A truly woeful film. As a friend of mine commented, 'yet again George Lucas pisses all over our childhood memories'. But where does it go wrong?
I saw an interview with George Lucas this August when he was over in the UK plugging his new Star Wars cartoon which left the cinema after only three weeks becoming the first Star Wars film that I haven't seen on the big screen. I was in Japan so that's my excuse but I saw Caravan of Courage so I've put myself through the mill in the name of Star Wars and I reckon that it could have been ok. Better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Blue Screen (IJ4 herein). In the George Lucas interview, which typically I can't find now and quote verbatum from, Lucas said that the direction in the new Indiana Jones was torn in two directions. He said that Spielberg wanted to hark back to the old days and make it like the other films. Well, they were so successful and exactly as the original inspiration denoted, that being the 1930s Flash Gordon serials. George didn't want that though. Oh no, George and his colossal ego wanted to take the film in a new direction, into the future. After all there are new ways of doing things.
IJ4 is split into two distinct halves. The first half is evidently Spielberg's. There are some wonderful set pieces laced with that Spielberg touch. Indy's run-in with an Atomic bomb test is especially memorable. Indiana and his protege also have a cracking motorbike chase through Boston or wherever it is his university is based. And then we get to the Lucas half and then film descends into what is essentially an Industrial Light and Magic bucket of shit. That's because the film moves from being on location into a studio, and when I say studio I mean a Green Room where nothing is real. The earlier motorbike chase is so good as not only does it have cracking pace but the attention to detail is all absorbing. Everyone is in period dress (1950s) right down to the cast of thousands of extras in the background.
You would have thought that Lucas would have learnt by now that special effects only work when you can't see them. But no, Indiana embarks on what is a pretty boring journey to some jungle being pursued by about 20 Russians in pursuit of this Crystal Skull. I can't remember what it did, probably imbued invincible powers on its holder and I suppose a plot device as simple enough as that could be interwoven quite nicely with the suspicion and paranoia of the Cold War. I digress, but only because the film never did.
Highlights of this cinematic shower of shit include a laughably bad ten minute chase through a CG jungle between the Russkies in jeeps and Indy and his gang in an amphibious car. Then the main Russian thug gets eaten by Fire Ants in a scene that is reminiscent of the German bruiser being diced by the propellor in Raiders, except it reminds you that perhaps this format, or at least this format the way Lucas does it, is truly terrible. I'm not asking for some kind of Bergmanesque character introspection but this Russian fella holds no menace and you're just wondering what terrible death he's going to come to, well aware that this is by no means a location shoot and that since we're in CG territory it may well be that the only thing that is real is Harrison Ford, and he looks ancient. Indy escapes, and after more tedious shenanigans involving the dastardly Russians shooting the natives we're all of a sudden in a giant UFO rising out of the jungle. He might even have met some Aliens but my brain has shielded that horror from my memory. It is completely fucking terrible.
IJ 4 had six screenwriters and two massive egos taking the film in two different directions. It has shameless cash-in written all over it and oh, there's a surprise, its scheduled for a DVD release in early November. This film came out in May and its taken me this long to write about it. That's how scarring that experience was.
No comments:
Post a Comment