The Dangerous Mind of Dan Luke

This is going to be a long read. And most of it is going to be somewhat (outrageously) negative. So I’ll get the good things about Indiana Jones 4 out of the way first:

1.) Cate Blanchett is one of my favorite modern actresses (check out I’m Not There as well as Coffee and Cigarettes). And this movie definitely emphasizes her gorgeous eyes and thick juicy ass (that I want to slice off and wrap myself in for all eternity).  So this movie is worth the price of admission for that alone.

2.) Harrison Ford is fantastic as Indiana Jones. Even though his young, spry, cocksure attitude and iconic whip seem to have been replaced with a rolled up newspaper and a gruff, cranky old man voice that always seems to have Ford one moment away from soiling his britches.

Now, on to the bad stuff.

To be honest I’m not sure what happened with Indiana Jones 4. I just know that when I left the theater I felt very dirty.  To be blunt, it kind of made me feel like I’d been sleeping with a retard for the past fourteen years. I mean, while the Indiana Jones series has occasionally tried to talk intellectually to me and give me life lessons, I think we’ve both always known (in the back of our minds) that I am much smarter than it. The series has never been particularly intelligent; it’s just been very clever.

And simple too, that was its elegance. The most brilliant parts of the original trilogy (opening the ark in Raiders and having two shitty looking ghosts fly out and kill everyone, the mine chase in Temple, or the final booby trap sequence in Crusade) were beautiful in the idea of their analog simplicity. They were written and filmed with minimum special effects in mind and in that regard they had a soul, as well as a dose of reality. And that’s when this movie works too (the 1950’s diner and bike chase, and even the first warehouse). The problem is that for the most part, most of that is gone. Lucas has a CGI studio and he intends to use it for every fucking scene. And don’t worry, the film is shot entirely in a wide shot (as if giving us a close up would either scare us as they look like cadavers or distract us from the eight million god-damn explosions and CGI animations occurring on screen at a time). So now basic things like riding a raft down a waterfall or blowing up a temple become epic and sprawling in scope, take an extra ten minutes, and make you very aware that you are watching a movie. And I’m not saying that Indiana Jones movies are rooted in reality and don’t deign to the absurd. I’m just saying that all of the previous efforts have never hurled an armored car on to the top of a giant branch and then catapulted it across a giant chasm. Never has Indy been hurled through an atomic blast in a refrigerator.

It just seems like most of the writing process went like this:

Spielberg is sitting in his chair reading the latest draft of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when he comes across the word “EXPLOSION” he squeals in delight and screams “WHEEEEEEEEEE,” as he tosses the pages up into the air and begins to frantically spin in his swirl chair, frantically waving his arms in the air like a hyperactive child.

Which may also be why he missed the fact that that the great stuff about the original trilogy was the simplicity of the movies just being about Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones 4 is an ensemble movie with mostly useless throwaway characters. It’s like Spielberg and Lucas insisted on putting a ball and chain of complete morons to weigh down Harrison Fords already weary back and creaky old hips. Every single character has some sort of commentary or unique skill that they bring into each and every situation (OX is a depraved lunatic that can speak to an ancient artifact and act as a compass, and Shia Labeouf is some sort of blade or sword master with an affinity for motorcycles that never really goes anywhere) - that is with the exception of Marion, once a tough, charismatic broad, and now a feeble, leather faced, giggling school girl that occasionally seems to start drooling. All of her bite and sass is gone. She’s just there to have a little girl crush on good old Indy.

Even the old, beautifully saturated colors of the previous films have been replaced with overexposed white lighting and a bright contrast that gives everyone and everything in the movie an angelic glow. The flick doesn’t look vintage at all, it looks digital.

The movie, like it’s creators, has become fat and bloated. It is slowed down by it’s own sentimentality and crackling hips. The Indiana Jones series was a simple series for a time period of simple movies. It is not part of the extravagant, stupidly epic films that we watch today. So, while the girl puts on a pretty good song and dance, it’s hard not to notice the fat on her thighs or the wrinkles on her face. It’s like bringing Marylin Monroe back to life for one more photo shoot, after she has been decaying in a crypt for twenty years.

But here is the weird thing. In all, this is a good movie. It’s fun and truly a sight to behold. It’s just that the majority of it isn’t really Indiana Jones, it’s a completely new beast that wants to ride like a roller coaster.  And that’s fine, but Lucas and Spielberg should know that it’s going to be measured against the original trilogy with the build up of fourteen years of hype.  It’s the first chapter of a series about a new character with less drama and a sillier more family oriented approach.

It’s sort of exciting in a way, a new era with new ideologies (The Nazi’s have been replaced with communists and the themes of spirituality have been replaced with the supernatural), a new coat of paint and a colorful new backdrop.  This may make an interesting new series.

I do like it. But I just start to feel dirty and enraged when I call it “Indiana Jones.”

Filed under: Movies, Season 2