Dude takes a taxi hit'n'runover pretty well, eh?

I'll post an in depth review after some people have had a chance to see it. Right now I'd say three out of four stars.

Well, I'm happy. I knew it would be good. Not great, as Raiders the first time you saw it, but damn good.

There's a reason Harrison hasn't pined for the old Star Wars flicks, but pined for another Indy flick.

to summarise my opinion of the film, it was basically American Grafiti meets First Ecnounters. Proving these "masters" of modern cinema have lost their abilities to make ANYTHING original. The Over use of CG pissed me off and the story was a direct rip off of the video game Pandora Directive word for word almost.

IMO it was an epic failure and I suspect Lucas intends to make another trilogy just as he did with the god awful starwars prequels.

I give this 2/5 stars.. It was bad, I prefer National Treasure over this.

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It's really a great film, but a lot of stodgy internet dorks are going to whine about this and that and pick it apart.

But they have no soul and they've sold their inner child for leet speak and biscuit fans, don't listen to a word they say.

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“Ask yourself, why do you seek the Grail, Dr. Jones, is it for his glory or your own?”

I think this applies to Indiana Jones viewing. There are so many people waiting to tear into this film, to criticize the ancillary while failing to see what the film provides, what the other three asked from you, what you really wanted to see in the first place.

This is an Indiana Jones movie, and it’s a damn good one.

The problem is that too many people get out their laptops prior to screening, during screening, after screening and their hot little fingers want to engage in a little Indy schadenfraude. That’s alright, the man in the fedora can take it. But they should ask themselves, “Why did I come to see another Indiana Jones movie?”

The movie works amazingly well according to its own terms, according to the terms set out by the first three. You settle in, you have an initial shock of seeing Indy in 1957, seeing him gray, seeing he isn’t 40 anymore, but then you smile. Or, anyway, I did.

If you aren’t smiling it’s got more to do with expectation you laid out prior to the film that the film wasn’t made to live up to. It isn’t a Michael Bay film, it isn’t The Matrix. The CGI looks dated, it’s supposed to, the Crystal Skull looks like plastic filled with tinfoil; it’s supposed to. They agreed to make another Indiana Jones film and they did, with all the same elements, all the same style.

What was wrong about the Star Wars prequels is they violated that simple pact, you went in for Star Wars and you watched something that took all the best elements out, it was limp, cold and lacked the heart of the first three.

This film is all heart. In fact, Indy himself is a little softer, he’s a little wiser, the years have caught up with the mileage and he’s eased into the role of the aging adventurer. He’s still Indy, he’s just Indy at 58.

The emotional bits were satisfying, I got to see the moments I wanted, I got see Indy settle his great unresolved romance, I got to see him as a potential father, one who learned from his own childhood.

It isn’t Raiders of the Lost Ark, nothing will be again for me, I can accept that. This film was another Indiana Jones adventure, much better than Temple of Doom and at least as good as The Last Crusade (though Last Crusade had a better emotional arc overall.” Any quibbles I have with the film are minor, the product of my own overly analytic brain and obsession with the series, the film delivers what an Indy movie should: high stakes, grand adventure, good one-liners and some emotional gristle at the center, all of it wrapped in a pulp copy of Amazing Stories, transported effortlessly from the 1930’s zeitgeist to the 1950’s.

It’s a pure experience, a piece of rarefied happiness and escapism with feeling that Hollywood doesn’t make anymore. That’s what Indy was always supposed to be and, 20 years on, that’s what he still is.

It strikes me that many of the complaints I have thus far read about Indy 4 are redolent with the same off-kilter logic that people directed at Spook Country.

It weas too this, it wasn't that, and so on, but what they both miss is that each delivered what you wanted, each fulfilled its promise to the audience.

That neither of them revolutionized their genre, or their creator's direction is seen as some sort of flaw and for that I think the fault lies in the end user, not the content generator(s).

Haven't seen it yet, nearest theater is more than 50 miles away (where are the smalltown theaters of yesteryear?) but one shouldn't look for anything original in an Indiana Jones movie. "Raiders" was made deliberately retro, an amped-up version of the corny old Saturday matinee serials with their incoherent plotlines, absurd action and cliffhanging chapter endings. They should be enjoyed on that level, not as up to date, thought-provoking SF.

Aye. Indy Jones, like Star Trek, is based on this premise: what if those corny old Republican serials of the 30s/50s DIDN'T suck?

