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redfiona99The case for the prosecution:
Crystal Skull (as it will be called throughout) is not a bad film. It's just not as good as an Indiana Jones film should be. Now, part of that might be nostalgia, but I think the first three films still hold up nowadays.
Part of the problem is the overuse of CGI. I know I say this a lot but practical effects > CGI. Used sparingly, CGI works great, but when it's used rather a lot, in every bit of action that you see, you lose a level of thrill. (Before anyone says anything, I do not intend extra peril for our geriatric hero, this is what Mutt is for.)
Irina Spalko is not a particular effective villain. Which is annoying - you have Cate Blanchett and her natural reverb setting; she should make an excellent villain. It's not that she's not threatening, she's significantly more of a physical threat than Belloq was but there's not that moment where she does something specifically hateful to our heroes on screen so we can hate her (Belloq stealling the original statue by skullduggery, Toht threating Marion and getting burnt, Moler Ram in general, Vogel kidnapping Indy's father).
I think the main problem though, is what they do to Indy's character. Here we have a guy who spent large parts of the last film justifiably complaining about how emotionally absent his father had been through his whole life ... and then he turns round and is the most deadbeat Dad ever. We'd like our heroes not to be like that (discussion point, some of the disatisfaction with the Last Jedi is how useless Luke has been in the interim).
I think I'd probably have redone it with Mutt being a rebel son who'd gone off to work with Ox, and then Ox gets kidnapped. (Ox, has, of course, secretly been mailing Marion with updates so she knows Mutt is safe). Story still works, I don't want to smack Indy, win - win.
The scene itself:
Is not available because everyone insists on being wrong.
It's the scene where Indy is in a rage because he's been made to take an indefinite leave of absence and then Stanforth the Dean, ably played by Jim Broadbent, comes in to comiserate. And Indy's having none of it because why didn't the Dean stand up for him more and then wham! it turns out the only way the Dean could save Indy's job (because leave of absence is still employed) was by resigning himself.
The rest of the scene continues the wham, because we find out that Henry Jones senior and Marcus Brody have died, and there's a really good sense of the times, they are a-changing.
Why the scene is so good:
Harrison Ford can act, it's one of those things that's easy to forget, and the wham! of the shame he feels when he realises how much his friend has sacrificed for him, it hits the audience. It sets the tone for the rest of the scene, when we see that time has passed and who we have lost.
Jim Broadbent is the second half of this two-hander and he's exceptional. Admittedly, give Jim Broadbent something to do and it will be good but wow! I think it's the bit where Indy asks him how his wife is taking it and he answers "How does any wife take such things? The look on her face is a combination of pride and panic." And with a few words he tells you 30 years of married life, and how she's been the force and the rock and she writes home to her mother every Sunday and ... we don't see her until the wedding at the end, but when she appears she looks exactly how we imagined her and that's a skill and a half.
There's a realism, and a sense of age and time, in this scene. I get that you couldn't do a whole film like this, it would be depressing for one thing, and it wouldn't make for a good Indiana Jones film, but it's a note that the film could have done with more of.
Crystal Skull (as it will be called throughout) is not a bad film. It's just not as good as an Indiana Jones film should be. Now, part of that might be nostalgia, but I think the first three films still hold up nowadays.
Part of the problem is the overuse of CGI. I know I say this a lot but practical effects > CGI. Used sparingly, CGI works great, but when it's used rather a lot, in every bit of action that you see, you lose a level of thrill. (Before anyone says anything, I do not intend extra peril for our geriatric hero, this is what Mutt is for.)
Irina Spalko is not a particular effective villain. Which is annoying - you have Cate Blanchett and her natural reverb setting; she should make an excellent villain. It's not that she's not threatening, she's significantly more of a physical threat than Belloq was but there's not that moment where she does something specifically hateful to our heroes on screen so we can hate her (Belloq stealling the original statue by skullduggery, Toht threating Marion and getting burnt, Moler Ram in general, Vogel kidnapping Indy's father).
I think the main problem though, is what they do to Indy's character. Here we have a guy who spent large parts of the last film justifiably complaining about how emotionally absent his father had been through his whole life ... and then he turns round and is the most deadbeat Dad ever. We'd like our heroes not to be like that (discussion point, some of the disatisfaction with the Last Jedi is how useless Luke has been in the interim).
I think I'd probably have redone it with Mutt being a rebel son who'd gone off to work with Ox, and then Ox gets kidnapped. (Ox, has, of course, secretly been mailing Marion with updates so she knows Mutt is safe). Story still works, I don't want to smack Indy, win - win.
The scene itself:
Is not available because everyone insists on being wrong.
It's the scene where Indy is in a rage because he's been made to take an indefinite leave of absence and then Stanforth the Dean, ably played by Jim Broadbent, comes in to comiserate. And Indy's having none of it because why didn't the Dean stand up for him more and then wham! it turns out the only way the Dean could save Indy's job (because leave of absence is still employed) was by resigning himself.
The rest of the scene continues the wham, because we find out that Henry Jones senior and Marcus Brody have died, and there's a really good sense of the times, they are a-changing.
Why the scene is so good:
Harrison Ford can act, it's one of those things that's easy to forget, and the wham! of the shame he feels when he realises how much his friend has sacrificed for him, it hits the audience. It sets the tone for the rest of the scene, when we see that time has passed and who we have lost.
Jim Broadbent is the second half of this two-hander and he's exceptional. Admittedly, give Jim Broadbent something to do and it will be good but wow! I think it's the bit where Indy asks him how his wife is taking it and he answers "How does any wife take such things? The look on her face is a combination of pride and panic." And with a few words he tells you 30 years of married life, and how she's been the force and the rock and she writes home to her mother every Sunday and ... we don't see her until the wedding at the end, but when she appears she looks exactly how we imagined her and that's a skill and a half.
There's a realism, and a sense of age and time, in this scene. I get that you couldn't do a whole film like this, it would be depressing for one thing, and it wouldn't make for a good Indiana Jones film, but it's a note that the film could have done with more of.
