Jones!

I already posted this here, but what the hell. Enjoy the redundancy.

I saw the new Indy movie, and it was good!

It wasn’t great, but it was certainly enjoyable and well-made and not in any way a depressing mistake that spoiled the legacy of the films that came before it (looking at you, Phantom Menace…).

Be warned: SPOILERS OF DOOM after the jump.

Okay, so let’s just jump right in and deal with the extraterrestrial elephant in the room. Yes, the movie is about aliens. No, that didn’t bother me. The first movies were about the Ark of the Covenant, Jesus’ Immortality Cup, and a temple of…doom. They were all about mystical, supernatural forces that turned Indy’s cynical, skeptical world upside down. So the alien aspect of this one is really in keeping with its predecessors. Now, the execution of that theme is another story, and I think it’s safe to say that certain aspects of it were a bit over the top–the alien skeletons merging into a living being that disintegrated Cate Blanchett was silly. But, again, I think if you look objectively at the other Indiana Jones movies you’ll find similar examples of things getting ridiculous once in a while. That’s half the fun!

Harrison Ford is, yes, decrepit. But they handled it well, acknowledging his age and moving on. It was sad that they killed off his dad, but I guess Sean Connery wasn’t interested in a cameo–plus that plot point ended up making Indy’s relationship with “Mutt” almost borderline touching.

My favorite parts:

• The scene in the van where everyone found out whose kid was whose. Silly, absurd, but funny and kind of sweet. Karen Allen is still pretty awesome.
• The whole jungle car chase, except for the cacti in the nuts part, which was a bit much. I could live without seeing anyone get hit in the groin for comic effect ever again. However, I loved a) the ridiculous sword fight; b) the horrifying red ants; and c) driving over three huge waterfalls without any permanent damage.
• The nuclear test sequence. Good, funny, completely implausible. Great start to the movie. Except that at one point Indy said “nuke-u-lar” and my heart fell.
• Indy blowing the poison dart into the mouth of the guy. That was awesome!

My least favorite parts:

• Shia the Buff swinging across the jungle on CGI vines, trailed for no reason by a gaggle of monkeys
• Cate Blanchett evaporating–when her eyes started burning I thought for sure we’d at least get to see her face explode!
• Ugh, the wedding. Did it really have to turn into a Victorian romance? We already understood that Indy was back in love with the mother of his newly-discovered child, we didn’t need that trite, cheesy ceremony. Although I did love the moment when Shia almost picked up the fedora, which would have caused an extremely dorky riot, only to be rebuffed by Indy, who will clearly get another opportunity to be acerbic in the transition to Indiana Jones III: The Rosemary-Scented Carcass.

But you know, overall, it was a really fun movie. I believe it would be reasonable to describe it as a comic romp. Spielberg is great at this stuff, and I think he managed to rein in some of Lucas’s more egregious instincts.

I haven’t really discussed everything I liked or disliked about it, but that’s a start. Suffice it to say that it satisfied my reasonably-low expectations and I’m glad they finally got around to making it. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should!