The Indiana Jones Franchise (Steven Spielberg/James Mangold, 1981-2023)

[David Ehrenstein]

Indy without Lucas is Pericles without the Prince.

[GringoTex]

When the impudent, postmodern imperialism of Raiders was followed by the comic essay on the morality of speed in 1984’s Temple of Doom, both needed some crucial political correction—eventually provided by The Last Crusade’s overview of Western political and religious heritage.

The greatest line White has ever written. He's the Terry McCauliffe of film reviewing.

[HerrSchreck]

When the impudent, postmodern imperialism of Raiders was followed by the comic essay on the morality of speed in 1984’s Temple of Doom, both needed some crucial political correction—eventually provided by The Last Crusade’s overview of Western political and religious heritage.

I think there may be something to Ehrenstein's Kingdom of Crystal Meth pun... and I think Armond's smoking it.

Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, go go GO!

[chaddoli]

This was really terrible. It was not fun. It was boring, nonsensical, and pointless. I really don't see anything to admire about this film. Half my friends fell asleep. There's just no sense of urgency or real danger, nothing on screen really matters. Lucas, Spielberg, and Koepp failed to make us care about the characters or plot.

EDIT: The best part of the evening by far was the Curious Case of Benjamin Button trailer.

[PfR73]

EDIT: The best part of the evening by far was the Curious Case of Benjamin Button trailer.

100% agreement.

[Mr Sausage]

I'm not really an Indiana Jones fan so much as a Raiders of the Lost Ark fan, so I had a decent enough, if a somewhat indifferent, time with KOCS. I did not like it any more or less than I did the sequels, all of which have their admirable points and their damning ones. The McGuffin was a stupid mash of pseudo-science ripped right out of Stargate and was a poor substitute for the gravity of the Hebraic/Christian mythology of Raiders and Crusade, and the old horror/Gunga Din style mythology of Temple. Doesn't ruin the movie tho' because it doesn't even matter. If you replaced the crystal skull and the final 'revelation' with something else, the movie would remain exactly the same. Plus the 'visitors' revelation has a sort of pulp fifties vibe that works in context, but would have worked better if the rest of the movie weren't so concerned with a nostalgia driving in the opposite direction. Shia Leboef(sp?) was serviceable, but they missed a real chance with Ray Winstone, who would have made a fine, charming sidekick. Instead he gets stuck with a bunch of character fragments he only barely holds together through sheer personality. And the action scenes, tho' kind of fun, lacked intensity--but that goes for Last Crusade too. Also, I don't know what it was, but during many of the action scenes the images lacked clarity, like I suddenly developed a minor case of myopia. I don't know whether I should blame the effects work, Kaminski, or both, but every other Indy movie was razor sharp. The ending had a nice joke: Indy's fedora is his crown, and no one else will try it on, no mantle will be passed. Thank heavens.

Hmm, with all of these negative criticisms I'm surprised I didn't hate it. But I didn't; it was kind of fun, easily watched, easily forgotten. Indy still has some charm. Raiders I will go on watching; KOCS will likely join its other younger siblings in going unwatched for near a decade.

[Barmy]

The tone of these reviews is similar to some of the "positive" reviews in the mainstream enemedia. "It wasn't intolerable"; "It occupied 2 hours of my life"; "I thought about slitting my wrists at the 90-minute mark, but my girlfriend broke my knife slitting hers, so I didn't"; etc.

[Mr Sausage]

The tone of these reviews is similar to some of the "positive" reviews in the mainstream enemedia. "It wasn't intolerable"; "It occupied 2 hours of my life"; "I thought about slitting my wrists at the 90-minute mark, but my girlfriend broke my knife slitting hers, so I didn't"; etc.

Congratulations, you've picked up a consistent reaction to a film. But, as usual, you haven't found a single useful thing to do with it.

[Barmy]

Thanks!

[avner]

This piece of crap was by far the worst movie Spielberg ever directed. Anemic direction, without any sense of purpose, the action is completely unimaginative - absent is any trace of Spielberg's direction style. It seems like he fell asleep during the making of this thing. The actors all feel tired and lost running around the sets, though Ford has a couple of nice moments. Kaminski cinematography is his worst too, goin' all uncontrolled white lights on the sets and actors, ruining any atmosphere, mood or sense of mystery the movie might build up. The shots are throughly uninspired, there's no life to anything, the characters are a bunch of dolls running around with nothing to do but to swim around in the lazyness of a nostalgia driven narrative, repeating gags and expressions and memories from the remarkable original trilogy. There's no identity to this by the numbers action movie, there was a lot of potential (reflexion on the hero's place in XXI cinema; the age of the character, his relationship with marion etc etc), but Spielberg didn't even try to develop anything. Even in his worst movies I've always sensed a passion for the project, for visual storytelling, his heart always present. There's absolutely no Spielberg to this pile of shit. What a disappointing way to follow up his masterpiece Munich.

