Friday, July 18, 2008

The fourth Indiana Jones exceeded all of my expectations: it was both better and stupider than I expected. The first few scenes were pretty grim -- overdone Russian villains, dubious Roswell references (I'm always skeptical of Roswell references -- it can be done well, like in DS9, but it's never a good sign), a cheesily smug self-awareness of being an Indiana Jones movie, and an egregious misunderstanding of the nature of magnetism. I was worried. But, pretty much as soon as he opened the refrigerator, everything was uphill. Ridiculous, over the top, and stupid... But, oh so fun. The last few action pictures I've seen had me wondering if I'd outgrown action movies all-together, but now I can see that's not the case. I just don't like action movies that take themselves seriously. Action sequences should be fun. Not serious. And there was very little that was serious about Indiana Jones 4. It was a true movie for the fans -- not the people who complain that Temple of Doom was an abomination, the people who love Indiana Jones movies. All three of them. And, now (only fourteen years after I first heard the rumors at my first Star Trek convention) all four of them. Thank goodness this time the rumors were finally right.

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