Better left alone

Not surprisingly, no one is reading my little blog. Maybe talking about something new and fresh will bring in the readers. I know! The new Indiana Jones flick. People love Indiana Jones.
I saw the new Indiana Jones movie opening day and I've been wanting to write about my thoughts on the movie. First off, I had absolutely no hope for this movie. Why? Remember the Star Wars prequels? Yeah, those movies sucked. They had some good parts, but overall they were pretty awful. I figured that a new Indiana Jones movie would have the same pitfalls from before. After watching the movie I would have to say that I would watch The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull over any one of the prequels.
That said, I have to let you know that I did not care much for this new Indiana Jones adventure. It definitely wasn't the train wreck I thought it would be. I had Marina Trench expectations for this one. The movie was enjoyable as long as you didn't use your brain. There's an overwhelming neglect of the laws of physics in many scenes. On the other hand, the CGI wasn't as out of place as I originally thought it would be.
So what were my main problems with the movie? Two things:
First, everything felt shoehorned into the movie. It felt like the film's writers sat around one day talking about all the things that were awesome in the original movies and decided to write those things into the script. I imagine that the writing sessions went like this:
"You know what was awesome? When Indy jumped on that truck and threw all the Nazis off of it! We should have him do that three or four times! That would be awesome!"
"Remember when the Nazis opened the Ark and the wrath of God came out an melted their faces? That was awesome! Someone needs to get their face melted or exploded in this one, too!"
Writers love to talk in exclamation points turns out. Anyway, all the action scenes simply felt like a rehash of scenes from the original movies. Besides that, the action scenes were completely superfluous. Many of them have no effect on the plot at all. I suppose that this is forgivable since the action is probably the main attraction of an Indiana Jones movie. It seems they could have put a little more effort in explaining the couple of times Indy's party is suddenly attacked by native inhabitants. That really just goes back to my point though. Indiana Jones was attacked by indigenous peoples in the first three films so it must happen in this one.
On to my second major complaint. Shia Lebouf. I really, really, really hate this kid's acting. I'm making this judgment based on the small list of films I've seen the kid in. They are in short order Transformers, Disturbia, and a few minutes of Holes. I think I'll go into detail in another post on how those movies all worse off (amazing I know) due to his presence.
Indiana Jones the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is no better off. I'm just going to say I feel that Mr. Lebouf is miscast as a "tough," motorcycle riding, greaser kid. He has a couple of scenes that I would like to call "Anakin moments" that make his character grate on my nerves even more. An Anakin moment would be a scene in which an annoying character performs an amazing feat that is supposed to make said character more heroic. The best example would be from the Phantom Menace, specifically the scene where little Anakin accidentally takes a spacefighter into space, accidentally crashes onto the enemy's starship, and then accidentally destroys it. Force shmorce, that was awful. Now that I think about it, I could call this a Jar Jar Moment since Phantom Menace had that awful scene in which Jar Jar accidently destroys a fair number of the droid army. But Anakin gets the title since the greater crime was making Darth Vader suck.
Mr. Lebouf's defining Anakin moment would have to be the scene of him swinging through a jungle Tarzan like with a small army of monkeys at his side. If you haven't seen the movie, the scene is even more ridiculous than it sounds.
The writers also pitted me against this movie by bringing to life one of my major fears for the film concerning Shia Lebouf. Here's a spoiler alert for you. Seeing the ads I began to worry that Mutt (finally remembered Shia Lebouf's character's name) would turn out to be Indiana Jones' son. And man can I call them. This actually ties into my previous point of the movie trying to recreate things from the earlier films. It seemed to me that the relationship between Mutt and Indy was an attempt to recreate the father/son dynamic that Ford and Connery had in The Last Crusade.
The whole son situation left me wondering the whole movie how Indiana Jones could have such a wiener of a kid. I guess all the genes that make him so awesome are recessive. It reminded me of Kirk's wiener kid in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. You know, the guy who wraps a sweater around his neck the first chance he gets. That and the perm. Also, Kim Bauer sucks. Apparently all Bauer awesomeness is carried on the Bauer Y chromosome. The point is, Indiana Jones should not be having wiener kids.
Although better than I expected, I still found this latest entry into the Indiana Jones saga more than a bit disappointing. I just hope they won't try to continue the franchise with Shia Lebouf stepping into Ford's shoes as the surprisingly tough archaeologist. But if George Lucas can make Darth Vader into a pansy I guess no character is safe.