I liked the opening scene of this movie. It was really interesting to see the flashback to a young Indiana Jones and his fellow archeologist, Basil Shaw, as they tried to retrieve one of the most famous artifacts at the beginning of the movie. Yes, there was a lot of CGI used, considering the age of Harrison Ford now, but it wasn’t enough to affect my suspension of disbelief.
The prologue was a pretty long one, though it did manage to hold my attention throughout. However, knowing that Indiana Jones was alive in the ‘present’ day (well, what amounted to the present in the rest of the movie), it did mean that none of the danger he was in at the beginning felt real. After all, he couldn’t have died then, considering he was appearing as older later in the movie.
I have seen other Indiana Jones movies before, though the one that sticks mainly in my head is Temple of Doom. One thing that strikes me is how formulaic the movies are, with very similar supporting characters…and this movie was no exception.
Unfortunately, I developed a very strong dislike for Helena early on in the movie. I thought there could have been an interesting twist where it turned out she was lying to Indy about who she really was, but that wasn’t the way things went.
Unfortunately, sometimes a character can make or break a movie for me…and Helena completely broke this movie. The friend I saw it with mentioned that the film felt like Helena was the main character and Indy was just her sidekick; and honestly, I can’t say that he was wrong. She was obnoxious and arrogant, without anything to back that arrogance up with. And honestly, I wish Indy had just left her behind and continued on without her. One of the worst parts about her character was when she was gloating about getting one over on the bad guys…right after said bad guys had killed one of Indy’s friends.
The inclusion of Helena pretty much ruined most of the movie for me. I was more irritated at her than I was invested in the rest of the storyline. The action scenes were good…but the bad guys were just the same as normally seen in the Indiana Jones movies: the Nazis.
Generally, this movie wasn’t one I had to think too much about. The scenes that didn’t involve Helena were entertaining enough, but her presence dragged what could have been a decent movie. If the film had focused more on Indy and his last hurrah, instead of a ‘younger, more hip’ version of the character…it would have been 100 times better.
As it is, this film is probably worth watching if you’re a fan of Indiana Jones. But it isn’t one I would watch a second time.
Ink of Blood 