The Dark Knight: I Want to Believe

The Dark Knight may not be the film we deserve. But it is the film that we needed. And just like Gotham City needed to presume one of its citizens' innocence in order to have the strength to go on, we need to presume this movie's near-perfection in order to continue making comic book movies that aren't kicks to the artistic gonads.

It is not the best movie ever made. Depending on your tastes, it may not even be the best comic book movie ever made. And this may not be Heath Ledger's best performance nor even the best interpretation of the Joker (though I would say it is the best portrayal on film). In fact, after having seen this movie twice, I think I can come to the blasphemous conclusion that the second installment in Christopher Nolan's Batseries may be...overrated.

But, you know what? This was the most exhilarating experience I had in a movie theater in recent memory. This film has taken me as it has so many others and turned me into a nearly-mindless drone. I love, love, love The Dark Knight. And the fact that so many others do too gives me hope for the future of blockbuster entertainment.


For the record, Batman Returns was my first foray into anything Caped Crusader, followed shortly by the animated series. Looking back, it was really messed up, but it kept me endlessly entertained and was a fixture in my VCR.

In the second grade, I knew this girl named Whitney who I guess I must have found annoying. She lived in the neighborhood and she wanted to be friends with me, so she brought over Batman Forever. At the time, I was less concerned with the quality of the movie so much as with how to get the cootie-carrier out of my house. Considering I haven't been able to get a girl so desperate to come by my place again, I probably should have been nicer to her in retrospect, but them's the breaks. At any rate, I was still able to figure out that the movie was...off. Worse than Returns by far.

Since the whole geek community is having a cathartic collective bashing of Batman and Robin, I'll sidestep the travesty altogether.

Let's talk about the real Batman movies. Let's talk about Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale.


I think Begins had promise more than anything else. It didn't stray tremendously from your standard popcorn movie. Its villains were kind of simple-minded, even if their atmospheres were satisfyingly creepy and gritty. The fight scenes, while not overly theatrical, were disorienting and messy. It had a heavy-handed motif, a damsel in distress, and a silly macguffin.

But it didn't have puns. And Gotham looked like a real city. And James Gordon wasn't a buffoon. And Rachel Dawes wasn't a gallivanting tramp. These touches along with the fascination of Bruce Wayne's training and the plausible introduction of a masked vigilante, rose Batman Begins head and shoulders above the average.

Also, it had the Tumbler. And don't lie, the real climax of that movie was when Batman was playing chicken with all of those cop cars on the freeway.


It was a relatively simple movie, but it was good and that's hard to ask for these days from studios who apparently know what we like better than we do. So I know I was excited for an inevitable sequel the minute "Batman Begins" appeared on the screen (which was the end credits). As disappointments like Superman Returns and Spiderman 3 came out, Dark Knight seemed like our last hope for a competent superhero movie. Iron Man came along and created a little upstart that would have given The Dark Knight some stiff competition in quality...

...were it not obvious from shot one that this is a very different type of movie entirely.


Whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you...stranger.

The frenetic energy and grand scope of the initial bank heist is the first hint of genius. The tense note of the electric guitar as the window gets shot out and the clowns go down the zipline set the mood for a different type of criminal indeed. The plan is simple, but meticulous. Elaborate in its own way, but far from ridiculously complex. Without hearing that much from the Joker himself, we see his manipulation of the weak come to spectacular fruition and watch him steal the mob's money without a care to the consequences.

"What do you believe in, huh? What do you believe in???"

When we see that bus join the line right as Gotham's schools let out, we appreciate the Clown Prince of Crime's stroke of genius, as well as his twisted sense of humor.

The Dark Knight is a study in crime and the people who stand against it. Gotham's citizens, politicians, and law enforcers have all gained some backbone since the first movie, thanks to the symbol that is the Batman. At the forefront of this stand against injustice is District Attorney Harvey Dent, who had been vying for your vote during the movie's viral marketing campaign.


Decent men in an indencent time.



I loved Harvey Dent in this movie. Aaron Eckhart captures the essence of a reckless man with the world in front of him. Very rarely are Batman's allies at all interesting, but now the Nolan brothers have introduced a man that for whom Batman himself would step aside. He's determined and a bit reckless, but he represents the hope Bruce Wayne was hoping to inspire. Rounding up 500+ mobsters in a public display of justice is one of the characters' shining moments.

