Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Let's get this out of the way first: This is an unnecessary movie made solely to bilk folks out of their hard-earned money. It stars an over-the-hill actor (Harrison Ford) and features a contrived plot line with holes like Swiss Cheese.

It's also great fun, laugh-out-loud funny in places, well-paced, and genuinely exciting. It doesn't take itself too seriously, since the whole thing feels like National Treasure 2 and 1/2, right down to the treasure map and the hokey history references.

In this installment, we find "Doctor Jones", 20 years after his Last Crusade, happily teaching in his tweed jacket after running afoul of the KGB--specifically the mentat Thufir...whoops wrong movie...noted psychic Irina Spalko, played by a sword-wielding Cate Blanchett. A greaser straight out of Brando's Wild Bunch turns-up delivering the suddenly jobless Indiana a treasure map written in a dead pre-Columbian tongue (which, naturally, he and he alone can decipher).

Fast forward to Nazca Peru, and things get all Art Bell on us--things with eerie magnetism, lines visible only from space...you see where this is going.

I liked it in spite of myself. Not the gushy, send-me-flowers-in-the-morning love I had for Iron Man, but a worthy spectacle.

That it happened to be our free quarterly outing from the powers-that-be wasn't bad, either.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Southeast Christian Church Easter Pageant

Easter Pageant?! What is this, amateur hour? Who cares about some piddly church passion play? What's next, "Best Little Christmas Pageant Ever"? How's this for Piddly: Two professional composers, a 9000 seat auditorium, 75,000 tickets over a month-long run, a 300 person chorous, two IMAX-size video screens. Traditionally, Southeast's Easter Pageant has been the biggest theatrical production in Louisville. They took a year off to retool and rework it, comissioning a rework from the ground up. Whereas the previous iteration had been a "cast of thousands" broadway-style production, they wanted something...different. Hoo-boy, it was different. Let's talk about "theatre" that is 1/2 movie, 1/2 live action. Apparently, they shot it at a quarry during last year's drought, and it looks pretty good. Still, I didn't like it...distracting and interrupts the flow. Likes It's not the same program they've put on for
Read more

Driving for the Cure...? (Or, how I got blacklisted...)

Image
Let me summarize: I got asked to leave and not come back. I was asked to LEAVE A CHARITY EVENT and not return. This is not a proud story, but I'm learning to deal with it. Here goes: I got to Don Jacobs BMW around 1:15 and signed my waiver with my information (including my cell phone #). They had all sorts of BMW's to drive, from Z4 roadsters to 3-, 5-, 6-, and 7-series cars, all with different engines and Rear- and All-wheel-drive configurations. I was in heaven. The place was busy, but I was interested in driving only one car for my first drive, a BMW 335i coupe (E92 in BMW parlance). This was THE car, BMW's first turbo passenger car in 20+ years, twin-turbocharged and tractable. So, I put my name in and waited patiently, watching the crew of permatan 20-somethings shuffling people in and out of the 18 cars, wagons, and SUVs they brought. This was a much bigger event than the last one I attended on a lark back in 2001. After about an hour, Gal in the White Cap ca
Read more

No, I don't have Connective Tissue Disorder

subtitle: OWWWWWWWWW! So, Whitney and I were hanging out last night, practicing some of her Bradly exercises, specifically Tailor Sitting . As we sat there, we were discussing flexibility and she said I should lean forward from my 90-degree position as far as I could. I leaned at about a 45 degree angle and finally felt a little stretch in my behind, so I kept going. Turns out, I could bend all the way forward, still in the seated position and touch my nose to the carpet. She was suitably impressed... ...Then I got up this morning, and every piece of connective tissue from my lower back to my knees hurt. =-) Seems I'm not that flexible, after all.
Read more