[Shadowflux]

I was possibly a bigger fan of Indy than anyone you know. Hell I still have my Indy hat, I rode my bike miles just to play the Indy Arcade game, loved Young Indiana Jones, and i've spent hours trying to figure out The Fate of Atlantis. Having said that, I must say that I was a bit disappointed in the latest Indy film.

Sure, it was fun, it was like an Indy themed roller coaster. It had it's fun parts but interspersed throughout are scenes that made me go "Huh.....I'm not so sure about this". My doubts pretty much increased throughout the movie despite my efforts to quell them. I love Indy soooooo much that I really really really wanted to like this film. I tried really really hard and I had a good time but it left me feeling empty.

My main gripe with this film is it's scope. It's just not epic enough to be an Indy film. There aren't many different locations, we see mostly dessert, warehouse, campus, then South America for the rest of the film. It seemed far too confined, you could tell they were in a soundstage in front of a green screen. Indy needs to be filmed outside with real stunts, he's inspired by the classic pulp adventure heroes and he needs to be treated that way. Indy needs to be gritty, dirty and bloody. It's that same raw pulp action that makes the few comedic scenes work so well, the audience needs a break from fighting nazis on a moving tank tread. Even the PC game Fate of Atlantis had a more epic scope and feel to it than this movie.

The cgi took away from the ending of the movie because most Indy films are entirely believable up until the end. Other than a few things like never getting hit by a bullet, Indy never did anything that couldn't have been done in real life, until the end. That's what always made the end so amazing, here was this guy, brawling with nazis in the dessert who is eventually placed into an unbelievable setting. This is why Crystal Skull has a weak ending despite it's far out subject matter. In the first quarter of the movie we already see Indy survive a nuclear explosion by hiding in a lead lined refrigerator which is then hurled hundreds of miles away. At this point the audience says: "Oh, so Indy is indestructable" which negates any amazment at the other worldly aspect of the ending.

All in all, weakest of all the Indy movies including the Young Indy movies and Tv shows but still not as bad as it could've been given the state of Hollywood today.