#-o

[colinr0380]

And even worse than that, to add insult to injury, the back story given about Indy's time in the war and afterwards yells out "why did you not make that *&(@$#() movie in the 90's instead of wasting all our time waiting for this one?" Indy sent on a archeological mission behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany with the aid of the Soviets - who turn on him, and America in the process - would've been a great idea plus added some back story to the whole Indy/Soviets thing. They spent so much time trying to fill in the backstory it almost became bothersome - why weren't some of those stories filmed for crying out loud - you waited for this instead?

I think I remember Spielberg saying at the time of Schindler's List that he had changed his mind about making Nazis figures of fun in the Indiana Jones films, which I guess explains the time delay, along with the aging actors. I suppose making light of the Soviets doesn't matter as much! :-k

From reading all these reviews of the film it sounds like it has at least avoided the trap (even if only slightly!) of being worse than Temple of Doom so I suppose it will be worth a watch (and even judging by that low criteria it should give Ford another career boost after a thirteen year dry spell - I didn't mind Clear and Present Danger but that is the last Ford film I could say I like).

I'm still left with the feeling that Denholm Elliott was the secret weapon of the first and third films, making the most out of very little - though don't let Lucas find that out otherwise we'll have Jim Broadbent digitally replaced with a CGI-Elliott in the Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull DVD!

[Via_Chicago]

I've actually always thought of Spielberg's depiction of the Nazis (and their fate) in Raiders as his most emotionally honest - certainly moreso than Schindler's List (as much as there is to admire in that film). Jonathan Rosenbaum once complained about the absence of Jewish characters in that Jones film, but that misses a significant point. That is, there is a Jewish character in the film, Yahweh, and it is this one Jewish "character" that is responsible for the destruction of the Nazi characters. It's not a powerful statement so much as an extremely clear one - Spielberg takes his revenge on the Nazis, perhaps childishly, but with real emotional honesty.

[Highway 61]

I agree entirely, and for that very reason I've always loved the very brief scene in Raiders when the swastika is burned off the crate carrying the Arc. It's one of the many personal touches that elevate that movie over Spielberg's later, more formulaic popcorn movies.

[HerrSchreck]

I've actually always thought of Spielberg's depiction of the Nazis (and their fate) in Raiders as his most emotionally honest - certainly moreso than Schindler's List (as much as there is to admire in that film). Jonathan Rosenbaum once complained about the absence of Jewish characters in that Jones film, but that misses a significant point. That is, there is a Jewish character in the film, Yahweh, and it is this one Jewish "character" that is responsible for the destruction of the Nazi characters. It's not a powerful statement so much as an extremely clear one - Spielberg takes his revenge on the Nazis, perhaps childishly, but with real emotional honesty.

ooooohh.. you're in trouble! you spelled "tetragrammaton"! The very unameable, the unspellable!

I'm telling YHWH on you!

[Via_Chicago]

I've actually always thought of Spielberg's depiction of the Nazis (and their fate) in Raiders as his most emotionally honest - certainly moreso than Schindler's List (as much as there is to admire in that film). Jonathan Rosenbaum once complained about the absence of Jewish characters in that Jones film, but that misses a significant point. That is, there is a Jewish character in the film, Yahweh, and it is this one Jewish "character" that is responsible for the destruction of the Nazi characters. It's not a powerful statement so much as an extremely clear one - Spielberg takes his revenge on the Nazis, perhaps childishly, but with real emotional honesty.

ooooohh.. you're in trouble! you spelled "tetragrammaton"! The very unameable, the unspellable!

I'm telling YHWH on you!

Oh my G_D. #-o

[GoldenPilgrim]

All I could think about during the entire film was how Indy only has a few years to live because of all that nuclear fallout.

I completely agree with the above review. Indy killing 50 men with his whip and teleporting to safety really doesn't seem exaggerated in the context of the movie, do I need to remind you of a certain flying saucer.

Little bits here and there were exciting, and the gag at the very end was fun, but the first half seemed like a Check it out folks, Indy's still got it! While the rest was a Jones parody. And god! Karen Allen was awful.
My favorite part was the trailer for Wall-E.

[Svevan]

I really liked it. Janusz Kaminski's cinematography (lots of backlighting, glowing heads, ethereal lights) made it much more beautiful than the gritty (post-modern ugliness?) of the early 80s Indys. The CGI did make the movie look like a cartoon, and that is great. I hope the Tintin movie looks like this. I appreciate how the CGI was used (mostly) to make ancient mechanical things, Indy's forte, and make them bigger and more elaborate than before.

