Indiana Jones 4 2008
I was looking forward to catching up with Indiana Jones again. The first movie in particular is just a timeless classic. For me the second wasn’t that great and then the third reclaimed some of the magic but still wasn’t as good as the first. This fourth installment which certainly had nearly unlimited resources available since it would be an automatic blockbuster, stars Harrison Ford, and includes Steven Spielberg directing, is very frustrating.
The biggest problem is the movie just doesn’t grab you. Like many action movies, it is like a roller coaster ride, only somehow this movie is more like watching someone else on a roller coaster ride. Not nearly as exciting as actually being on the roller coaster. Indy and his friends are constantly running from one dangerous sequence to the next and not even a nuclear explosion can stop them. There doesn’t seem to be real danger somehow. There is still some fun stuff and some good action sequences, but it has gone from being an homage of old fashioned movies to being an imitation of bad old movies, including a sci-fi angle that didn’t work that well. Even the lighting and sets seem cheap. The actors look like they are in a plastic jungle with spotlights showing on them. And one scene where Indy’s hat is being carried off by large ants has such bad CGI that it belongs on the sci-fi channel, not in the biggest movie of the summer.
The movie is worth seeing and I’m glad I saw it, but I was still disappointed. I’ll give this one a C.
Written: 03 Dec 2008
Owned on: Digital