach Shia how to swing from vines?? Utterly ridiculous and really, not a very Indy kinda thing. And the fencing sequence? Please. That went on too long and I kept wondering why someone didn’t just hit the brakes on one of the vehicles. “Riposte!” Again, please.
At one point in the movie, it hit me that maybe we as a culture are too old for Indiana Jones movies. That thought popped into my head after the movie made some ridiculous cultural conflations, which I guess maybe the old Indiana Jones movies did, too, though I was never as sharply aware of them as I was now: Indy travels to Peru, where the background music is Mexican, and a guy in a Peruvian graveyard does Brazilian capoeira to beat the crap out of Shia LaBeouf. And Indy says he learned Quechua from a guy who was riding with Pancho Villa (why would a Peruvian native be riding with the Mexican Villa? likelier Indy would have learned Maya, huh). Maybe when the original Indiana movies were released, this would have been okay, but now, with such a large hispanic population in the country and such utterly OBVIOUS “mistakes,” I left the theater feeling a bit bitter. Maybe because I’m Latina? I felt betrayed to be slighted by a saga of movies I’ve loved since I was little.
Nonetheless, I was very, very happy to see the return of Marion Ravenwood! I’d always thought she was the best “Jones” girl, though it was a shock to see how much Karen Allen has aged; it isn’t so noticeable on Ford, for me, because I’ve watched him age through movies, but I honestly don’t think I’ve seen any other of Allen’s movies besides Raiders. So, I thought Crystal Skull could have explored the aging theme a bit more than it did. That is, I was a bit touched when Indy’s colleague says they’ve reached the age when life stops handing you things and starts taking them away. I guess a message the movie tries to give is that there’s always something more out there, since Indy finds a son and a wife by the end, and Shia even nearly puts on Indy’s hat.
Shia as Mutt. He wasn’t bad. In fact, my favorite scene in the film was the greaser-jock fight. So Shia wasn’t bad, he was just given some bad scenes (the monkey swinging, the fencing) and a bad nickname. But in the end, he was forgettable. As was the movie in general, I’d say, except for the resolution to the Indy-Marion romance, and…the lead-plated refrigerator. This I will not spoil. It was probably the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in any movie. It probably shouldn’t have been done, to tell you the truth, but in a small way, it was worth it just to contemplate the utter improbability of it.
I know my reviews tend to meander, so I’ll try to sum up. This is a watch-able movie. Please, PLEASE try not to ask any questions of it. I think it may have more holes in its reasoning than any other Indiana Jones movie. If you can suspend your disbelief – and I mean really suspend it – you’ll have a blast watching this. Otherwise, you’ll value the movie for a few refreshing and interesting scenes (I loved the search for the box at the beginning), and then wish they’d cut the rest.
