Indiana Jones 4

What is that feeling? Oh, yes, bear with me. I used to edit a regional newspaper. It was a tough job but, ultimately, a very rewarding one and seeing the paper on the shelves every week was a satisfying feeling. It was a 12 hour-a-day-plus type-job and, by God, I hope I never have to do it again that way but you pour your heart and soul into these things and you feel proud of what you have achieved. It grew to a labour of love. After a mind-boggling amount of work went in by the staff, the wisdom-merchants at the top of this particular newspaper group decided to close four newspapers. Mine was one. In the words of Amy Winehouse, I thought to my numb kingdom of a skull: “What kind of fuckery is this?” That “WHY?” that screamed inside excoriating organs willy-nilly never got out and receded back behind the molars after a long, drunken grieving period. But it still echoes somewhere below, just waiting. We all felt cheated, lied to, let down and properly fucked around by those above us. I have never had cause to feel remotely the same since that horrible day. Until now.
I was a fan of the first three Indy films. They had heart. They had a reluctant, bad-tempered hero. They had great dialogue. Great set-pieces. Cracking, developed characters and they were damn funny. No more. Indiana Jones has been taken to the knacker’s yard and promptly glue-ified. I kid you not. Do not, if you value any film you have ever seen, go to this film. Do anything else. Help –out at a Nazi-fundraiser before you go to this, join Scientology, join Fianna Fáil, anything. Think for a moment of your favourite film. Got it? For every penny George Lucas receives from this drivel, he is one step closer to destroying your all-time favourite film by making a CGI-heavy blockbuster version of it (Sean William Scott is playing whatever lead you are thinking of, Bambi etc) that will stick in your craw, set fire to your house, eat your soul and rape your childhood film memories until you wander the streets brainwashed waiting for his next piece of “work” while you incoherently mumble to yourself “it’s all in the chins, it’s all in the chins...”
That Spielberg and Lucas had “teamed up” on this was a worry from the start. Lucas’ last cinematic outing was the Star Wars debacle (which he has since CGI’d up even more so as to dispense with live acting altogether by making The Clone Wars in “animated” form), Spielberg’s was as producer of Transformers. Lamentable form – unless you are into cold-hearted, sheeny-shiney, characterless exlpodofests that bang at your senses until you submit, and if you are into that, buy a toaster you can drive to work in while blaring out the Thong Song until the people throw rotten tomatoes at you and you turn to pure-chrome evil – just like you’ve explained to everyone already with your dollar-sign face tattoo.
This film will make loads of money for both. But forget the Indy you know and love. He is gone. It’s just a piss-take at this point to see how much money we will cough up for dross. The wise-cracks and witty repartee is gone, too. There are bricks for dialogue. It is unrecognisable. And if you do not believe me and still want to go to it, then read no further because this next bit will spoil the “plot”.
The non-plot goes thus. The skull in the title is that of an alien, which demented Commie Kate Blanchett thinks has the power to control all humanity on earth (not explained). The skull is also an ancient artefact from a lost city that many have tried to find but, apparently, none have succeeded. Except the now-demented John Hurt (Worst Use of a John Hurt in a Film Award goes to...) whose riddles and babbling in ancient languages as to the whereabouts of said mystery city only Indy can decipher. And so, they head on out to wherever to do whatever with this skull – queue chase scenes. Anyway, if you are still there, Indy survives a nuclear blast in a fridge, marries old flame Marian (Karen Allen), finds out his son is Shia Leboeuf by Allen and hey-presto! We’re done. Oh, Blanchett’s head explodes by absorbing to much inter-dimensional knowledge from 13 crystal aliens on thrones. Jim Broadbent (anonymous) and Ray Winstone (atrocious) are in there somewhere as well as, presumably, gravitas-givers of some sort, but it’s far beyond reeling in for just these two, it’s gone over the waterfalls and is playing steal-the-tourists-ice-cream with the monkeys at this point.
All in all, this is a sickening example of Big Money producing sequels (and destroying whatever went before) that nobody could possibly benefit from except...