Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

I purposefully lowered my expectations before going into this. I actually spent some time during the day mentally preparing for it to suck, like I tried to think of the ways they could screw it up: too much reliance on CGI, George Lucas being allowed to write dialogue, etc... So into the theater my Dad and I went, fingers crossed, me expecting the worst, and lo and behold, my plan worked. I think I saw a pretty terrible movie that was lifted up by the grading curve in my mind.

The Movie Blog has a thread on the review of this movie about 200 posts long, and I'd say 85% of them are rightfully critical. I read something on there that summed up this whole Indiana Jones thing, which was basically like, "Don't compare anything to Raiders, because there's nothing like it. Raiders was a freak of a movie." I can get with that.

So instead of writing paragraphs on the bad things about "Crystal Skull" (i.e. CGI monkeys, Karen Allen's apparent vicodin haze, the entire 2nd half...), here are the things I liked:

* The first 30 minutes. The opening credits. The magnetic box that's pulling all the metal in the room as they lift it up. I have to admit that had my heart going. The action sequence that followed was tight, choreographed perfectly, and if they had only taken out one shot of those stupid prairie dogs, would have held it's own against any of the other film's openings. Also the entire A-bomb test scene was brilliant, the way he realizes what he's stepped into.

* The motorcycle chase that follows the diner scene. It reminded me of the lighter, more playful chase scenes in Last Crusade. And the way they crash into the school library, and as they speed off, Jones yells out, "if you want to be an archeologist, get out of the library!" Spielberg was on point there.

* Shia LaBeaouf. Never saw him in anything else. Thought I would hate him simply because I thought they wanted another Short Round. Turned out he was really good in this. Some of the things that come out of his mouth are pretty dumb, but he elevates it with perfect smart-aleck greaser attitude.

* Harrison Ford. Again, some of the dialogue was off (Indiana seemed too snippy too often, "Oh Marion, you had to go and get yourself kidnapped") but he's still the man for the job. Great to see him running, climbing, doing his own stunt work at 65.