Only two complaints re: CGI (and both fairly major):

Spoiler

all the cute animals, and the poorly crafted ending with the "inter-dimensional being" which was really stupid looking next to the rest of the film.

Other than that, the combination of rubbled sets and CGI backdrops was breathtaking. I think what Indiana Jones has always needed is Janusz Kaminski; I can't get the glowing lights and muted color palette out of my head.

I rewatched Raiders of the Lost Ark last night, and I've never been a huge Indy fan because Spielberg always cut around his effects shots as if he was hiding the strings. The boulder chasing Indy in the beginning of the film is great, since we see both Indy and the giant boulder in the same shot. The later chase scenes are broken, because we are merely watching individuals shots of cars moving really fast, cut together.

In KOCS, thanks to digital effects, the motorcycle chase scene is filled with very long shots of the two male leads on a motorcycle, such as when the motorcycle is in between the car and the bus, or when both vehicles burst through a giant gate, etc. Spielberg isn't matching the action with a fast-paced rhythm, instead he's letting the movement within each individual shot dictate the rhythm.

The movie covers a lot of backstory, seeing as there's been a 20 year gap, but Raiders and Last Crusade are both filled with "catching up" and conversations about the past. It's a pretty key element to the series.

As for the plot, yeah it gets dumb. Not up to par with the mysticism of 1 and 3. I loved, however, the insistent references to the time period: there's lots of late 50s music and characterization. I loved the fight in the diner (same diner as Back to the Future? Yeah I'm geeking out about it), and the way Indy is accused of being a communist (HUAC reference) while trying to fight the communists. Then there's the A-Bomb, Roswell, etc. I loved it all.

Except the ending. Blech.

[Highway 61]

I really liked it. Janusz Kaminski's cinematography (lots of backlighting, glowing heads, ethereal lights) made it much more beautiful than the gritty (post-modern ugliness?) of the early 80s Indys.

I had the exact opposite reaction. Kaminski's look was so incongruous with the rest of the series that it simply didn't feel like an Indy film to me. It also contributed to the fake, CGI look of the movie. (In fact, I feel this way about dozens of recent films, and I've often wondered if warm, glowing colors became popular over the last ten years because they make CGI look less out of place.)

However, I do agree with you that the 50's vibe worked really well. When the film kicked off to Hound Dog, I thought I was going to love it, but sadly Spielberg and Lucas didn't run with that motif. I think a much better film could have been made about Indy on the run from HUAC, or some other plot device firmly rooted in the early Cold War. Or, like another poster suggested, the film should have been made 10 years early and set during WWII. As the film is now, I found it boring and lacking any sense of danger.

Granted, I wanted to love it, and I'm surprised at how much I didn't. I seem to have a more forgiving attitude to Hollywood popcorn movies than many posters here, but I can't overlook how unremarkable this was. Even compared to the first two sequels--both hugely inferior to Raiders--this looks bad.

Frankly, I'm both amazed and amused that neither Coppola, Spielberg, nor Lucas can make a good sequel to their long-dormant franchises, yet Sylvester Stallone can!

[Richard--W]

Sometimes I think I've seen too many movies over the last 51 years of chronic non-stop habitual film-watching in all languages and in all countries. There's nothing I haven't seen on the big screen repeatedly. I know a lot about drama and story telling, so I'm not easily impressed. But I appreciated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for its virtues, which are many, and I admire its tradecraft, which is considerable. It is first-rate cinema and worthwhile entertainment. I had a good time with it, and I'm going back to see it again tomorrow.

There's entirely too much pseudo-intellectualism aimed at this movie.

[colinr0380]

I agree Via_Chicago, Raiders seemed a perfect balance of entertainment with some interesting deeper themes under the surface for repeated viewings and for those who may care to notice. The only problem is that it created a hard act not just for the sequels but for all the blockbusters that came after to follow!

I feel Spielberg works best when he can sublimate his ideas into entertainment because they just don't feel as forced or, strangely, as 'fake' as they do in his serious films. I'd much rather take the relatively understated and evocative image of the burnt off swastika over the girl in the red coat using the innocence of childhood as an easy way to gain audience sympathy (I think this was also something Herr Schreck talked about in the thread for The Two Of Us).

Spielberg is one of the few filmmakers that I think can do sentimentality really well. In films like E.T. and A.I. I spend most of those films crying but glad to be having my emotions touched in such an assured way, but again I'm just left feeling cold when he does it in 'serious' pieces - Saving Private Ryan being one of the worst examples with almost every scene beyond the D-Day landings coming across at best as completely unbelieveably contrived and at worst insulting in the way that everyone gets their moment to have their character 'completed' in the script. I guess it is my personal reaction though - I don't mind characters being 'completed' in stories that are purely fictional creations but when filmmakers do work based in some kind of historical period or that is ostensibly set in the real world they seem to fall back on trying to find endings. Whether it is in something like World Trade Center or Million Dollar Baby there is a need to turn reality into a scripted movie(!) when life is never as neatly tied up as that (you can also avoid asking the tougher questions by ending your film at a point most convenient to your needs, as something like Charlie Wilson's War shows!)

