Time to address this back-log of movies I've seen, since I know if there's one thing everyone asks themselves every day it's "I wonder if Dan has watched any more movies, because I sure am curious to know what he thinks. He's so smart and insightful and awesome!" Don't deny it, you know it's true.
So let's talk Archaeological adventures, shall we? I'll start with the (sort of) good: Indiana Jones.
I'm a big fan of Harrison Ford. He plays down everything without being flat, which just makes everything he does that much cooler. I credit him with 90% of the success of the Star Wars franchise, and likewise Indiana Jones would simply not work if it was anyone else in the role. As far as the original Indiana Jones trilogy goes, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom were fun, but I almost entirely forget about them because The Last Crusade is so good.
What is the key to a good archaeology adventure movie? Is it a cool ancient civilization and an interesting discussion of their history and tour of their ruins? Is it political intrigue, with an almost as ancient organization trying to obtain a cool artifact that will give them nearly unlimited power? Is it the cool booby-traps set up by a lost people to protect this artifact? Without all these elements, you don't have a story, but they are not the key to a great movie. Even with the most amazing background concepts, the story falls flat without likable characters with plausible motivations for their actions; and likable characters require likable actors. A good actor can make up somewhat for a weak script (sometimes by changing the script on the fly, like Ford did in Star Wars), but even a brilliant script can fall on its face with poor acting. The Last Crusade has the best story of the Indiana Jones trilogy, but the story is completely centered around the relationship between the two Joneses, and very few movies have as good character chemistry as is pulled off by Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. The movie is not about the Holy Grail at all, it is about Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. being reunited with his father.
Another thing that can ruin a movie is a director with a heavy hand. Spielberg is a very inconsistent director; some of my favorite films are Spielberg's and some of my least favorite as well. I'm not sure he fully understands what makes his good films good. It seems he knows when a story is strong, and treats it well; but when he feels the script is lacking he tries to make up for it with special effects, as if that might distract the audience.
Basically, I'm taking a long time to get to the point, which is that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the first Indiana Jones cartoon. It's a real credit to Harrison Ford's acting ability that the movie isn't a complete disaster. Most people say it was introducing aliens that ruined it. Other than the aliens looking fairly generic, I didn't see anything wrong with them as a plot premise. My problem with the movie was with the visuals, and the comic relief. The old Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies were hilarious, because the humor arose naturally from the interactions between characters, with memorable lines such as "I don't have time to discuss it with the committee!" Spielberg filled this movie with humorous visuals that strain suspension of disbelief beyond the breaking point. If he had stopped with the animated groundhog in the first seconds of the movie, it would have been fine; if he had just left the movie with its oversaturated color comic book look, I could have lived with it. Fortunately, the worst scene is very near the beginning, at the nukular test site. It's too much, though; even Dr. Henry Jones Jr. isn't so invincible that he can survive a nukular blast.
Overall, though, it was a really fun movie, and it is rescued by Harrison Ford and Shia LeBeouf (another french name that no one pronounces right; it should be "leh-bee-owff"). As a pair, they've got nothing on Ford/Connery, but they do alright. LeBeouf is plausible in his part, and if they hand the series off to him, he's a surprisingly good actor and can handle it. And for all my complaining about the visuals, the climax of the movie was fun to watch, and by then the plot had picked up and left most of the ridiculousness behind, and I was able to somewhat lose myself in the story. The movie still looked like a cartoon way too often, though. I'd give it a good, solid B, and recommend it to any fan of the franchise. If nothing else, the movie hasn't made me lose interest if they make more movies.
On the other hand, Crystal Skull is a bloody masterpiece compared to the new Mummy movie, which was an embarrassing disaster. Brendan Frasier is cool, and he made the other Mummy movies work, but they had good scripts. He did his best here, but either he doesn't quite have what Harrison Ford does (he doesn't but that's nothing to be ashamed of), or the script was just so bad it couldn't be salvaged. I'm leaning toward the latter. It wasn't even because Evy was a different actress, though that didn't help at all. The problem wasn't even with the movie happening in China instead of Egypt, I thought that was actually a good change, and at least the scenery was nice to look at.
The jokes were stupid, like the writers weren't even trying. The animation looked cartoony, but not even quality cartoony like in Crystal Skull; it was just cheap. The emperor villain was dumb, and no reason is given as to why he changes form, he just does. The family conflict that they try to put at the center of the film (at least they tried) was stupid. To quote Orson Scott Card on this, "This is one of the odd contradictions of storytelling. It feels like the family stuff goes on and on -- you wish it had been shorter. But if it had been well done, it would have taken twice as long -- but would have felt like it zipped right by." The passing of the torch to O'Connell's son is handled much more poorly here than in Crystal Skull. The Chinese chick that helps them out couldn't even hold my attention.
The absolute worst moment (spoiler alert): when the abominable snowmen show up, and the Chinese chick can speak Yeti. This marks the exact moment that this series has officially "jumped the shark", or yeti in this case. Lame. Even worse than when Jonathan accidentally sets his behind on fire and yells "My ass is on fire, my ass is on fire!" This is supposed to be funny? I know I enjoy some rude humor, but in this context it was just plain stupid. Plus, there are numerous plot holes, a major anticlimax, and entire subplots that are introduced then abandoned; such as Evy's bookwriting, which seems to serve only to help get them to China.
There was one really good moment, a particular line delivered by Brendan Frasier, where he says "I've put down more mummies in my time" and his son says "One mummy!" to which he replies, "Same mummy, twice!" By far the best moment of the film, but not enough to make it watchable. Everything about this movie is dumb, except for Brendan Frasier. Watch Crystal Skull instead, it won't kill near so many brain cells and was at least very good fun.
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