Indy 4--Some Thoughts

Ian and I went to see Indiana Jones on Thursday night. For opening night of the record-breaking movie, the theater was surprisingly empty. Out of all action movies, Indiana Jones tends to be one of my favorites because one, it's main character is a professor that kicks some serious ass. I, too, will kick some serious ass as a professor but just probably not Nazi ass. As well, these movies are all firmly rooted in "history" or at least the popular perception of history. Either way, I am glad for the pandering to my discipline.

As for the movie itself, to put it simply, there were some good things and some bad things. I am an uninformed Indy fan so I think that my standards were much lower than others. Ian, who I believe really, really loved the first three was supremely less than thrilled. I think a few things in the movie definitely kicked a lot of ass though.

1. Harrison Ford still has it. He was awesome and I hope that I am that limber at 66. He was funny, Indy-ish and still devastatingly handsome but as most people well know, I love curmudgeonly old guys (Anthony Bourdain, anyone?). They made a lot of age jokes about him in the movie but I found them almost unnecessary. His age made sense and was obviously well-explained throughout the storyline.

2. Cate Blanchett and the Ruskies were delightfully bad. I think that to reincarnate previous nationalistic forms of prejudice with 1950's attitudes toward Russia was both ironic and a nod to our current views on terrorism and the Middle East. Cate was her usual chameleon and while not as awesome as when she plays Queen Elizabeth, she was delightful and evil and had sleek black hair.

3. Excellent car chase scenes. They were totally green screened which was patently obvious, even to me who watches primarily low-budget romantic comedies but at the point where it is unclear if Shia LeBoeuf's balls are going to survive, I was hooked.

The Bad:

1. Shia LeBoeuf made me throw up a little in my mouth. I like him. I think he is kind of hot and I remember him once upon a time in a little something called "Even Stevens." I also rewatched Holes on Saturday and greatly enjoyed that as well but here he played a comb-happy greaser and it was just too cliche even for me. He was so caught up in the persona that he didn't really act like anything other than a greaser. Also, SPOILER ALERT!!!, it was a little "Luke, I am your father" when Indy's connection to him was revealed. Ick.

2. The entire outer space alien plot line lost me. As I said before, IJ is about history, anthropology, archeology and other stuff. There is nothing about aliens in there and so when the entire plot line devolved into crystal skeleton Martians, I judged George Lucas a little for not reading more books about the ancient Mayans.

3. Snakes. Not unique to Indy but I had to hide my eyes.

All in all though, totally worth a Thursday evening but I wouldn't see it again. I am however, pretty excited for the new Batman movie. Ian and I are also doing Forgetting Sarah Marshall later this week. I call it Superbad with Romance but he didn't seem to buy into that. : )