Strangely the only thing I think Spielberg gets right in his serious pieces is fear, death and horror while the characters do not register as real at all, while the opposite seems the case in his entertainments - the characters in those films are what make the situations, not the situations the characters if that makes any sense! Sure the shark, alien or dinosaurs are what draws the audience into the theatre but the characters are what truly drive his best films and make them so entertaining.

Though there are always exceptions and films like Hook, 1941, The Lost World or Always fail because the characters are not engaging and there seems a slide into desperate attempts to over compensate with set pieces, which do not work because there is no 'magic' chemistry being created between the characters and their story (I remember Hook seeming particularly misguided with the middle-aged, amnesiac, depressive Pan and Neverland itself seeming curiously bland and uninspiring). Recently though I think the 'serious' and 'entertaining' films have been bleeding into one another, sometimes in a good way (I think Catch Me If You Can is a great 'serious' film done in his 'entertaining' style, probably helped by the story being of the main character living out his fantasies), sometimes in a terrible way (one of the reasons I find The Terminal so bad is that Spielberg seems to be trying to make a wider statement using romantic comedy conventions and some of the most irritating, unsympathetic and dislikable characters ever put on film - hey, the Indian guy is a horrible person to immgrants as well, so that makes everything alright, right?)

I don't think Lucas understands the importance of "suspending disbelief". That's not to say that the previous Indy films were 100% realistic, because they weren't, but they were close enough to at least be considered plausible. Nobody survived any atomic bomb blasts by flying miles through the air in an old refrigerator, nor did anybody ride a floating jeep down three massive waterfalls like they were on some waterpark log ride.

That's interesting because from reading about the waterfall sequence I immediately flashed on the other (Lucas-tainted?) film, Temple of Doom, with the escape from the pilot-less plane in a life raft leading to a many hundred foot drop, leading to skiing down a hillside, then another hundred foot drop, then the rapids and so on, all with Kate Capshaw's screaming ringing in my ears (why do the pretty ones always have to be so annoying?)

[rs98762001]

I'm a huge fan of all three original Indy movies, and think both Last Crusade and Temple of Doom are sorely underappreciated on this board. But despite all that I agree with most people here that Crystal Skull was a mess, from the first shot of the fucking CGI gopher onwards. Ford gave it his best shot, but I was surprised how cruelly underutilized Karen Allen was. Why bring her back unless you're going to give her something to do? Which pretty much sums the film up: nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, and nothing more. There were some potentially interesting ideas about 50s/nuclear fear/HUAC etc, but they were quickly forgotten in the alien/spaceship theme which was never successfully integrated with the more traditional Indy myths and hallmarks. Also agree that Kaminski's cinematography was vastly inferior to the beauty of Douglas Slocombe's work. In total, after about the first half an hour, it barely even felt like an Indy movie.

It's another shitstain on Spielberg's record. Is there another 'renowned' director who gets it wrong so often? And for such a fundamentally brilliant filmmaker, he's tone deaf 3/4 of the time. Let's be frank. He hasn't made a genuinely good film since Schindler's List. Even things like Munich, which had the potential to be fascinating, fall apart under the weight of confused themes, inordinately long running times, and Spielberg's inability to cut back on his inherent schmaltziness (cf. father/son relationships, cute kids always in danger - yes, even in Munich he's not beyond exploiting this - and an inability to ever honestly follow through his pathetic little stabs at darkness and maturity). The really sad thing is that I was hoping a return to "pure" entertainment such as Indy was going to salvage him - but, no, he can't even do that properly anymore.

[Slothrop]

When the impudent, postmodern imperialism of Raiders was followed by the comic essay on the morality of speed in 1984’s Temple of Doom, both needed some crucial political correction—eventually provided by The Last Crusade’s overview of Western political and religious heritage.

I think there may be something to Ehrenstein's Kingdom of Crystal Meth pun... and I think Armond's smoking it.

Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, go go GO!

Can someone please tell me what the fuck "the morality of speed" means? Is this a new branch of moral philosophy? What is this guy talking about?

[cerealiscool]

I love how every interview with Ford or Lucas preemptively assumed that the film was gonna get bad reviews

At one point, Mac, the greedy asshole of the picture, is thoroughly unimpressed with their findings, stating that it was a waste of his time.

Heh.