As for asking for an original plot: get real. All Indy movies have the same plot. They use different settings, and different subtexts, but it's all the same:

mysterious artifact of great mysterious power must be kept from/taken away from Evil Hands.

Evil Hans is played by Rutger Hauer, right?

Anyway, I've never played Pandora's Directive, because I never have/will played video games beyond early barroom Atari when PacMan came along and showed me the underlying horror of interactive video play, and never have/will seen National Treasure because it's just another stupid adventure movie based on the Indy motif but sans Indy/Harrison Ford (who is way cooler than Nicolas Cage even if Cage has done Lynch films and Harrison hasn't).

However, dear Cyberpunk, I can't blame you for your obvious lack of wise artistic understanding in this matter. Indy/Star Wars, and their illicit spawn, you see, are the Republic serials of YOUR generation.

Someday, in a decade or so, some new enfant terrible will come along and think: Hey! What if crossover movies/comix/video games like Tomb Raiders DIDN'T SUCK?!?!?

Then suddenly, even luddite old-timers like me may suddenly find themselves swishing a Wi Bi Fri through the air (in my motorized acupuncture-equipped wheelchair) playing/viewing/reading some immersive entertainment that wonderfully combines the spectacular best and corny worst in the most delightful way.

There's hope for you -- and for me -- yet.

I forgive you. Go now and sin no more, lest Shortround haunt your wet dreams with poisoned 'bad dates'.

Your film student elitism is unnecessary. The first 3 films were brilliant. I was a bit strapped for time in my review.

Because I had already seen something similar in a video game that was based on Indiana Jones to a small degree it ruined this film for me, A lot of its fans of the video game have already pointed that fact out.

I will however agree with you that Video games lack that seriousness needed to make us a legitimate creative media.

Now stop treating me like I'm some stupid kid that just insulted your gods. Right.. I saw the film for what it was, and that is Spielberg and Lucas up to their old tricks again without anything fresh or new apart from the whole Xenu thing which sounds like a lame plot device that kills all the badies at the end using a strange lazer beam thing and saves the day some how.. Does the word Deus Ex Machina mean anything? because that's what happened there. I'm not very happy with that ending. The film was alright, some of the actors due to them being recycled in Hollywood all the time lost the effect of the characters for me.. (the kid for instance wasn't convincing enough).

Anyway I've got a lot of personal issues at the moment, and I wanted to see this film to unwind a bit but sadly it failed to do so.. maybe thats why I'm really pissed off.

If you put on a fedora, you will feel better.

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Now stop treating me like I'm some stupid kid that just insulted your gods.

Now you're messing with my hobby.

You know I love you, Mr.C.

Deus ex Machina has always been how Indy movies resolve their plots. Magical divine devices are rescued from evil hands, often by melting or rapid-aging the evil hands themselves.

I had to stop reading because I saw you might spoil the thing for me.

Fedora or, my fave, a nice wool suit, a smart bowtie, and a pair of scholarly wire rims. Always makes me feel spiffy.

Really, Mr.C. Have you no religion?

Gah. Could have been so much better.

A brief vision of life w/out Indy:

Diablos in Machina

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Originally posted by martin:
Gah. Could have been so much better.

Ok, how?

There are several things I think they could have improved but I don't think any would have made it "much better."

I would have written a different ending and tweaked the timing on some of the action-to-downtime bits. But that wouldn't have really made a much superior film.

Overall< I thought it was very good. A minus.

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Ok, how?

Not wearing earplugs and blindfold, for starters.

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Originally posted by UberDog:

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Originally posted by martin:
Gah. Could have been so much better.

Ok, how?

There are several things I think they could have improved but I don't think any would have made it "much better."

I would have written a different ending and tweaked the timing on some of the action-to-downtime bits. But that wouldn't have really made a much superior film.

Overall< I thought it was very good. A minus.

It could have been better by sucking less. Awkward acting, bad lines, utter stupidity (why did whathisface take his motorcycle to Peru?) and the list could go on, but I want to forget most of this movie.

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(why did whathisface take his motorcycle to Peru?)

Like Edmund Hillary didn't say:

Because it isn't there.

This trailer is supposed to be playing in some US cities before Indy, anyone seen it? Looks quite interesting.

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why did whathisface take his motorcycle to Peru?)

Like Che Guevara!