So I promised to let you know how we liked the latest (and probably last... unless in another 20 years they make "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Nursing Home Medicine Cabinet") Indiana Jones flick. First thing I'll say is how much I love it when a major movie opens here in Paris at roughly the same time as it opens in America (with a happy wink to "Sex and the City" which opens here TOMORROW!)... it makes me feel much less left out when I talk to my family back home and say, "Oh I just saw such and such!" and they burst my bubble with "Oh, we saw that three months ago... old news". Here goes (and don't worry, I won't spoil anything for you):
In short, we liked it. It moved quickly and wasn't boring. It held our attention for the full 2 hours, no problem. Good special effects, some pretty wild and far-out, too. Creepy serpents (yeah, he still hates snakes) and many lots of swarms of bazillions of insects, which you'd expect in a film that takes the characters to the Amazon jungle. A few (well, more than a few, actually) improbable plot points here and there, but as Georges reminded me, when have these movies ever been based in reality? And who cares about REALITY?
I thought Cate Blanchett was effectively intense and bizarre as the Russian psychic and power-happy scientist... and she does the accent very well. The young actor, Shia LaBoeuf (ah, now I remember where I've seen him before... he was in Transformers last year) who is Indy's sidekick this time around was excellent, and a good match for Harrison Ford. And it was very cool to see Karen Allen come back into the picture (I'll let you wonder about how THAT plays out).
If you've heard the news reports that in Russia, some prominent Communists are outraged about this film because they're not happy with how they were being portrayed in that 1950s Soviet Communism vs. U.S. "Better Dead Than Red" era of total paranoia, all I'll say about that is I think they are overreacting. If anything, I think the film shows the U.S. in a worse light on THAT topic because you've got the usual Herbert Hoover groupies running around acting like Indy might be a Commie spy, and it just reflects the insanity of that entire period in our country's history. (Remember blacklisting?) Otherwise, were the Russians in this film portrayed as the "bad guys"? Sure. But what's an Indiana Jones movie without people chasing him and trying to beat him to the prize? To me, the plot line about the Russians and the "Communist threat" was a much smaller point because most of the film is about two archaeologists competing to "get there first" (where "there" is, you'll have to watch the movie to discover) and the fact that Blanchett's character was Russian became incidental in the end. Set in 1957, long after the time when the Nazis could be set up as the film's villains as in two out of the past three films, who else were they going to cast as the "enemy" this time? It's not the first time an American film has had a hero pitted against the Russians during the Soviet era, and it certainly won't be the last. But, let them boycott it if they must; they're entitled.
OK, and just a note about seeing this movie in France vs. what it might have been like had I seen it in the U.S. I had read in the e-papers that at the previews in America, audiences started cheering the moment the movie started, that's how excited they were. I suppose I expected a bit more enthusiasm from the audience here, but they were rather subdued. So either they were mostly French and therefore more reserved, or there weren't enough raucous teenagers in the crowd... or maybe they didn't like the film well enough, because no one applauded even at the end (and I have heard audiences applaud at the end of movies here). But also I felt like I was sometimes the only one laughing out loud at some of the jokes... which is often the case when I see movies here. Again, either the French viewers are just more reserved or they don't get the jokes... I can't tell which.
What else can I say that won't give anything away? Monkeys and vine-swinging... sword-play... atomic age... Mayan temples... waterfalls... lots of corpses (naturally)... and of course, crystal skulls.
Last but not least, there is Harrison Ford, who is living proof that in Hollywood, male actors can get older and grayer and not even have a face-lift and STILL be pretty damn freaking sexy... while female actors can't seem to get work at all unless they're playing some haggard old lady. He doesn't do as many of the heavy-duty physical stunts as he used to (Shia LaBoeuf picks up the slack there), but he does his fair share. Just like the character he plays, I suspect Ford is going to be one of those classic actors who is truly "immortal". In short, not only does the film have a lot of action to keep everyone's interest, but Harrison's still got it, too.
So go and see it.
