Back in Summer 1981 some girls came to visit Sligo from Northern Ireland and we hung around with them for a while.We were seventeen, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
One of our guys (who’d better remain nameless in case he’s lurking like Sean was - (see comment in previous post)) actually fell head over heels for one of the girls for the sole reason that he helped her to get sick in a wash basin one fine evening. Well, physical contact was at something of a premium back then.
Look, here’s the point – these girls had seen a film, up in Northern Ireland, which we hadn’t even got to hear about yet.
"Wait ‘til you see it," they said, "And wait ‘til you see the first ten minutes, you won’t bloody believe it."
How right they were!
My relationship with the individual Indiana Jones movies has revised itself a bit over the years. My great affection for the first has never changed and revisiting it on the big screen can revive the most jaded of B Movie palettes. I loved the second when it first came out and I was very disappointed with the third.
This view on numbers two and three has now been completely reversed. ‘Temple of Doom’ is shallow and weak in narrative – although the opening sequence is still great. ‘Last Crusade’ has an opening that is a bit-of-a-dud, in my opinion, but the movie itself is warm and adventuresome.
So last night, our little nuclear family went to see the new one – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
I wanted to like it and so I did. There is much in it to be thankful for. Thanks that Harrison Ford is not required to play younger than he is. Thanks that Karen Allen has some back to Indie and to us. Thanks that period detail and wry humour can still be accommodated.
I rushed to see it before all the reviews and the clips and the opinion and the interviews coloured my view of what I was seeing and I strongly recommend that you do the same. Even the small amount of hype which I have exposed myself to, since seeing it, has already started to convince me what I should think of it. I hate that – I know what I think of it, I bloody saw it didn’t I?
Downside? There is a 30 minute section in the first hour that drags quite remarkably. There’s a lot of plot-exposition to get through. Also - I know there’s a lot of talk about this – some of the CGI special effects seems a little intrusive but then I recall that the matte work in Temple of Doom seemed very intrusive too. Once that slow bit gets done – it’s all systems go.
Before I saw it, I didn’t actually know what this movie was ‘about’ – I mean in the same way that the first was about the Arc of the Covenant or the Third was about The Holy Grail. Had I known what it was about, a whole other set of prejudices would have emerged in me before I saw it. You will probably get to hear what it is about before you see it (no, I won’t tell you). How you deal with that information is entirely up to you.
Will you like the new movie?
The answer to that is simple. If you go to it expecting to enjoy it, then you will. All the necessary elements are there, knock yourself out.
On the other hand, if you go expecting to be disappointed, then you will be. There is enough there to be disappointed about, if that’s what rocks your boat.
'Want my advice? Put your best happy face on and get your arse down to your nearest movie-drome.
They still make ‘em like they used to.
