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| W A R N I N G ! S P O I L E R S A H E A D ! P L O T P O I N T S R E V E A L E D ! |
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| e-me (bmf@bigmoviefreak.com) blog me Creative property of W.L. Kwa. A completely personal and non-profit endeavor. |
| Making a mole-hill out of a mountain When I was prepping for my review of this movie, I made a list of stuff that I liked and disliked about it. Obviously, unless you haven’t already noticed my verdict for the movie in the top right hand corner of this page, the list for the latter exceeds the former by a wide margin. Things I liked: Indy, Russian soldiers, chases, fisticuffs, Indy’s WW2 backstory, basically the first half of the movie or the segments before Peru. Things I didn’t: bland script, lack of good one-liners, lack of good gags for that matter, the over-rated "MacGuffin", both finales, severely underused supporting characters, too over-the-top death-defying action even to Temple of Doom standards, too little stuntwork, huge plot holes, CG gophers, CG scorpions, CG monkeys, CG ants, CG sets, CG action, CG everything. But it’s unfair to critique the movie based on the nitty-gritty, right? As the saying goes, the whole should be greater than the sum of its parts. Unfortunately, as a whole, Crystal Skull feels like a tired, by-the-numbers Hollywood blockbuster that is closer to the Van Helsing camp than anything in Spielberg’s oeuvre. Spielberg has fashioned a movie that has more in common with his imitators of late than even his last two (and very recent) blockbuster outings; smothered in a thick, fake, plastic-ky layer of CGI, and plagued with an unusual lack of quality control and enthusiasm in telling its story. The movie clunked and spluttered so badly on every gag, one-liner and action sequence, it lost every goodwill it needed to sell its ridiculous X-files plot. All that’s left are nostalgia and Harrison Ford to carry the movie till its devastatingly nonsensical end. Because it's a Steven Spielberg-helmed movie with the Indiana Jones brand, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in putting such expectations on it, which aren’t even stratospherically high to begin with. If it were just another sequel to The Mummy or National Treasure, I’m sure the critics would have been far more merciless. It is an utter shock to witness Spielberg stooping to post-Nineties Lucas and Sommers lows just right after doing such brilliant works like Munich, War of the Worlds and Minority Report. Was it only an anomalous lapse like Hook and 1941, or maybe Spielberg made one too many concessions to his best friend’s meddling in post-production, as some netizens have come to suspect? Perhaps the Bearded One has finally lost his mojo like the other great directors of his generation? I guess we’ll only know once we’ve seen Lincoln. - BMF For the record: Raiders of the Lost Ark > The Last Crusade > Temple of Doom > Kingdom of the Crystal Skull The Mummy (1999) > Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Kingdom of the Crystal Skull = worst Spielberg movie (note: I haven't seen "The Terminal" and "1941") Things I specifically disliked about Crystal Skull (spoilers): - The crystal skull - "Nuke the fridge" - Tarzan Mutt - Fake-looking CG animals and insects - Fake-looking CG backdrops and environments - Damn gophers! - "Mac" George McHale - No Henry Jones Snr. - Underutilising a fine cast of actors - Really weak plot - Bad script - Flying saucers and little grey men in an Indiana freakin' Jones movie - Recycled special effects from The Mummy Returns - Industrial Light and Magic - George Lucas Good things that weren't enough to save the movie: - Harrison Ford, wearing Indy gear again - The opening warehouse sequence - Nostalgia - Steven Spielberg Directed by Steven Spielberg (Munich, War of the Worlds) and screenplay by David Koepp (Zathura, War of the Worlds). Stars Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent and John Hurt. Based on a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson, and characters created by Lucas and Philip Kaufman. |
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