Spoilers below, but nothing huge
Just got back home. I don't see how anyone could possibly justify the existence of that movie. Seriously. Was that all a joke? Perhaps the worst written film I've seen since Attack of the Clones.
The movie starts off well enough with the little drag race. Very nice camera work there (and throughout the film actually) but I couldn't help but notice the odd coloring. It seemed to work during that first feel-good-50s scene but once the action started it just looked out of place. Things were just too shiny.
Indy's introduction was so quick and non climatic I was simply shocked. And on a side note, how the fuck does a small group of Russian soldiers infiltrate the Fort Knox of top secret US artifacts? That was perhaps the first of many SMH moments in this movie. That entire warehouse scene was terrible. From the ridiculous lines to the stupid moments (like the magnetic cloud of bullets) I couldn't believe what I was seeing or hearing. And to top things off the whole atomic bomb thing...wow. What the fuck was that?
Overall the first 3/4s of the movie seemed so damn disjointed and poorly planned. Mutt's intro was pretty bad as well, and once again felt rushed. The previous three Indy films all did a great job with the scenes that explain the mulligan yet here it was bogged down by horrible acting by Shia and a rather bored Ford, who seemed like he slept walked through most of the movie.
I remember hearing that the film wouldn't have any CG, and if I wasn't tired I'd dig up those Manabyte/Cheebs posts trying to convince people that everything in the first trailer was real (LOL). Actually it's rather prominent and obvious in many scenes. Most of the action scenes fall flat regardless of whether they feature CG or not though, especially the two scenes involving crazy looking savage people. Sigh. Outside of the atomic bomb shit the most over the top part is probably the "three drop" water ride. It manages to look worse than the one in Temple of Doom. In fact, the entire movie reminded me of ToD in terms of being over the top in every aspect to distract you from how empty the movie is.
I haven't even discussed the plot, which was too stupid to mention. Overall I thought this was 30 minutes of interesting film mixed into an hour and a half of stupidity. I actually liked the race to the temple, as well as the stuff that happens in the temple (except the alien/spaceship fiasco, which I certainly didn't expect). Temple of Doom is better. At least it had Short Round and a particularly badass Indy. I went in expecting the film to at least top ToD. That expectation went out the window 10 minutes into the movie, from Blanceht's laughably hammy performance to this:
Mac: Sorry Jonesy, I'm in it for the money
Indy: I thought we were friends!
or whatever they said. My jaw fell open
