tarandfeathers wrote:That said, I basically enjoyed it while it was on, but felt hollow and empty afterwards. I'd still rate it above Temple of Doom.

This movie doesn't even have the exilaration of the action scenes from Temple of Doom. You can't even give it that. The entire thing is turgid. I fail to see what anyone found "entertaining" out of the two hour running time of this piece of crap.

Even the reuinion of Indy and Marion was contrived and unrealistic. Nothing in their banal dialogue I found convincing for a moment. This woman has deliberately kept his son away from him for over twenty years and we get no real dramatic tension, just Harrison Ford yelling at his son repeatedly that he needs to go back to school. None of this dialogue was funny or interesting.

What I simply wanted was a continuation of the same spirit from the original trilogy and it failed.

On a side note, when I was staying at a hotel recently I finally saw Casino Royale on Showtime. I had been avoiding it because of my boredom of the franchise for the last few decades. Yet I was completly blown away. This film reinvents itself instead of playing up to the usual conventions of its predecessors and remains faithful to the tone of the Fleming novel. It has action, a story and also makes you care about the characters, something rare in a James Bond movies for christs sake. Crystal Skull should have taken this same approach, actually taken a chance and gone back to the essence of the original film.

This was a bad film.
I'm almost thinking Rambo was a better revisit than this.

[quote="punch_the_lion"]On a side note, when I was staying at a hotel recently I finally saw Casino Royale on Showtime. I had been avoiding it because of my boredom of the franchise for the last few decades. Yet I was completly blown away. This film reinvents itself instead of playing up to the usual conventions of its predecessors and remains faithful to the tone of the Fleming novel. It has action, a story and also makes you care about the characters, something rare in a James Bond movies for christs sake. Crystal Skull should have taken this same approach, actually taken a chance and gone back to the essence of the original film.[/quote

I agree about Casino Royale, the stunts were real also.

Crap on Indy sequels, George Lucas and Steve Spielberg.

etch wrote:I agree about Casino Royale, the stunts were real also.

yeah all those Parkour/freerunning stunts are pretty decent

This 'film' was all kinds of fail, though the bar had been set pretty high.

Still better than all 3 of the later Star Wars flicks put together.

i thought it was horrible for the following reasons:

1. "was obviously a pastiche of the last twenty years of abandoned screenplays." yes, i thought the same thing. and even some not abandoned: it was like indiana jones goes american graffiti meets close encounters. absurd.

2. the CGI was unbearable. at least the older films used actual stunt men for a LOT of that stuff, this was a copout, imo.

3. the lighting was way too hot.

4. aliens? please.

5. harrison ford's character lost his charm, and he's too old.

6. shia lebeouf? i don't fuckin care if that's not how he spells it. please. he has to be the most inoffensive, bland looking kid ever born. boring.

7. the story lacked good characters besides marianne.

8. the crystal skulls looked like lucite stuffed with iridescent saran wrap.

i didn't expect greatness, but i didn't expect total crap either.

enframed wrote:i thought it was horrible for the following reasons:

1. "was obviously a pastiche of the last twenty years of abandoned screenplays." yes, i thought the same thing. and even some not abandoned: it was like indiana jones goes american graffiti meets close encounters. absurd.

2. the CGI was unbearable. at least the older films used actual stunt men for a LOT of that stuff, this was a copout, imo.

3. the lighting was way too hot.

4. aliens? please.

5. harrison ford's character lost his charm, and he's too old.

6. shia lebeouf? i don't fuckin care if that's not how he spells it. please. he has to be the most inoffensive, bland looking kid ever born. boring.

7. the story lacked good characters besides marianne.

8. the crystal skulls looked like lucite stuffed with iridescent saran wrap.

i didn't expect greatness, but i didn't expect total crap either.

Abso-fawkin'-lutely correct. Must add that the Looney-Tunes-esque fridge scene and duckboat dropping down three consecutive falls scenes were just insultingly bad.

A really bad movie--the worst I've seen since "Spiderman 3."

Those who say this movie is dumb and harmless fun just like the first three, and hence it's not a departure from the first three, are wrong. This movie contains almost nothing of what made the old ones fun to watch.

George Lucas is a douche bag.

I've stopped going to see movies I know I won't like.