INDIANA JONES IV - Mike's Review!

By Michael J Edwards / July 1, 2011

Steven Spielberg Written by: David Koepp (screenplay), George Lucas (story) Staring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt,Jim Broadbent, Igor Jijikine, Alan Dale, Andrew Divoff Distributed by Paramount Pictures Film is released worldwide on May 22nd 2008 Review by Michael Edwards

rating: 1

Are we all ready? Harrison Ford's been wheeled out, Cate Blanchett has spent 3 days in Kiev practising her accent, Shia LaBeouf has finished grooming himself and George Lucas is ready with the cash register: it's Indy time! The plot is predictably stupid for an Indiana Jones movie, it's 1957 and the aged archeologist has been kidnapped by commies and taken to a secret US military installation to identify an artefact he excavated years ago in a triple top-secret mission. Once the artefact (a really really old transparent, psychic and weirdly shaped skull that is sometimes magnetic, and sometimes attracts gold) is found we begin an all-important tug-of-war over this astounding object to decide the fate of the world! Indiana Jones and the Selectively Magnetic Head... no... wait... Indiana Jones and the Shit-Looking Plastic Alien Brain... hang on, nearly there... Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a fucking waste of time, a pointless throw back to a time when action movies just had to have ridiculous stunts, loud THWACK noises whenever someone's fist hits a face and a whole bunch of crazy traps and gateways for the heroes to traverse. The trouble is that this genre is (or should be) dead. This has been proven by the numerous imitators who have tried and failed to produce anything as fun as the originals; THE MUMMY, TOMB RAIDER and NATIONAL TREASURE are all perfect examples of attempts to revive a format that, like the hero of this movie, should have been left behind in the dust of new and exciting action movies years ago. Testament to this is the fact that all of the stuff that has gotten positive press about this movie is regurgitated tripe designed to have the nostalgia monkeys raving. But will these retro culture soaked simians even like the movie? It was pretty true to the original franchise and all of the classic hallmarks remain. The running joke that Indy is a hero AND a boring archeologist, his old romance is revived, the crazy gateway puzzles in ancient temples still look the same as they did in original movies and the film leads to a completely over-the-top mystical conclusion (I won't spoil it but some fans might say it's gone a bit too far). What's more there are some great one-liners, some cool action scenes involving the usual cliff-top chases and local wildlife, to mention just a couple of things. And for those of you who just can't let go of the past, there is a very very strong hint that young Mr LaBeouf is waiting in the wings to take on the franchise for himself. But for the record, my reaction to that can only be expressed by bashing the keyboard in frustration thusly: jkdekjeiouceimceeiuodeci. As if reviving Indy from his restful slumber wasn't enough, replacing him with this two-dimensional action-film whore really is disrespectful. (To those of you who would defend him I have one word: TRANSFORMERS.) So, in conclusion, go and watch this film: it's funny, stupid and has lots and lots of inexplicable and completely unfeasible action which mostly seems to be done by a 66 year-old-man. It's all good fun, and I did laugh, but it's like sitting in a replica World War II tank: it's just not the same as the real thing. All that remains is for me to say "LEAVE OUR MEMORIES FROM THE 80's ALONE AND MAKE SOMETHING ORIGINAL YOU DAMN HOLLYWOOD EXECS!!!"