Cal Jacobson's Blog

Tonight we watched the latest Indiana Jones film.

I hadn’t seen it in the theater, despite the omnipresent media campaign that ranged from M&Ms to thinly-veiled archaeology shows on the History Channel.  Reaction from people who had seen it was definitely “meh”, and if I’ve learned anything from George Lucas in the last 9 years, its that he can’t make a decent film to save his life.

So I was prepared for disappointment.

As much as I’d like to say something like “but boy was I wrong”, I can’t.  Harrison Ford looks old.  Karen Allen looks as old as Harrison Ford, and she’s 9 years younger.  The absence of Denholm Elliot‘s character is noticeable even before the movie makes a half-assed homage to him (Elliot died in 1992).

This was a movie made 17 years too late.

If I hadn’t seen the original three movies earlier this year, I’d probably be feeling somewhat pissed right now; movies fare a lot better when viewed through nostalgic lenses.  While I had never been completely enamored with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I had forgotten about how bad some parts of Temple of Doom were.  Like I said, I was prepared for disappointment.  I’m not pissed off, I’m just kind of saddened by the wasted potential.

Spoilers follow.  Consider yourself warned.

I think the choice of the Soviets as the bad guys was a decent one; I’m just amazed that Steven Spielberg was talked into directing a movie without robots or World War II as a backdrop.  Then again, it does have aliens.

Ugh, aliens.  I don’t know if this particular stink can be pinned on George Lucas, but he’s my primary suspect.  Spielberg’s range of subject matter looks comprehensive in comparison: George just seems to need a chrome spaceship and some CGI these days, both of which were in attendance.

Would it really have killed them to do a story about Atlantis or the Spear of Destiny or Excalibur or the Fountain of Youth or Aztlán?  Bigfoot?  Even the Loch Ness Monster?

Maybe even better material wouldn’t have improved this movie, because Indiana Jones is tired.  Whether this was an intentional decision by Ford/Lucas/Spielberg or not, he’s a low-energy guy in what should be a high-energy movie.  It’s like he’s got mono, but worse: he didn’t take his Geritol.  All he’s missing is a walker and a chance to snap his whip at some kids on his lawn.

I thought Cate Blanchett was pretty much forgettable as a scenery-chewing Commie.  Ray Winstone was ok as Indy’s longtime-friend-whom-we’ve-never-met-but-are-convinced-of-such-due-to-exposition-desperately-trying-to-cover-19-years-of-backstory, though a better choice might have been Jonathan Ke Quan, reprising his role of Short Round from Temple of Doom.  Now that would have added a little more drama to the story, were he to also side with the Soviets and suffer Mac’s fate.

As for Shia LaBeouf?  I thought he did a fair job, nothing more.  I don’t think he has the screen presence to lead the franchise in the future, but he didn’t deserve a lot of the fanboy hate directed towards him.  He’s just lucky he wasn’t cast as an Ewok.

I don’t think Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a terrible movie — it was certainly no Ultraviolet — it just wasn’t very good.  It isn’t a movie people are going to remember 20 years from now in any context other than “oh yeah, they made a fourth Indiana Jones, didn’t they?”  It is Godfather III-ish in its setup and follow-through.

The whole family went to see WALL·E on Sunday and I think we got our money’s worth.  As usual, Pixar produced a movie with a decent story — something that has been increasingly rare in Hollywood over the last 20 years.

(Minor spoilers follow: consider yourself warned.)

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about Pixar’s movies are the shorts they show beforehand.  I think the one this time around, Presto, is probably their best to date — lots of physical comedy in the Loony Tunes vein.

WALL·E itself is also a step up from their previous work, though I think more in a technical sense than a storytelling one.  Not only have the animators given a (mostly) voiceless, boxy robot character and emotion, but they appear to have overcome a major issue with CGI: dirt.

Yes, dirt.

I’ve heard that every Pixar film has at least one major technical challenge: in Monsters, Inc. it was hair, in Finding Nemo it was water, in Ratatouille it was supposedly food.  If this film had a technical challenge, my money is on dirt — there was a lot of it and it looked as great as dirt can.