I would totally watch a show that was called Harvey Dent, D.A. Or, as Gordon put it, The White Knight. It almost makes me wish the Batman mythos didn't go down the path it does.

But what did Gordon say at the end of the last film? Things were inevitably going to escalate in response to Bruce Wayne's open defiance of the despicable status quo. The Joker is the embodiment of that escalation.


Unstoppable force...immovable object.

One of the best scenes in the film is the interrogation between Batman and the Joker. When I first saw the screenshot, I thought it was kind of silly to stick Batman in an interrogation room, but the oddity is quickly pounded out by Batman's fierce assault and the Joker's unrelenting disdain for the system. "You complete me," he tells Batman, obviously mocking, but also revealing a truth.


Psychopaths like the Joker are partly Bruce's responsibility. As long as everyone was willing to stand by and let organized chaos ruin their lives, true chaos had no reason to rear its ugly head. When Batman demanded order, anarchy answered gleefully and in full force. And, unfortunately for some of the new war's casulaties, the process is irreversible. Even if Batman were to hang up the cowl, he's "changed things...forever."

Heath Ledger's portrayal of a villain who is seeking something other than tangible gain or traditional power is the primary draw to The Dark Knight. The Joker is horrifyingly fascinating and a twisted delight to watch on screen. Ledger produces laughs from the audience with a simple fleeting expression, an inscrutable gait, and a murderous wit. But unlike past screen Jokers, he is not a silly joke. He considers our attempts to control life to be the greatest joke of all and he loves to use death and mayhem to drive the point home.


Watching the world burn.


Joker's attacks on Gotham's psyche are a definitive stroke of wonder in Dark Knight. The tension makes the heart beat and grips your attention relentlessly. This is a major component in the film's greatness, but it's also a potential drawback.

The movie can be exhuasting. Scenes such as the simultaneous assassination attempts of public servants induce nail-biting in between violent jumps and starts. Characters are put in unberable moral dilemmas and millions of people are terrorized. Since the movie doesn't let up, the pace doesn't necessarily drag, but it's so packed with mini-climaxes that The Dark Knight might feel longer than it actually is.


Howard and Zimmer's score is liable to induce a heart attack if you listen to it set against enough explosions and murders. But for the atmosphere, it works excellently and has quickly become some of my favorite thriller music. Their good job at narrating the chaos is a factor in the tolerable snaking of the plot. At the end of the showing, I really wouldn't have minded if the movie reached Lord of the Rings length.


I think you and I are destined to do this forever.





DEATHS AND SPOILERS SECTION - SKIP AHEAD






The quintessential tension scene would probably be the ferry scene. I really enjoyed the concept and the mindgame, but I wasn't sold on the outcome. It was artistic to make the convict toss the detonator. It was unconvincing when the civilian didn't turn the key. Unfortunately, maybe the Joker won in my head, because I do believe any normal group of people would blow up a boat full of convicts to save their own skins.

Perhaps if Nolan had built things up more to show evidence of the town being more magnanimous. Instead, we spend two hours watching them unravel psychologically only to have a magical sweep of conscience. It's this type of crowd compassion that made the Spiderman movies barf-tastic and while it's not handled with such heavy-handed propogandization, the film would have benefitted by acknowledging the unlikely decision and the psychological steps needed to get there.

I was convinced Two-Face was dead when Batman turned him pretty-side up and I was happy with that decision. When he was holding Ramirez at gunpoint, I remember thinking "Wow, they're using a lot of Two-Face in this movie, why not just hold off until the third movie?" Well, this movie was as much about Harvey as it was about Batman (Joker encompasses everything), so it was fitting to follow his story arc to its end. Mainly, I don't want to see Two-Face fall prey to sequel-itis, as Scarecrow did, to a small extent.

They showed the man he was. They showed the demons he had before his disfigurment. They showed his downfall. Stick a fork in him. As far as the movie franchise goes, he's done. To bring him back would be a cheap ploy to milk the character and I'm perfectly satisfied with him bowing out and giving other rogues a chance.

Joker, on the other hand, was written to be Batman's permanent foe and while I think it would be inappropriate to recast in the third movie, I would hold out and see if Nolan makes a fourth or a fifth and call for Joker to return for the final movie of the extended series.

