Place: Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square, West End, London.
Date: Monday May 26, 2008.
Camera: Panasonic DMC-TZ3.
When I was 12 years old I saw Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark at the cinema. It was 1981.
I remember queuing up to get tickets with my mum, sister and aunt. The queue snaked around the block and moved so slowly that by the time we went through the doors of the Greater Union cinema on Russell Street all the tickets were sold out. We were country kids, so going to the cinema in Melbourne was a big deal. I remember being really disappointed at missing out on the film.
We did eventually see it, although I can't remember if we simply went to a later session or if we returned the next day. But when we did see it we talked about it for weeks. It was such an exciting and thrilling adventure, and Harrison Ford, as Indiana Jones, was gorgeous!
The film promptly became one of my all-time favourites (I've seen it at least a dozen times, and would never turn my nose up at seeing it again, because it has such a special place in my heart).
I saw the following two in the Indiana Jones franchise -- The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade -- on the big screen so it seemed only natural that I would see the latest, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, at the cinema too. So last Monday we bought tickets for the 2.30pm session at the Odeon Cinema at Leicester Square and piled in with a hugely mixed audience comprising mainly families with kids sitting on booster seats.
The film was authentic to the franchise. Indiana Jones was Indiana Jones, albeit it a 64-year-old version of himself. It's set during the Cold War, so the bad guys in this version are the Russians, as opposed to the usual Nazis in the previous films. Australian actress Cate Blanchett does a bizarre turn as Indy's nemesis, Irina Spalko, a KGB agent, searching for a crystal skull with paranormal powers.
It's no exaggeration to say most of the film comprises a long -- very long -- car chase through the jungles of South America. It's typical Indiana Jones fare, with Indy doing all manner of stunts, swinging from one vehicle to another while bumping off a succession of Soviets out to get him.
The action is relentless, but there are gaping holes in the plot and the one-liners are naff to the point of being cringe-worthy. Everything about the story is calculated and knowing. And where Raiders of the Lost Ark was fresh and new, the format in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull seems tired and overdone. Frankly, we've seen it all before, and it's been copied to death in a million other movies like The Mummy and Lara Croft's Tomb Raider series.
That said, it's still a rather enjoyable and entertaining film -- provided you check your brain at the door and leave all your critical faculties behind. It's very much a cartoonish lampoon of the franchise, a "B movie" that has the emotional depth of a gnat but delivers all the action, horror and laughs you could want in one neat 124-minute package.
