I like this review. it was good and balanced. Do you think the main complaint is that the Indy films have always been in the realm of the supernatural and now they have been thrust into the sci-fi spectrum?
I couldn't get my head around Indy's skepticism over the whole magical skull business. Here's a guy who has seen flaming rocks, lightning shooting cabinets, and life restoring cups. You'd think he'd have learnt by now to adopt an open mind.
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Thinking about it, I probably could have tolerated a lot of things - but it was the cgi action sequences that got me the most. We were assured time and time again throughout the making of the film that Indy 4 would features as little cgi as possible. The early sequences managed fine, mostly without computers, but then later you get trucks racing through non-existant jungles.
When Indy crawls out of that truck in Raiders of the Lost Ark, it looks real. That's what made it all the more exciting, even if you knew that it was all done with stunt doubles and sped up for effect. At least it looked tangible. Cgi just lacks that physical aspect, which took away from the action sequences.
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Fail - it was just a shit film. Even if it hadn't been an Indiana Jones film, it was bad. The writing was poor, the action was dull, there was no violence, the characters were derailed, the atmosphere of the films that made them so great in the first place was gone, and to top it all off it was turned into a big, dumb piece of Hollywood CGI fluff, when it could have been a much more noble and daring film, unlike the fucking bad fanfic it came across as.
you walk, i'll run, i'll follow right behind you.
Heh. I totally thought your comment was real, "iwintheinternets?". If I hadn't read your username, I probably would have gone into a long and angry rant about how much of a douche you are. Almost had me there!
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
While I never thought the Star Wars prequels were as bad as people made them sound, I could always understand why the franchise's older fans didn't like them. They weren't terrible, but there WAS a noticeable drop in quality. The fourth Indiana Jones movie seems to have gained similar reaction from much of its fanbase, but here, I honest to God don't understand what they're complaining about, because I think Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is an awesome movie, and certainly a much nobler effort than the Star Wars prequels. I actually think some people just hate George Lucas so blindly that no matter what he does, if he's involved in ANYTHING, it automatically sucks.
I'm not bothered all that much by aliens in an Indy movie. I mean, sure, it wasn't what I was expecting when I stepped into the movie theatre, but they don't even show up until at the end, and up until then, they might as well have been looking for anything. The main plot of the movie isn't the aliens, it's the relationships between the main characters, Indy, Mutt and Marion. The TV Tropes page may finger Mutt as a Scrappy, but I disagree. I found Mutt to be a likeable character, and as someone who needs to get accustomed to adventuring outside the big city, he was certainly much better pulled off than Willie Scott from Temple of Doom (not that I would really want to see a spin-off featuring him, though). One of the things I like most about the movie is that I feel it made for a satisfying ending to the films as a whole, what with Indiana and Marion reconciling and getting married.
I do have some problems with this movie, though. Aside from nitpicking single scenes like the fridge-nuking scene or the monkey-swinging scene, I found the character Mac poorly characterized. When he betrays Indy, Indy is clearly hurt since he and Mac have been friends for so long. But the audience has never seen Mac before, so his betrayal has no emotional impact whatsoever. For the rest of the movie, Mac doesn't seem sure whether he's a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold Anti Hero or a backstabbing Jerkass. I'm not even sure whether his death was supposed to invoke Redemption Equals Death or not.
Overall, I still think the films ups easily outnumber the downs. It's not perfect, and it's not exactly Indiana Jones at his best, but it's still enjoyable, and a worthy conclusion to the Indy films.