Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Commentary by Roger D. Noriega
(Spoiler commentary contained herein)
19 years. In May of 1989, Paramount Pictures premiered two major motion pictures: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Needless to say, only one of those two actually did well. Indiana Jones was a fine, fine adventure. Many of us figured, based on the titles that maybe, just maybe, we were seeing the end of two storied franchises. On both counts, we were wrong. Star Trek VI premiered in 1991 and Indiana Jones IV premiered this week.
I viewed the movie Saturday morning with my family and two good friends on mine, Bruce and Peter. I must say that our after-movie conversation was rather short and we decided to go on with our lives after viewing the movie.
Being fans of this storied franchise, I must admit, we were disappointed. I am saddened that this movie is a hollow addition to its predecessors. Having Harrison Ford as Indiana was fun to watch, but really, unless the story is good, what is the point? I remember that the producers of the James Bond franchise had commented that James Bond had reached a point that a whole make-over was required. Case in point: The Vanish. The car that was invisible. Even for the Bond franchise, the producers realized that the only way for them to tell a story was to reach for the absurd. I, for one, accepted that and having Pierce Brosnan replaced for Daniel Craig was and is something that I could not accept.
Having Indiana Jones deal with things that just seemed alien to the world created previously was just - it just . . . I don't know, it just didn't feel right. It seems to me, at least, that the production team reached too far this time around. I appreciated the acknowledgement of the character's age, along with the respective Thespians and I caught some of the acknowledgements to the previous movies, such as the Ark, the Monkey, the Bazooka and a few others. It just seems that an awesome opportunity was missed. The movie brings memories of my youth, but unlike watching an old movie that just looks old now, this movie reminds me of how good the other three movies were. I won't even go into the plot holes.
See it if you must, but the movie rings hollow.