For as much of an improvement as Maggie Gyllenhall was, it's good that they finally got rid of Rachel. She was bland and useless alive. She did a lot more good dead and Joker's fakeout was one of the hardest-hitting moments in the movie.

But the death that affected me the most was Gordon's. I couldn't understand how they could kill him before he became Commissioner, but when Stevens gives Barbara Sr. the bad news, I was convinced they had actually done it to make a point. And I was angry, confused, sad, and distraught. I didn't realize how much Gary Oldman's portrayal of Jim meant to me, but it was apparently a lot...

...which is why I jumped in my seat and applauded when he revealed himself again. And when Dr. Richard Alpert granted him the office of Commissioner, I could have given him a standing ovation. I had invested a lot in Gordon.

And it's moments like those that make The Dark Knight special.






END SPOILERS






So...this film shattered all expectations. If I had my way, I'd see it win Best Picture. I'd see it break Titanic's money record. But, objectively, I have to wonder if our expectations were not skewed down by the slew of crap we've been force-fed over the years. I know that I love this movie. But I don't know if it did its best at exploring its questions, partly because I was too enthralled at the ass-kicking going to really notice. I'm actually sure it could have been even more thought-provoking, that it could have hit stronger emotional chords and the pacing could have been tight and even more heart-racing.

But this isn't a case where the gift Bat should be looked in its mouth. Just because it hinted at better cinema doesn't make it a failure. Far from it, it's making audienes across the world realize that superheroics are real. I can only hope that it inspires others to follow suit. And I can healthily expect for the next Batman film to be something special too. Perhaps, if we let him have his way, Chris Nolan will go even deeper and produce something beyond the platinum he put in front of us this summer.

I'm tempted to say that the Batman film franchise should only be left in his hands indefinitely.

But consider Harvey Dent's words..."You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

It seems to me that Nolan and Bale will want to quit while they're ahead and maybe they'll be right in doing that. But...well, call me foolish, but I'd like to risk it and see them take it as far as possible. Oddly enough, this movie has inspired a sort of optimism in me and hope for the state of our culture.

If Harvey Dent were real, I would believe in him. Right now, I believe in the capacity for great movies about great heroes. I believe in DC Comics. I believe in Christopher Nolan.

I believe in The Dark Knight.

What if Tyler Durden were a giant, green tank?: The Incredible Hulk

The accepted format for discussing a reboot or a sequel is referencing the preceding movie(s). Since Hollywood is indulging both our strongest cravings and our biggest gripes by providing more of the same, the biggest blockbusters are always being held up to a tough standard of comparison. Indiana Jones 4: Inferior. Spiderman 3: Inferior. Superman Returns: Inferior. Batman Begins...BRING ON THE DARK KNIGHT.

It's the golden Nolan standard which Universal is trying to achieve with The Incredible Hulk. And unlike Indiana or Spiderman, Edward Norton's project shares Batman's arguably enviable position of having a disappointment (critically; but worse, commercially) precede it. Unlike Batman, Hulk doesn't have the burden of reviving interest in its comic-family franchise on his huge shoulders. That task was carried out mercilessly by Iron Man.

Appropriately, given the current comic movie zeitgeist, The Incredible Hulk will be unstoppable.



Rewind 5 years.

I hadn't given Ang Lee's take on the temperamental green giant a second glance since my 15 year old self was soundly disappointed in theaters. As the opening credits rolled for Incredible, I began wondering whether my enjoyment would have been enhanced or ruined if I had revisited that alleged catastrophe. So, one of the first things I did when getting back from the movie was immerse myself in YouTube videos and reviews of the first movie.

My first thought was that critics and viewers liked it a lot more than I would have expected. They praised the psychological subtexts, comic homages, and performances. It enjoys a technically "fresh" rating on Rottentomatoes at 61%, only 5% less than this summer's movie. And it had Jennifer Connelly. How did this movie go wrong? Did it actually go wrong at all or was it just Universal bitching that it didn't make Spiderman-like profits?

It's more surprising when you realize that one of the major differences between the two movies is a lack of rich character/relationship exploration in Norton's flick. Typically, I criticize a lot of comic book movies for being too shallow. I refer you to Fantastic Four and its successor, Rise of the Silver Shitter. Yet, somehow, Incredible managed to sidestep Freud and all those "Sins of the Father" concepts and provide a more satisfying experience.



