Panadola Diction

A lot of miserable bastards have been complaining about Indiana Jones - joyless deadweight scribblers from the freesheets and various shit-sprongers who had made their minds up before the film was even released.

No lead-in tales of the cinema today - straight to the verdict. I thought this film was great. Yes, it is silly, geographically inaccurate, unrealistic and cheesy……….. but hang on, so were the original three! The visuals have been updated to accommodate a cold war era palette, giving the film the look of a spruced up 50’s classic, and this is complemented by a John Williams score punctuated by Elvis and Bill Haley.  

The film hits the ground running with a great opening sequence, where Indy has a run-in with the delightfully bad Irina Spalko’s (Cate Blanchett) Commies in Area-51, before pausing for breath with the customary university scene. We are then introduced to young biker Mutt Williams (Shia LaBoeuf) before setting off on a chase sequence that more-or-less lasts until the end of the movie.

The action is great. There are some CGI scenes, but there is still enough fist-fighting and gap-jumping to make it classic Indiana. Ford makes the transition to aging Dr. Jones effortlessly, and this is probably his most watchable performance of the last fifteen years. He is, and probably always will be, the (thinking man’s) action-hero against whom all other (thinking man’s) action heroes will be measured.

Of course it’s not perfect. (My least favourite scene involved Mutt and some Tarzanesque action, but I didn’t spit out my popcorn and march out of the cinema.) It could have been better. It doesn’t have Sean Connery in it, it doesn’t have a paper-mache boulder rolling down a ramp, it doesn’t have a Hitler cameo. But it has other things (John Hurt, huge ants, quicksand). It’s not Saving Private Ryan, or Schindler’s List, or ET. But it’s not supposed to be. It’s just another Indiana Jones film.

I’ve read paperfulls of nit-picking reviews about IJatKotCS, giving it two and three stars out of five, but to me this film is blatantly entertaining, slickly put together and does exactly what you might expect from a sequel set 20 years after the originals. If you love the original three, I don’t see how you couldn’t enjoy this.

2 thumbs up out of 2.

well said. and you even took care not to mention the ********. i tried to write a review but it kept boiling down to a one line spoiler.

You mean ‘hat’? No, hang on…..

I had to cover my eyes and scroll past this yesterday! Finally saw the film last night and loved it, ********* and all. Have to wonder if there’ll be another one though…