Post by Kadov on Jun 6, 2008 15:59:29 GMT -5
Good reviews on Crystal Skull from our forum members. Some really insightful comments.
I finally saw the film. At first, I felt it was satisfying. It didn't let me down but it wasn't anything that deeply excited me. The stuff about aliens and the skulls were serviceable but I didn't find them thrilling. In a strange way, the series actually started with the best plot--the search for the ark of the covenant. It's very dramatic, mysterious, and epic in scope. It seems Lucas and Spielberg knew they couldn't top it. So they went into the area of science fiction and aliens, and cosmic mystery--which, ultimately, parallels the deep mystery suggested by the ark. Anyway, a movie sometimes gets better after you see it, and you start to think of it a little more, and you begin to really "see" it then and appreciate it. That's what happened with me for Crystal Skull. In a way, this film was an homage to the entire Indiana Jones franchise--sort of like what Enchanted did for the Disney legacy of films. Major sequences hark back to similar scenes in previous Indiana Jones films. The beginning with the Area 51 warehouse and all those crates were similar to the final scene in Raiders (of course, in Crystal Skull, we even see the ark in a half-opened crate). The series of waterfalls in South America reminded me of the waterfall scene near the beginning of Temple of Doom. Indy's fist-fight with the big Russian dude (as army ants surround them) recalls the fight in Raiders where Indy is punched repeatedly in an airbase by the big Nazi guy (who eventually gets his head whacked by propeller blades). Bringing back Marion Ravenwood is a throwback to the Indy-Marion interaction in Raiders. You could even say that the young side-kick, Mutt, is a variation of the little kid in Temple of Doom. The finale with the flames and destruction in the cave is reminiscent of the climax in Raiders--and just as the French villain Belloq was captivated by what he saw in the Ark and eventually got destroyed by a transcendent power, the Cate Blanchett character was mesmerized by all the knowledge she was gaining from the aliens and was blown to bits with the rest of the place. The chase in the jungle recalls the extended chase in Raiders where Indy chases German trucks on horseback, fights soliders on those trucks, and gets dragged behind one of the vehicles. On and on it goes...I like the variations. Crystal Skull is its own film but it's rooted in tradition.
I particularly like the first 40-minutes or so. The film quickly establishes a different time period. Here we are in the 50s--we're in the Nevada desert, we hear Elvis music, we see a roadster with teenagers dressed like extras from American Graffiti. That’s it: nothing flashy, but it tells us simply everything we need to know about the setting. It’s the work of a director who knows how to tell a story. As the sequence unfolds, the film touches upon some of the most important events in modern history. Indy is suddenly in a nuclear test town, and there's a haunting image of Indy silhouetted against a mushroom cloud. When he's catapulted from the blast in that refrigerator, the Lucas and Spiel berg basically throw us back to the Cold War, into McCarthyism and the whole Red Scare and the looming threat of nuclear annihilation. My father said that whole sequence was eerily reminiscent of life in the fifties. Nuclear threat and awareness for things like bomb shelters and so forth were part of everyday reality--it was right there, in Americana.
All in all, a good adventure. And underlying all the noise and action, the film also says something about the passage of time, the pain of inevitable loss. The best line in the film comes from Indy's colleague: "We’ve reached the age where life stops giving things to us and starts taking them back.” This is the touching scene where we see a photo of Dr. Jones Sr. (Connery) on Indy's desk. If there's any comfort offered, Indy's vocational advice to Mutt suggests that, with a can-do driven outlook, its never too late to learn, and fight for, whatever makes one's life worth living. On a scale of 1 to 4, I'd give Crystal Skull a 3.
I finally saw the film. At first, I felt it was satisfying. It didn't let me down but it wasn't anything that deeply excited me. The stuff about aliens and the skulls were serviceable but I didn't find them thrilling. In a strange way, the series actually started with the best plot--the search for the ark of the covenant. It's very dramatic, mysterious, and epic in scope. It seems Lucas and Spielberg knew they couldn't top it. So they went into the area of science fiction and aliens, and cosmic mystery--which, ultimately, parallels the deep mystery suggested by the ark. Anyway, a movie sometimes gets better after you see it, and you start to think of it a little more, and you begin to really "see" it then and appreciate it. That's what happened with me for Crystal Skull. In a way, this film was an homage to the entire Indiana Jones franchise--sort of like what Enchanted did for the Disney legacy of films. Major sequences hark back to similar scenes in previous Indiana Jones films. The beginning with the Area 51 warehouse and all those crates were similar to the final scene in Raiders (of course, in Crystal Skull, we even see the ark in a half-opened crate). The series of waterfalls in South America reminded me of the waterfall scene near the beginning of Temple of Doom. Indy's fist-fight with the big Russian dude (as army ants surround them) recalls the fight in Raiders where Indy is punched repeatedly in an airbase by the big Nazi guy (who eventually gets his head whacked by propeller blades). Bringing back Marion Ravenwood is a throwback to the Indy-Marion interaction in Raiders. You could even say that the young side-kick, Mutt, is a variation of the little kid in Temple of Doom. The finale with the flames and destruction in the cave is reminiscent of the climax in Raiders--and just as the French villain Belloq was captivated by what he saw in the Ark and eventually got destroyed by a transcendent power, the Cate Blanchett character was mesmerized by all the knowledge she was gaining from the aliens and was blown to bits with the rest of the place. The chase in the jungle recalls the extended chase in Raiders where Indy chases German trucks on horseback, fights soliders on those trucks, and gets dragged behind one of the vehicles. On and on it goes...I like the variations. Crystal Skull is its own film but it's rooted in tradition.
I particularly like the first 40-minutes or so. The film quickly establishes a different time period. Here we are in the 50s--we're in the Nevada desert, we hear Elvis music, we see a roadster with teenagers dressed like extras from American Graffiti. That’s it: nothing flashy, but it tells us simply everything we need to know about the setting. It’s the work of a director who knows how to tell a story. As the sequence unfolds, the film touches upon some of the most important events in modern history. Indy is suddenly in a nuclear test town, and there's a haunting image of Indy silhouetted against a mushroom cloud. When he's catapulted from the blast in that refrigerator, the Lucas and Spiel berg basically throw us back to the Cold War, into McCarthyism and the whole Red Scare and the looming threat of nuclear annihilation. My father said that whole sequence was eerily reminiscent of life in the fifties. Nuclear threat and awareness for things like bomb shelters and so forth were part of everyday reality--it was right there, in Americana.
All in all, a good adventure. And underlying all the noise and action, the film also says something about the passage of time, the pain of inevitable loss. The best line in the film comes from Indy's colleague: "We’ve reached the age where life stops giving things to us and starts taking them back.” This is the touching scene where we see a photo of Dr. Jones Sr. (Connery) on Indy's desk. If there's any comfort offered, Indy's vocational advice to Mutt suggests that, with a can-do driven outlook, its never too late to learn, and fight for, whatever makes one's life worth living. On a scale of 1 to 4, I'd give Crystal Skull a 3.