I think it's about pretense. The Incredible Hulk doesn't have any, but it doesn't stoop to the lowest common denominator either. By contrast, Ang Lee attempted to make a movie that was both a family analysis and a comic book action-fest. I'm not saying it's an impossible or unworthy goal, but it is a volatile risk and Marvel shouldn't have let Lee take those chances with a franchise as valuable as the Hulk.

Basically, Lee's movie was still a dumb, high-octane popcorn flick throughout and the exploration of daddy issues were never handled seriously or thoroughly enough to make a significant impact. Worse, the action scenes in Hulk 2003 actually hammered the nails into the gamma-laced coffin. No amount of interesting Nick Nolte-Eric Bana interaction is going to make up for Hulk Dogs and My Father, The Cloud as the main super-baddies. I mean, let's not kid ourselves. This was not meant to be Brokeback (which was also BORING) or Sense and Sensi-sissiness, it was primarily a way to make mounds of money and play with computer effects and it failed at at least one of those aspects.

Ironically, new Hulk director Louis Leterrier's most famous body of work is The Transporter movies and somehow he delivers a movie that is more upfront about its intentions, but subtly meaningful.

Ang Lee comparisons hopefully stop...now.

Eric Bana is a good actor and all, but...Shit. Re-do.

Edward Norton is crucial to this movie. He's the right amount of geek to portray a gifted scientist, but we all know from his prior performances that he is also a badass, so it's not a surprise when we see him outrunning military special operatives on foot in a way that would make Matt Damon and Daniel Craig eat their hearts out.



The movie throws fans of the last movie a bone by starting the narrative with Bruce Banner lying low in South America. It also focuses mercifully little on the simplistic and well-known origin story. Rather, the film's theme is Banner's unique relationship with his superpowers: They Suck. The man blacks out more than my uncle at a month-long moonshine convention, only remembering bursts of bullets and fire in his face the next morning. His Hulk Hangover reduces his clothes and stretchy pants to tattered shreds that induces the sympathy of even the scrawniest Mexican beggar boy. And what good is dating Liv Tyler if you can't have her roleplay as Arwen for too long before you kill the 7-Eleven clerk in search of kilo-magnum rubbers?



Peter Parker's whining about his powers being a burden and a curse fade into yesterday's Myspace bulletin when we see Dr. Banner's plight. Spiderman ultimately adapts to his superhero duties. Tony Stark relishes the opportunity to missile terrorists. No one has it as bad as Bruce; his life is actually ruined by his rage, not enhanced, and that's a truth simple enough to resonate in several moviegoers. This movie is about Bruce's quest to get rid of his major selling point -- the unstoppable CGI behemoth.



Speaking of the Hulk himself, I really enjoyed the design of the monster. You'll still find people complaining about CGI usage coming off as cheap and distracting, but I think it's some of the best use of digital effect technology to date. Hulk's shade of green is more organic and the attention paid to detail is amazing. His muscles, bones, and sinews are clearly defined. His roar vibrates in your chest. Best of all, his face is capable of many convincing expressions besides bloodlust. One of the best liked scenes will be the moment Hulk and Betty Ross are in the cave during the thunderstorm. It's perhaps the best example of that subtlety this movie achieves.

I wish I could say Liv Tyler's acting was as satisfying. She's not an offensive choice as Dr. Ross, but the script gives her some sickeningly domestic lines to work with which she somehow turns even more pathetic. Factor in her frou-frou bangs and the distracting presence of Steven Tyler's lips aching to eat Edward Norton, and I really started to miss Jennifer Connelly. Then again, I always miss Jennifer Connelly.













OR






Bruce/Betty in general fell kind of flat, but The Incredible Hulk isn't a love story to a much greater extent than any other major franchise release, so it doesn't sink the production. It's something they'll have to work on if they explore the dynamics of a Hulk-Betty relationship in future movies. They did establish that Betty Ross is the Hulk's emotional anchor, so it's not like she's irrelevant, but I'm willing to concede some awkward initial flirtations. As a matter of fact, there are a couple of moments which are actually poignant and convincing, such as Betty kissing Bruce's cheek rather than going straight for the soap-opera tongue-lashing technique and the aforementioned cave sequence.