My only criticism of the movie involves the use of live-action footage: some of the 1969 movie version of Hello, Dolly! and some of actor Fred Willard as a company CEO.  Both seemed very out of place in a production by a company that has animated numerous human and dancing characters in the past.  My initial reaction after leaving the theater was that it smacked of simple laziness on the part of Pixar, but now I’m of the mind that it was just a very poor decision by director Andrew Stanton (who previously directed Finding Nemo).

I’ve heard that there has been squawking in various circles about a heavy-handed message in the movie, and to be honest when I saw the first trailer eons ago that was my first impression.  But WALL·E is nowhere near the club-you-over-the-head territory that Happy Feet was, thank God.  The movie may flirt with the boundary between story and propoganda, but it doesn’t cross it.  I’m sure some folks will be put off by the notion that the future is populated by fat, materialistic humans…but I wasn’t.  I think there’s some truth there, but the manner in which it is presented is unlikely to cause Junior to renounce worldly goods and embark on a lifetime of communal living.

I strongly recommend going to see the movie if you’ve enjoyed Pixar’s previous films.  Now if we could only get them to can the forthcoming Cars 2 in favor of an Incredibles sequel.

Man, and I thought Thunderbirds was awful.

Last night my wife and I watched Ultraviolet. I had heard that it was by the same guy who did Equilibrium (which we had both enjoyed) so it seemed like a reasonable choice for a fairly mindless action flick.

I was wrong, and not just white-pants-after-Labor-Day wrong. Oh no. We’re talking liposuction on an 8-year-old wrong. Wedding reception at Golden Corral wrong. Rabbi in Mecca wrong. Linday Lohan as driving instructor wrong. Wrong.

It is never a good sign if the movie starts off with three minutes of narrative. It doesn’t help if the narrator is the main character. It certainly doesn’t help if the main character is being played by Milla Jolololololovovich. Five minutes into the movie I had this growing fear that this cinematic experience was heading nowhere but downhill. Featuring more costume changes than a Cher concert and such disjointed dialog and scenes that I was compelled to turn to my wife half-way through and ask “did anyone actually EDIT this movie?”, Ultraviolet was a lock for Second-Worst Movie In The World^* before it was halfway over.

Lest you think that I am making a mountain out of a molehill, let me quote a few critics courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes, none of which I’m actually making up:

Ultraviolet wants desperately to be a provocative, high-concept action thriller. It is apparently trying to say something about fear and terrorism, paranoia and racism. But it looks more like a shampoo commercial. — Christy Lemire, Associated Press

Lordy mama, the thing’s just unspeakable. — The Daily Mirror (UK)

Ultraviolet will be studied with great interest in the future – not for its quality or its artistic merit, but rather to discover how a turd like this was made. — Kevin Carr, 7M Pictures

Now critics are often highbrow, stuffy types that would prefer some Elizabethan drama to anything you and I would watch. How about some input from typical moviegoers (by way of IMDB)?

This movie is absolutely horrible. The magnitude of its suck is unbelievable. — Niko Stokley

Like a German techno video with badly translated Japanese one-liners for dialogue… only less coherent. — Steph-3

I registered at this site just to tell you how GODAWFUL this movie truly is. About 10 minutes into the movie I started praying for a brain tumor to arrive and kill me. — Batese

I’m going to go set a camera on record, then throw it into a cement sidewalk. This would result in a film that is 10 times better than Ultraviolet. — smitty124

I have no proof, but I suspect that this is the movie that almost killed Roger Ebert in 2006. It is a movie so bad even its star badmouthed it.

Please, for the love of God, don’t watch this movie. Educate your children and your community. If you own a rental store, I strongly urge you to immediately entomb every copy you have in something lead-lined and bury it deep. And please, start writing your senators and representatives in Washington so that we may prevent Ultraviolet on Blu-Ray from ever being released. Think globally, act locally.

* Oh, and the Worst Movie In The World? Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. We saw it in a movie theater; I foolishly argued against walking out, thinking that it would get better. Some people liked that movie, but I won’t say anything about them since it’s not nice to make fun of the mentally handicapped.