[Shrek & Fiona] Our date...

Fiona and I went on date Thursday afternoon, and we'd thought it would be fun to blog about it. As determined by a coin flip, Fiona fires first.

[Fiona: Afternoon Delight]
On Thursday of this past week Shrek and I ditched work in the early afternoon to escape into the cool dark of our local movie theatre and catch a flicker. Shrek and I have been together for a long time. We try to keep our relationship young and alive by doing things together. Sometimes it is just playing video games together, sometimes it might be going out to eat, or well you know married things that involve lingerie.

Shrek knows that I am a huge Harrison Ford fan so I have been dying to see the new Indiana Jones movie. I have to inject one thing here. Before our adventure could begin in earnest I first had to drop my laptop off at the local witch doctors to have its little ass kicked back into the world of the living. So after my laptop was safe off to the doctor's, Shrek and I were off to find a quick nosh and then to the movie house. We decided on our local 99 Restaurant. I will not bore you with the facts of our meal; suffice it to say it was hot and tasty and not too expensive.

Ahh, now to the movie. First in the fair city of Worcester a matinee costs $7.50. OUCH! Shrek and I paid the ransom to get in but skipped the popcorn and drinks seeing that our rent was due in a few days and, well, what can I say about the price of gas that you fair readers don't already know? We took seats in the back row...make out alley.

Remember when previews were fun to watch? I wish someone would tell me when they became commercials. It is a pain in the ass to have to wait for this schlock to scroll by. Yippee finally the opening scenes. The familiar music begins. I went into this movie with no expectations, except for the one I keep in my heart for my sweetie Harrison. I must say he has aged well.

The movie was fun to watch. It had everything about an Indiana Jones movie that I love and a bit more. It wasn't perfect and the story line had a few slow to should have been cut scenes but the refrigerator scene and the car/boat chase scene were well worth the price of admission.

[Shrek: We named the dog "Indiana"]
Fiona and I did something Thursday we don’t do very often--we went to a movie somewhere other than the West Boylston Cinemas. We went to Showcase North, and the movie we saw was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

We’re spoiled by our favorite movie house because we’re used to going to a movie, getting a couple fifty-five gallon drums of Diet Coke, and ordering a dumpster full of hot freshly popped popcorn for under $20. Spending $7.50 each just to get into a movie--and a matinee at that--is completely foreign to us.

I am a huge fan of the Indian Jones movies, and when it was announced years ago that there would be a fourth installment in the series with all the major principals involved I knew there would be no chance I would miss it.

One would think that a sixty-five year old Harrison Ford would have issues pulling off the swashbuckling Indian Jones again, but Ford jumped back into the role seamlessly. The return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Arc and the additions of Shia LaBeouf as “Mutt” Williams and the legendary John Hurt as Harold Oxley round out the cast of good guys.

Cate Blanchett also stars as Irina Spalko, a Russian agent looking for more crystal skulls. Ray Winstone rounds out the major players as George “Mac” McHale, and you’ll need a score card to keep up with whose side he’s on at any given moment. And as with the first three installments, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was directed by Steve Spielberg and the executive producer is George Lucas.

With all those cards in play it’s hard to think they could have made a film that’s so...average.

With the film set twenty years after The Last Crusade, Spielberg and Lucas have abandoned the 1930’s serial style the first three films used and embraced the B-movie style that was prevalent in the era The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is set in. It may have worked for a different character, but it didn’t work for Indiana Jones.

The previous Indiana Jones movies all follow the same basic formula--chases, followed by more chases, followed by even more chases. The action between those chases was really only a buildup to the next chase scene until reaching the end of the movie, which was an escape of the main characters from whatever evil had developed throughout the movie. The problem with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull there aren't enough chase scenes, and the escape scene at the end really left a lot to be desired. Also noticeably absent from the film is a staple of the franchise, the comedic banter. The earlier films had many “laugh out loud” lines, which is something The Kingdom of the Crystal is sorely lacking.

Like the other films, the story was pretty straight forward. The problem was it wasn’t very compelling. Never once did I really care about those crystal skulls, and the lack of any explanation as to why they had mystical powers--even after finding out what the skulls really were-- made them even less interesting. Now add the fact the humor the Indiana Jones scripts are known for was for the most part missing and what you have a film that missed its mark.

Had this been a movie that had nothing to do with the Indiana Jones franchise it might rank a little higher, but as with any sequel Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull needs to be compared to the movies that came before it in the series, and it falls short in comparison.