As for the other actors, we get fitting performances from William Hurt as General Thunderbolt (no, they don't call him that) and Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky (a.k.a Abomination a.k.a. that Other Huge Green Thing you saw about to pound Hulk's face to slushee in the trailer). For most of the flick, the General and Blonsky seem like very unique villains exploring a gray area of morality rather than the standard megalomanic comic book enemy fare. Then Blonsky blows it in the third act, but that can be forgiven, because it sets up a very entertaining and vicariously bone-crushing final fight. At first, I heard this was going to be about 30 minutes long and was frightened. Now I wish they had delivered on that threat, or at least made the fight a tad longer and more brutal. Still, it was nice to finish Hulk and realize it had taken less time than, say, a thorough colonoscopy.

The last little gripe I would have is the musical score, but it's not like you can really hear it over Hulk screaming bloody murder anyway.

Basically, The Incredible Hulk is not as good as Iron Man, nor should we expect it to be, given that Marvel hasn't released Thor and thus, still can't harness lightning to strike the same spot twice consecutively. But this film is in the same vein of quality and that is a very good thing for the upcoming universe films. Norton and Leterrier were wise to approach this reboot with a very basic premise rather than overstuffing it with villains and subplots (*coughSamRaimicough*), because it lays a very firm foundation for a potentially titanic series.

Hulk Smash. Hulk Smash indeed.



SPOILERS. Oh, and I expected a much cooler Tony Stark cameo, not a rehash of Sam Jackson. I guess putting the scene before the credits is supposed to drive home the fact that they're REALLY making this Avengers crossover and it's REALLY going to be canonical for these movies, but I found it kind of tacky. Still....I will be lining up to see it. END SPOILERS

Indy 4 is worst of the franchise...but is that such a terrible thing?

I should preface this by saying that Temple of Doom is my favorite Indiana Jones movie, putting me in a category spat upon by most Indy die-hards.

What can I say? I like Short Round.


I guess I understand that the significant departure from the scope, characterization and pacing of Raiders badly jarred those whose first impression of Indy was the epic swashbuckler who traversed desert sands, canyons, and hostile marketplaces in search of the emblematic Ark. In my case, Temple was my introduction to Dr. Jones and I reveled in the highly animated, ridiculous stunts and dialogue. Today, every single minute practically injects nostalgic and elated neurotransmitters in my medulla oblongata, which Wikipedia tells me isn't supposed to deal with emotions in the first place. That's not to say I don't enjoy Raiders or Last Crusade, but they simply don't pack the same childhood fulfillment.

Since it was a prequel, Indiana's search for the Shankara Stones was appropriately narrower in archaeological significance and his intentions were (initially, before the missing-children-factor) less altruistic than ever. In my opinion, it takes talent to explore a character's growth in a logical and satisfying manner. But it may take even more talent to go back and lay down a character's roots in a way that's both fresh and consistent with the established legend.

But this article isn't about Indy's roots. It's about his seeds and whether they're packed in any fruit worth biting into (wow, how's that for a ridiculously-constructed metaphor?)

I have a friend (at least, I hope he's still a friend) who absolutely hated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I didn't even have to ask him or hear him speak of his contempt directly to witness the magnitude of hatred aroused by this film. After seeing it, his Facebook profile, much to my delighted amusement, became a shrine of Hate for George Lucas. His profile picture became a picture of George with a big "NO" sign over his face. It was great.




Though I figured it might have been overboard, I still trusted his judgment enough to assume that Indy 4 was going to be something of a trainwreck. I walked in with low expectations the day after getting back from Europe (thus missing the release date). Of interest, I went to see it with my whole family, including my dad who NEVER goes to movies. My parents were the one who initially recorded Temple of Doom on VHS for me to watch over and over again. The fact that this installment roused my father out of his Hollywood boycott speaks to the power of the franchise, but I digress.

Did George Lucas ruin Indiana Jones?

