Saw Indy Jones 4 today...it ain't no Iron Man!

Um, Jar Jar Binks wins this race by 10 light years.

I'm hoping to see it, and hoping it'll be like "Rocky Balboa". I don't expect much, but I hope I'm surprised.

 

Is it worse than The Phantom Menace?

That's the definition of ruining a franchise. I can only pray this one isn't as bad.

 

No reason to.

 

Menace is worse, but only by a (jar jar) neck.

 

I will still see this one, but if I'm disappointed, I will vow to never see another movie that George Lucas is attached in any way to...

The guy has already ruined the Star Wars franchise and it will be very disappointing if he soiled this one as well.

 

Is it a complete waste of time or could it possibly be worth my while if I waited a coupla months for it to hit the cheap second-run theaters?

 

Saw it last night.

More, later this morning.

 

I was thinking Lucas had ripped off the idea from "The Phantom".

 

Batman: Lucas thought of the Crystal Skull for Indy for the young Indy series, back in the early 1990s. The Phantom movie came out in 1996.

I read a lot of online reviews of Indiana Jones yesterday. It is really amusing to watch most of the reviewers who hated it say, nice and mealy mouthed, "Uh, um . . . there were things about it that sucked, but um, those things were LUCAS' FAULT!!!!!!"

Lot of hilarious bending over backwards to avoid ripping Spielberg. They forget Spielberg's fastball ain't what it once was.

Ahem.

The Lost World was a disaster, Saving Private Ryan had a bad, BAD, "tie it all up with a cute little bow" ending, A.I. was shit that dragged for two-plus hours, (with a similar "pretty" ending), Munich was very good, but with a "climax" that seemed like it came from a director who likes to think of many things while nailing his wife (other than his homewrecker wife, of course), and War of the Worlds was utter tripe.

Minority Report was very good, though. No complaints.

And: E.T. is chock full of plot holes, Spielberg likes to walk around blaming others for the second Indiana Jones film (though the on-set documentay on the old DVD shows he was too busy trying to dip his manhood wick into Willie Scott than directing a movie), Always . . . .

Oh, and, 1941.

Too many dork Internet critics (chud.com! aintitcool.com! reel views!) are using this Indiana Jones film as one last excuse to get their "I hate Jar Jar!" stiffy up one last time. And they're forgetting that Mr, Spielberg wields a BIT of power on the set of an Indy movie.

 

As bad as the Phantom Menace was -- and it was like staring at a painting you hate for 2-plus hours -- the next two in the sequence were quite good, I thought. So I saw no ruination.
Lucas is only the producer for Indy, remember, and he's writing checks for whatever his writer and producer cook up.
As for Saving Pvt. Ryan, how could you be so wrong about the "neat little bow" Piotr? The graveyard scene was the point of the whole freaking movie. It's the perfect analogy for the sacrifice so many Americans made in WWII.

 

Okay. There will be a brief capsule . . . a section with nebulous, borderline spoilers . . . and some serious spoilers. You will be given fair warning re such spoilers.

Serious Jones fans should not be discouraged from attending. Wasn't sorry I took such pains to attend. It is NOT a disaster.

The film has many charming, redeeming features.

It is miles superior to Temple of Doom.

But it ain't perfect . . . especially the quality of the cinematography, which is the WORST of the four Jones pictures, by kilometers.



NEBULOUS, BORDERLINE SPOILERS








































There is a TON of filler, here, and most of it lay in the early stages.

The opening chase is virtually worthless, and only serves to introduce the stage of immediate subsequent action.

The two subsequent chases, climaxing with the romp through New Haven,
are largely rote exercises. Some very clumsy cuts camoflaguing liberal use of Ford's double don't help the cause. The good, old feel simply isn't there, neither in action nor dialogue.

That said . . .

SERIOUS SPOILER SECTION












































The show doesn't really get on the road until Karen Allen's entrance.

From which, we proceed to the sustained mid-picture jungle chase which is the highlight of the picture.

The climax? Special effects, uber alles.

 

I'll never look at Billy Zane the same way again. Thief.

Disagree completely on your assessment of the "Saving Private Ryan" ending, though. A pretty little bow would have been the platoon somehow beating the Germans back and coming through unscathed. IIRC, only Ryan and the translator guy survived. That's not very pretty.