I went to see Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull recently. I'd been looking forward to this for ages but had a little worry in the back of my mind ever since the on set photos started to be released. It all looked like Indiana Jones but it to lack the Indiana Jones sparkle. These worries were increased when I saw the trailer. CGI tastic with scenes that looked like they were pulled straight from The Mummy Returns. Still I was looking forward to the movie, after all it was Indiana Jones and that had to count for something.
Unfortunately it counted for very little. From the moment Indiana Jones stoops down to pick up his hat the whole movie feels more like a series of cut scenes from a state of the art computer game than a major cinema release. Maybe it was the screen I watched the movie on but every scene seemed to have been "enhanced" by computers. Spectacular and colourful skies that look too spectacular and too saturated. large jungle canopies. Jungle scenes where half the jungle trees seem to have been added in. The final scene filmed on a mountain peak looked like it was a blue screen effort. Even the bad guys seemed too regular, too smooth, too generated. I'm sure they filmed lots of the stunts, Spielberg and Lucas insist that most of the stunts were real and not computer generated but it looks like they took those stunts and then photoshopped the background to make the scene more dramatic or more colourful.
But it's not all bad, Harrison Ford might be old and sometimes he does seem just a little too old for some of the action scenes but he still manages to pull off the role. Shia Labeouf is not as annoying as I imagined, in fact he might be able to pull off an Indiana Jones movie as the lead character. Some people did not like the plot but lets face it after The Ark of the Covenant, a priest who can rip the hearts of his victims out with his bare hands and a thousand year old crusader knight no one should go to this fourth movie expecting realistic plot points.
All in all I'd give this a 2.5 out of 5. Not good not bad but perhaps if this had been The Mummy 3 instead of Indiana Jones 4 I'd have given it an even lower score.
Unfortunately it counted for very little. From the moment Indiana Jones stoops down to pick up his hat the whole movie feels more like a series of cut scenes from a state of the art computer game than a major cinema release. Maybe it was the screen I watched the movie on but every scene seemed to have been "enhanced" by computers. Spectacular and colourful skies that look too spectacular and too saturated. large jungle canopies. Jungle scenes where half the jungle trees seem to have been added in. The final scene filmed on a mountain peak looked like it was a blue screen effort. Even the bad guys seemed too regular, too smooth, too generated. I'm sure they filmed lots of the stunts, Spielberg and Lucas insist that most of the stunts were real and not computer generated but it looks like they took those stunts and then photoshopped the background to make the scene more dramatic or more colourful.
But it's not all bad, Harrison Ford might be old and sometimes he does seem just a little too old for some of the action scenes but he still manages to pull off the role. Shia Labeouf is not as annoying as I imagined, in fact he might be able to pull off an Indiana Jones movie as the lead character. Some people did not like the plot but lets face it after The Ark of the Covenant, a priest who can rip the hearts of his victims out with his bare hands and a thousand year old crusader knight no one should go to this fourth movie expecting realistic plot points.
All in all I'd give this a 2.5 out of 5. Not good not bad but perhaps if this had been The Mummy 3 instead of Indiana Jones 4 I'd have given it an even lower score.