My argument: No, but it would take a schmuck far schmuckier than George Lucas to achieve that. It is clear that at least one person (probably George) did his damn best to dress it up inappropriately. It doesn't help that screenplay author David Koepp is a painfully obvious example of how modern screenwriters can't transition worth shit. And for everyone who assumed Spielberg would keep this movie from raising eyebrows (or bile), it just doesn't seem like his heart was in it for this one. But even in all of its clumsiness, Crystal Skull manages to be far more entertaining than the drivel studios pump out this century and, in my opinion, makes a compelling case for more franchise entries in the distant future.

So, some discussion on the elements of the film:

The Opening Credits.
Personally, I think the title sequence is brilliant (minus the gopher). It firmly establishes the piece in a new decade while channeling some of the kinetic energy that make prior Spielberg films so great. The titles themselves are discreet, direct, and a throwback to both the original movie and the golden age of action cinema. It may seem like a petty compliment, but you can often deduce a lot about a movie by its titles.

The Villains.
Okay, the Indiana Jones series has never been particularly excellent at creating realistic henchmen that don't manage to insult some ethnicity in their exaggerated antics, but Crystal Skull seems distinctly offensive in the twenty-first century post-Saving Private Ryan cinema world. In that film, we learned that enemy soldiers can be human too, but that doesn't have to stop the hero from busting a cap in his gray matter or us from enjoying it. Indy 4 subscribes to the theory that the best way to make an audience relish gray-haired Indy's ass-whoopings is to make his targets mindless commie drones who bark at each other in menacing Russian.

As for Cate Blanchett, I can admit that my dread at watching her put on a Boris-and-Natasha act was partially unwarranted. Her severe haircut and clockwork-assassin-from-Hellboy mannerisms are more distracting than Mola Ram's bone-and-feather hat thing. This is unfortunate, because Blanchett sometimes shows some genuine creepiness behind her thick and cartoony accent and I get the sense that she let the campiness get in the way of creating the first compelling female villain in the series.

SPOILERS. Her demise is particularly disappointing, mostly because the whole "unable to resist greedy desire to probe the universe's secrets" thing has been done at least twice before in the Indy movies. Also, I expected the American spooks questioning Indiana to play a bigger role as obstacles in his quest. It seems their sole purpose was to introduce the completely irrelevant plot device of firing Dr. Jones from the university. I guess this is Spielberg and Lucas' attempt at creating a George Clooney-esque commentary on McCarthyism, but all it does is take you out of the adventure in an annoying fashion. END SPOILERS.

Oh, well. At least it wasn't Nazis again.

The Sidekicks.
I like Mutt. So sue me. This probably has something to do with the fact that I like Shia LeBeouf and believe his presence helped Transformers. On the internet, Mutt's name is often mud. Yes, we can all see the gears working in their heads, considering replacing Harrison with Shia for the next batch of movies. To some this is understandably anathema. Me? I would rather see more Indiana Jones movies than Jar Jar Binks biopics and since George Lucas seems intent to do at least one of those, I fully support Shia's potential contribution, especially after watching him create another cool character in this movie.


It'll be interesting to see if the studio will let LeBeouf age a decade or so before revisiting the character. You know, pace the series, a concept entirely foreign to today's Hollywood.

SPOILERS. And boo-hoo, Indiana has a son, oh no. I know there are people who believe Indiana Jones should be permanently unattached, free to dig ancient graves without worrying about a tarnish on his legacy, but I find the implications of his late foray into fatherhood interesting, particularly when you think about his relationship with his own dad. I agree that the "surprise, he's your son" plot device is kind of tired, but Karen Allen delivers fairly well on that revelation. And speaking of Marion, I'm glad to see the character back, but Allen is really hit-or-miss on the delivery of certain expressions and one-liners. It's as if she can't decide where Marion lies on the spectrum between "badass shot-taking she-warrior" and "jilted and complacent widow." Come to think of it, Spielberg doesn't seem to know what to do with her either. Her "big reveal" in the commie camp is totally anticlimactic, without so much as a kazoo to emphasize her arrival. Seems like John Williams fell asleep at this part of his screening. Also, what's up with her completely disappearing for a portion of the jungle chase? I seriously thought she might have bitten the dust at one point. Finally, the wedding was lame. Sure, I get that Indy's ball-and-chained, but if I wanted to see a relationship resolved by increasingly irrelevant symbolic ceremonies, I would have seen something like Made of Honor. Does James Bond ever get married? No. And if he did, you'd be damn sure the bitch would either turn or him or suffer a terrible death that would prompt James to rocket-launcher someone's ass Goldeneye 64 style. I'm off-topic. END SPOILERS.

