Who has watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?
*** Warning plot spoilers. If you haven't watched the film yet then don't read on! ***
This has to be the most hyped film so far this year, and sadly it does follow the trend of the hype creating a big anti climate when you finally see the film.
I saw it last week and I was very disappointed and quite bored in parts.
Some of the film is very good. The opening part in the warehouse, and the end section in the Mayan temple are both very good. However much of the rest of the film is quite slow and boring, with the story either progressing very slowly or suddenly jumping a huge time span without much real explanation about how they drew conclusions.
Everything in the film's plot is solved much too easily and very quickly, making the majority of the plot neither convincing nor interesting. For example Indy receives a note from an old friend and works out that the writing they has used is from an ancient dialect that he won't understand until he first translates it into another language, and then into English. So how long does that take? About the time it takes his (later to be discovered) son to speak two lines of dialogue! So any mystery and intrigue was instantly lost.
Equally as the film progresses he somehow manages to know exactly where he needs to go next. For example, where to find the burial ground of the crystal skull, and so it goes on.
For me it just wasn't that interesting. There wasn't anything new in it, and the actors were just along for the money and not really performing.
The fight sequences between the Russian/Germans and Indy are very predictable and dated. I know they are to some extend all part of the Indy films, but the fights in previous Indy films have always had a lot of humour and have been great to watch. This film instead has too much farcical fighting that you are left sitting they just thinking that if it were at all realist they would have been dead a long time ago. Some scenes see the enemy firing a blanket of machine gun fire are Indy and his friends and the bullets are clearly spraying all over them, but they are never hurt. This was to be expected in the times of 70's and 80's James Bond era films, but not in films of today.
Maybe I'm being over critical. I did enjoy the film, but was just disappointed by the whole unoriginal nature of everything in it. The plot was too obvious, even the end. The enemy leader was way too stereotypical although she did play the role very well and was possibly the only main actor in the film worthy of note. And many of the action sequences were a little tired and seen before.
And Harrison Ford. Well I don't think he really stood out as being the main star of the film to be honest. Anyone could really have been playing his part, and it didn't really have to be an Indy film. They could have stuck a different title on it and changed the lead role and no one would have known.
Overall I would give it 6/10.
So what did you all think of the film?