December 21, 2008.

Weakest...??.

Rating: 4
I don't know about that! To me, "Raiders" will always be the lame one of the bunch! "Raiders" suffers from the same flaws that "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "Batman" did: all dazzle and no substance. This one has the same non-stop action, character development, humor and incredible situations and juxtapositions that made "Temple of Doom" and "Last Crusade" so entertaining.

You know the story by now: Indy's closest buds are now dead, (his dad, Marcus,) and Sullah is nowhere to be found. However, another character, Charles Standforth, played by Jim Broadbent, has taken the place of Marcus and has very little to do with this episode outside of being the bearer of bad news in the beginning of the film. Well, after having a run-in with the U.S. Govt. over the elaborate goings-on that open the film, (Indy being coerced into helping Russian operatives track down a mysterious artifact stored in Area 51 in New Mexico,) he's fired from his university job and then gets sucked back into further dealings with der Russkies after a mysterious young man yanks him off a train he was taking home. (*Spoiler Alert!*) What follows are chase scenes from hell involving Indy, a Russian cutlery freak straight out of central casting played by Cate Blanchett, an old colleague whose integrity he overestimated, his old flame, Marion Ravenwood, and surprise, surprise...LITTLE INDY!!

After the SPECTACULAR image of the a-bomb going off in the New Mexican desert in the beginning, (and it's a major distention of suspension of disbelief to accept Indy surviving all that radiation,) it was obvious that the visuals in this film were going to be a major focus, as well as action, and the movie doesn't disappoint on either level. It's a non-stop art-director's extravaganza from beginning to end, and MUCH more substantial, I think, than "Raiders", still, to my mind, the weak link in the Indy oeuvre. Make up your own mind on that count....

December 21, 2008.

Oh yuck.

Rating: 1
A good friend of mine bought himself a Blue Ray player and a big old TV and then, as you do bought a couple of movies to watch and invited some friends over. I was the only person that went along for the show and about 20 minutes into this film I began to squirm.

Sequels get a bad rap, but this was unnecessarily bad. If you want to watch an Indiana Jones movie got and buy a copy of Raiders of the Lost Arc and sit back and enjoy it, this is not even close to being in the same class. What you get instead is Harrison Ford trying his best to work with a bad script, a horrible plot in a movie that lacks suspense, joy, excitement or clarity. Blanchett's horrible Russian accent immediately confirmed that nobody who made this movie gave a damn about its outcome - it was just a pay day.

That will teach him to buy movies without reading reviews first. Hopefully you are smarter than he was!

December 21, 2008.

disappointed.

Rating: 2
It's too bad that the movie was pushed as a classic Indiana Jones film. It's not. It plays off the others, but the story is lousy. The Fate of Atlantis would have been a much better story. The effects are too computerized. They look too smooth. It looks more like toy story than good artistic filming & effects.

December 20, 2008.

absolutely horrible.

Rating: 1
Possibly one of the worst movies ever made, dare I put it right up there with WATERWORLD? I tried, I really tried but no matter what, I hated everything about this film. Everyone involved with this film, should be ashamed of themselves! It is time for Harrison Ford/Spielberg/Lucas and Co. to just stop and smell the Bengay. They are too old and this franchise ran it's course, as had STAR WARS. Move on or retire, please for the sake of all of us. And Shia Lebouf? Please, please, let Transformers 2 be good, 'cause this was not his most shining hour but he's young, he can move on, as long as he stays out of trouble. And Karen Allen? Not hard to see why she hasn't been working anymore. Too bad really but it's over. Couldn't wait to get this movie out of my house. Got it at the library, so wasted no money. I'm done and exhausted from disappointment.

December 20, 2008.

Indy Noooooooooo!.

Rating: 1
Its all about the money. The substance is lost, the trilogy should have stoped at the trilogy. Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad. Only wish I could have given it 0 stars