That still leaves Mac and Oxley to deal with. Mac was another character who had the potential to leave questions and impressions in the audience's mind, but who simply turned out to be a caricature. I find Oxley far more compelling and entertaining and it's a shame he only starts speaking full sentences late in the movie. One thing though, his role in the sand pit scene is laughable and not in a "oh, that silly Oxley" kind of way, but in a "wow, Koepp, couldn't figure out any other way to get the heroes recaptured, huh?" kind of way.

The Effects.
To keep it brief, I believe at some point I was promised traditional stunt work and special effects...I was lied to. Even the freakin' animals were CGI. What happened to the trained monkey from Raiders? It's hard to believe a monkey that awesome didn't have about 50 Acting Monkey Jrs. Or what about the YouTube gopher/praire dog thing? Did he demand too much money when you offered him the role?

No! No, it's just that ever since ILM came to mean "really fake-looking shit," the quality of special effects has taken a turn for the worse.

To be fair, this nitpick only applies to a couple of scenes, mostly. The actual fighting and set design do harken back to a time when stunt crews and set designers were valuable. As far as fight choregraphy goes, the most entertaining sequence of the film involves a series of vehicle entanglements in the jungle (as well as one of Shia's most infamous scenes) followed by "big damn ants."

Unfortunately, there's still an entire dungeon for the heroes to pillage and explore after this and it isn't quite as impressive. And to make up for the effort of traditionality in the first 2 hours, the movie decides to hit you hard with Pixar-inspired glory at the end.

The Relic.
I really liked most of what they did with the legend of El Dorado and the crystal skull. I appreciated the South American setting, the incorporation of the conquistadors, the "living dead," all of that. The mystery behind the skull itself is both interesting and silly...

SPOILERS. Perhaps what fanboys curse the most is the "sci-fi" element. To one extent, I agree. Indy has no business witnessing flying saucers and alien corpses, not without at least two movies of convincing transition from Earthly treasures to extraterrestrial ones. Lucasfilm already has its space franchise. Indiana is partly defined by an element of realism (juxtaposed with the supernatural relics he retrieves).

Even so, it is common legend that spacemen DID influence the ancient tribes of pre-Columbian Mezoamerica. So, I'm not troubled by the idea of the Saucer People being the natives' gods. I do have an issue with the Saucer People making a forced appearance looking like a cross between Close Encounters and the pygmy things from Galaxy Quest. The movie could have been much less heavy-handed, alluded more and revealed less, and had a more subtle payoff. I mean, I had a little bit of trouble accepting the immortal knight in Last Crusade. This ending felt like a different movie series entirely. END SPOILER.

Also, the skull is pretty.

The Man.
Like I said, it takes an act of Crystal Skull Gods to mess up an Indiana Jones movie. That's because Indiana Jones is one of the most iconic and exhilarating heroes of our time. He's up there with Hercules and that guy who won American Gladiators. He's witty, charming, intelligent, resourceful, and packs a powerful punch. He also has an impeccable sense of style.

If this continuation had been attempted at this time with an actor other than Harrison Ford, it truly would have been a travesty. It was also a good call to age the character at the same rate as the actor. Physically speaking, Ford packs the same wallop. There is, however, a certain gravity around the character now. Yeah, I miss Indiana's cocky chuckles and smiles, but I'll admit, his more somber demeanor is appropriate. And it doesn't stop him from being sure of himself and awe-inspiring in those around him.

Indiana simply is The Man. I don't expect Mutt Williams to fill his shoes. But he could potentially make a damn good effort at an homage.

I've made a lot of complaints about the movie. More than I planned to make, actually. But there's a school of thought that believes that human beings are most critical about that which has the potential to bring them the most joy. I noticed all of these things during the film, because that's what I inevitably do with movies. But, also, throughout the whole thing, I was genuinely entertained, pleasantly surprised, and occasionally reminded of those moments as a child when I had nothing better to do than pop in an old VHS tape and watch Indy get in and out of ridiculous situations.

Bring on Mutt Williams.


SPOILERS. Or Mutt Jones, I suppose. END SPOILERS.