When I saw the film, one of the trailers beforehand was an extended preview for the new Mission Impossible which went into detail about how they actually filmed Cruise on top of a moving train doing the same exact type of action chase/fight scene and the contrast between the two was staggering. Doing it for real just looks so much better.
I just got back from watching it and I enjoyed it. I did not feel it was overlong, though there were some parts where my logical brain went, well that does not make sense, before my fun brain said, it is an adventure movie don’t think 8]. I liked how they setup a few things that had a payoff later in the movie and as was pointed out above, the unexpected real plan of the villain.
Overall a nice way to spend a few hours with an old familiar character.
//i\\
I liked how the film remembered that most of us want to do just that- spend time with a character we love. It really didn’t need anything earth shattering and maybe its not the most original or innovative story line but I still enjoyed it.
Yep. We saw it yesterday.
Perfect memories, great fun.
I had to get up for a pee break halfway thru.
Only thing that bothers me is her saying there were “100 centurions” on the ship, which is like saying “there were 100 army captains on the ship”. A centurion was an officer. What she meant was legionaries.
Nothing matches up to Raiders.
I keep telling people this. Even Spielberg and Lucas couldn’t do better.
It’s not that the movie was too long in general; It’s that the action scenes all went on way too long to the point where I got bored. Also they went to the well of “The Heroes go to a place; the Bad guys catch up and there’s a chase” too many times. The one sequence I wished were longer was the underwater one because that was different (and made me wish the Fate of Atlantis story was a movie and not a game) but even that was weird because they made a big deal about “three minutes” over and over and it ended up meaning nothing as best as I could tell.
Saw the movie at the drive in - not sure if it was that or just me, that too much of it was staged in murk and shadow to appreciate the action sequences.
Otherwise, I agree that it was a bit overlong, there was no actual jeopardy with the device because it was too unclear what the baddies getting their hands on it would mean, and the chase set-pieces somehow were exciting but flat at the same time.
I did enjoy and appreciate Harrison Ford playing old without hamming it up and acting like Grandpa Simpson. He was just (most of the time) a fairly stiff old coot.
There are, like so many movies these days for some reason, a few sections and scenes that are lit dark for no real reason.
Just got home from seeing it. 3.5 stars. Not great, but by no means bad.
Totally on the nose.
I could handle all the mystical mumbo-jumbo, and Indy’s ability to even move after taking a 9mm round to the shoulder. Oh, wait. It’s an Indiana Jones movie. Different universe, different rules. Roll with it and enjoy.
Worth seeing in a theater. Not worth re-seeing, however.
Saw it last night and really enjoyed it. The name they used for the mcguffin, anitkythera not anitkythera mechanism, was really grating. It’s the equivalent of running around Paris talking about the Eiffel, getting to the Eiffel, finding the Eiffel, it sounds ridiculous.
A bit I loved at the end was, the Roman reaction to the ‘dragons’ was to try and bring them down and not just panic and run.
And I’m 99% convinced that the editor of the film believes that rudder pedals on a plane are accelerator pedals. Which explains the close up insert shot of them during the engine restart scene. It is a weird cut otherwise.
Yes, the ending was quite good. Loved seeing the triremes and the sacking of the city, loved seeing the glimpses of the time. Would have liked a little more time in the past.
That wasn’t the sack of Syracuse, merely one of the opening battles. Roman “commandos” snuck in and opened the gates one night during a festival to initiate the sacking, roughly a year after the “events” in the movie.
I saw it Thursday night and found it was worth it to be tired on Friday.
As many have said, I wanted one last adventure with old friends and that’s what I got.
I don’t mind PWB and don’t understand why people don’t like her.
I loved the Roman legions response to it! I also agree it shouldn’t have been centurions but legionnaires. That did jar me when they said it.
Yes to general recovery from wounds.
I assumed the dark train was their way to minimize CGI. As people said, Cruise actually doing it in daylight is going to look better but I would expect that. If that was the reason, it worked as the deaging was pretty good.
I also liked that they leaned into Ford’s age. I was watching that and he never won a fight.
I recently rewatched Crystal Skull and it reminds me that Lucas makes movies for himself. It’s just that forty years ago, many people liked that. The fact that he was still trying that for CS is what made CS sub par. A few lines here to explain things, a few extra scenes, and seriously making the bad guys Nazis, which many modern movies have done, would have made it better.
For example, have more than his refrigerator survive, have the initial blast be further away, get rid of the tribesman protect the site, and make them former Thule Society members.
Anyway, I can’t say it made CS better than when I first saw it but I at least understood where it came from, what it tried to do, and why I don’t like it.
Was I the only one who was hoping for Dinosaurs as they headed for the anomaly?
No, I was kinda thinking it might be prehistoric times too. But what happened was fun and also made sense given stuff that they had revealed earlier.
I was kinda hoping Indy would find himself watching the Ark of the Covenant being hidden in the Well of Souls or something.
I was thinking something like that too. That they’d travel back to Raiders since I had remembered a scene in the trailer where they were running from the same kind of large bolder.
Saw the movie today – pleasant enough but unlike #1 and #3 not sure I watch again and again (I’ve seen both many times, and would likely watch if they showed up)
The kiss on the elbow was a nice callback
Meeting Archimedes was cool – glad they used water displacement somewhere.
In summary “It was an odd numbered movie with Sullah”
Brian
I also noticed the “rudder pedals as accelerator” thing
Saw it last night. I agree that it was better than Crystal Skull. But, despite the infintely better special effects, it lacks the thrill of the first three films (The effects in Last Crusade were frequently awful, but I liked the movie an awful lot more).
Disappointing to see Professor Jones (And Salah) living in NYC hovels in 1969. I know New York apartments are tiny and expensive, but come on. My cousin lived in a NYC apartment as a student in the 1960s, and it looked infinitely better than that.
And Professor Jones at Hunter College in New York? After an Ivy League school in the 1930s? He must have REALLY screwed up. I’d expect him to be at Columbia if he moved to the East Coast.
But it’s possible that the real reason I’m disappointed is that this one had no images stolen from Carl Barks’ Uncle Scrooge or Donald Duck stories. I particular, it had nothing lifted from The Prize of Pizarro. Each of the first three movies has imagery from that story. I even did a Teemings article about it – “Only the Penitent Duck Shall Pass” (sadly no longer online)
I was not planning on seeing this because of comments and reviews posted elsewhere. But the comments posted here made me more hopeful that I, one of the boomers the originals were made for, would at least find it to be modestly fun.
I came away from the movie pretty bummed. This was just mean-spirited. It reminded me of a sibling doing imaginative, but cruel, things to a prized Barbie.