Indy 4

If you’re planning to see this movie, don’t read this review.
If you’re seeing this, but you still want to know how I feel, I still say, don’t read this review.

If you don’t care well, hey, keep reading!

****SPOILER ALERT: Plot points revealed. Please don’t read if this matters. This is for people who either don’t care and strangely like hearing the sound of my voice, or people who have already seen the movie. You have been warned.*****

Ok, full disclosure:

I’m an Indy fan. For me, they are, in order: Indy 1, Indy3, & Indy 2, with a fair gap between 1 & 3 and a huge gap between 1 & 2. It all comes down to a few things: Playability, and feeling like you could actually be Indiana Jones, in your own little “fill in cleverly named” escapades. This guy was not a super hero. He was that widely used description of Harrison Ford: “Everyman.” Meaning, “I think I could do that!”

That being said, here’s how I would break down my opinion of this movie:
If you’re an Indy fan like me, see it; you owe it to your childhood nostalgia.
If you’re not an Indy fan, per se, but enjoyed it when you’ve seen the movies, I still say see it, because you may in fact enjoy it more than I did (like my wife, Christina, did).

For me, though my “walkaway” feeling, and my “I slept on it” feeling is one of disappointment.
There are so many reasons, where to start?

Ok, it feels hollow. At times it looks so good, but fails to cinch the deal because it tries too hard. Hell, Indy survives a nuclear blast???!! Ok, you simply think, give me a break, as you see it, but your other part of the brain goes, “oh well; at least it looked cool.”

And, here’s the most surprising disappointment: I found a lot of the directing to be very clunky. The first scene feels acted like it was high school drama. I can’t tell whether it was the camera angles or the pacing. It was really odd. It was too early in the movie to be off putting; I was more stunned in retrospect, if that makes sense.

The first chase scene (a motorcycle one) that lands Indy and his new side kick, “Mutt”, sliding their motorcycle through the library of a nice New England University, well,…it just ended clunky. You could almost see the director looking over his shoulder back to the audience, and going “See? that was cute…wasn’t it?” Audience politely applauses as if it were your grandpa telling the joke. Hey, at least he got it out. That’s what counts, right?

The um, …bad guys?
Completely not believable. I love Cate Blanchett. No…seriously…. I LOVE Cate Blanchett. But she was neither scary (in a villain sort of way) or particularly interesting (in a villainness sort of way). The Nazis felt so powerful, so omnipresent; you got the sense they are almost certainly going to win before Indy saved the day. But the Russians—no, strike that; these Russians—felt like a small gang. It wasn’t the Soviet Empire, it was a humorless Reno 911. It felt like bit parts, even though she was central to the whole movie. I can’t put my hands on it, which is why I found myself frustrated. The wish that she would have said “yes, dollink” or at least made mention of a certain moose and squirrel shouldn’t have had anything to do with my opinion, but I digress.

And her russian co-horts were faceless, SW123 Stormtroopers in personality. Not particularly frightening or compelling. The way they moved around with complete ease all goes to the pulp fiction of it; I’m ok with that. But there was no sense of the omnipresence that the Soviets have had in every other adventure movie (where they were the bad guys) you’ve ever seen with them as the antagonists. The whole point to boogie men is that sense that they could be under your bed. But the same 30 soldiers kept showing up. It felt cheap and rang hollow. I can see old Indy movies and the Nazis still make me angry. Still! Not here.

Shia Labeouf
I’ll confess to having a less than favorable opinion of this actor, and I believe it was an inherent bias based on his snotty attitude in the old Greenlight doc that he was on. But that opinion has changed due in large part to this movie. He has gained respect back, as I felt he did what he was asked to do. I don’t mean to call it merely a journeyman effort. I found his effort to have strong quality effort: he was quick with delivery and the emotions he displayed felt sincere. It’s just he didn’t have much to work with, and I felt either the story or the director ignored him in a small way (from a character depth standpoint). So, neither his role nor his acting ability really lessened my opinion of the movie. It may have helped it a bit.

Karen Allen
Most Indy fans will find her to be the coolest of all of his chicks, but this felt like a plot point for fans. It felt contrived that she was somehow kidnapped and now Indy had to rescue her. And she didn’t look like she was worse for the wear; I don’t know, she just looked like a house frau home from a PTA meeting and someone came up and mussed her hair right before the word “action” was yelled. And I didn’t realize she had so much time spent in stunt school, because her driving ability was mythical to the point of superhuman.

Which brings me to my most egregious complaint:

The extended “Amazonian death chase that jooks like every typical Star Wars jungle/forest chase” chase
This is when the movie lost me. It looked bad, didn’t feel particularly scary because it was so not believable, went on and on, and the actors engaged in stunts that would have shredded any human, let alone a group of people in their late 50’s, 60’s, & 70’s. This ain’t about ageism; this is physics. With old Indy movies, you felt Indy’s pain when he fell. This one instructed you to acknowledge it when he had blood smeared on his face. or his shirt was dirty and sweaty. But don’t pay attention to the two actors um, sword fighting on cars racing down two parallel tracks in the jungle. And they made it look easy, because it is, right?. And the fricking monkeys, and Shia LaBeouf’s ability to rock the swinging vine? Are you kidding me?

Kudos, by the way, to Roger Ebert pointing out: who would take the time to make parallel roads in a jungle?

The phobia of the killer ants was scary and crazy good fun in the old sense. Hell, it actually reminded me more of Peter Jackson’s King Kong (Which I think blew this movie away in every possible aspect).

But don’t get me started on not one, not two, but three rides over huge waterfalls. I wanted to be enthused, I really did. But it just well, rang hollow and completely. not believable. It just moved the plot along. You never wondered whether they would survive. You just went, ok, now what?

The final scene (not the movie’s ending, more on that in a sec) was very pretty to look at. It was a mildly interesting conclusion to the story, even though the story wasn’t very interesting. But just like watching Denise Richards in, um, anything: looks will only take you so far.

The romantic ending was cheeseball, velveeta and all. Again, sort of whatever. Course, I had heard their was a cornball ending, so I knew to expect it. It just didn’t help. And again, I felt indifferent to the allusion to Shia maybe taking over the reins, or the fedora, as it were.

There is no fire in the belly, visceral fanboy anger here. It’s just basic disappointment. It was fine. The old Indy humor was there in spots. The movie as a whole wasn’t really bad per se. But it could have been better. And I think George Lucas, Steven Speilberg and, even to some degree, Harrison Ford, know it.