Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[EvilBoris]

Saw it last night ,I'm not a massive Indy fan but I thought it worked well.

[angelx]

I thought the rather touching references to Denholm Elliot and Sean Connery's characters was well done - other than that, the movie didn't have the same appeal the last 3 did. It was just too corny, too over exaggurated or too dull. Big names completely wasted, a lack of proper action sequences, ALIENS! (religious artifacts are one thing, but where is the hardcore evidence that aliens ever existed?).

Ray bleedin' Winstone? Where the **** was John Rhys Davis?

I don't see the fascination with Ray Winstone, terrible cockney actor who ruined the Henry XIII Tv show, and after that terrible Beowolf trailer were he says "I am here to kill your mostaaaah!" just awful. He's like vinnie Jones, cool I guess to the masses but cant act for toffee ( I will give him Nil by Mouth though...)

[Mercian]

Saw this last night and found it to be quite enjoyable. I decided beforehand to go in expecting the worst as I'm a massive Indy fan, and for me the first trilogy is untouchable.
Fei Fong Wong has summed up what could be considered most of the weaker elements of the film, so I'll concentrate on what I enjoyed about it:

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The jocks/greasers fight and motobike chase through the college, Indy and Mutt at the tomb (with blowpipe death FTW), swashbuckling through the jungle, Ray Winstone's character, signature fight with the big russian holding a chain, suprisingly...Shia Lebeouf

[prinnysquad]

To be honest, the stuff I've seen him in, he isn't that bad. There's plenty of more objectionable young actors around.

[Big Seany]

I liked Shia, thought he played a great part and was very likeable. Karen Allen was crap. The story was waaaay too far fetched. I hated the CG gophers, saw them and thought "uh oh". But overall as I say it was aiiiight.

[Daragon]

Did anyone else pick up on how utterly inconsistent Cate's russian accent was? In the scene her character was introduced in, she kept dipping back into english I would have actually sworn the character was some sort of double agent or something, had I not known what the character's name was.

Her dialect coach might have been a good investment, but she really needs to work on that accent.

[Big Seany]

I actually found the Blanchett character quite attractive at times.

[Daragon]

I thought she was rather hot in her completely OTT outfit, wig and rapier, but that's beside the point.

She just couldn't retain her accent for toffee.

[Dogg Thang]

I can't help wondering if she was constantly being asked to tone the accent down. She can do accents, the Russian accent is fairly easy and would have got away with being quite cartoony in a film like this and she was being paid a hell of a lot more than toffe so I can't imagine it should have been much of a problem for her. And yet, as you say, it drifted all over the place. Might have been the direction more than the actress.

[Brats]

I thought the last scene with her in was rubbish. Not a patch on exploding heads or melting faces.

[Brats]

And CG insects are crap compared to the real thing;

[Dogg Thang]

Totally agree on both counts.

I got the big Making Of book today. It covers all four films and was written by the guy who did the recent Making Of Star Wars book, which I thought was utterly fantastic and, for a film that has been talked about so often and for so long, was very revealing. The Indy book covers four films to its one so won't cover the details I guess but should hopefully still be a good read.

[dataDave]

Shia Lebeouf would have made a great Anakin Skywalker if he was even into acting ten years ago, IMO - the films would have still been wank mind.

[Dogg Thang]

Just flicking through the book, there are a few interesting things that jumped out. One was a series of drawings of Toht, the German who got the symbols burned into his hand in Raiders. The drawings show a cyborg arm that turns into a machine gun. It seems this came from Spielberg but Lucas thought it was too far-fetched so it went. Seems to suggest that the more outlandish things don't always come from Lucas.

Then getting to Crystal Skull, there's a whole big paragraph on just how strongly Spielberg felt about making everything real, shooting on-location, doing practical stunts and not using CG. Haven't read more of that yet but I was left wondering what the hell happened to that.

The last thing that stood out on a flick through was an excellent concept painting that depicted the very end of Crystal Skull, specifically

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Spalko getting blasted by the alien ray thingy before vanishing off. Unlike the movie, which just had glowing lights, this piece has the face peeling away. Sure, it's a rip of Raiders but it looks fantastic and would have had some balls at least.

Seems like a good book. Looking forward to going through it in detail.

[cavalcade]

A dreadful film. For all the reasons stated by everyone else who hated it.

Soulless. Poorly scripted. Badly acted. Dreadful. CG that wouldn't look out of place on Babylon 5.

After this and Phantom Menace, I'm writing to my local MP. Midichlorians were my lowest point. This is higher than that, but still depressingly bad.