Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Never meet your heroes

It's a little bit ridiculous, I know. With all the sorrow in the world, nothing has left me feeling quite so sad, quite so down as the new Indiana Jones movie.

It's not that it's a terrible movie (it's heaps better then The Mummy), it's just that in comparison to what came before....

And you have to compare. Or at least I do. Because what was the point of returning to Indy after how well The Last Crusade wrapped things up? The only reason that this was worth doing was if the main players had something worth saying, a story that just had to be told. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls is not a good story; it feels more like an indulgence on the part of Spielberg, Lucas and Ford.

And I've no problem with that. But I just wish they'd had the class to leave us wanting more.

Why am I so sad about this? Well, I love Indy. That theme tune gets me straight to the heart. When I first heard a trailer (I turned my eyes away), Trish had to calm me down.

And I am so disappointed with Spielberg. I'm not surprised with Lucas, that lad's been living in a galaxy far far away for sometime now. But I thought with Spielberg on board, that there might have been some restraint.

The CGI, the CGI, the damn CGI. It's worse it's getting. The difference between a CGI heavy movie like this and one without like The Bourne Supremacy is the difference heavy metal and punk. I know which I prefer.

I'm rambling now.

What was missing? A good story. Good action pieces. A sense of peril. There was nothing exciting (because you know watching it that it's all bluescreen).

And it was too ridiculous. I know that sounds like a silly thing to say about an Indiana Jones movie but it's true. With the earlier movies, there was enough restraint, just enough to keep everything barely credible. But not with this.

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Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's unfair to expect anything as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark but all I know is that today I feel like morning the death of the greatest, the coolest, the only action hero that there ever was.