Comments on: [DVD Review (R1)] INDIANA JONES & THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

By: THE INDISPENSIBLES - #5: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK | Stale Popcorn

THE INDISPENSIBLES - #5: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK | Stale Popcorn — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:04:22 +0000

[...] Oh Part 4, how you infuriate me so! addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stalepopcorn.co.uk%2Ffeatures%2Findispensibles-features%2Fthe-indispensibles-5-raiders-of-the-lost-ark%2F’; addthis_title = ‘THE+INDISPENSIBLES+-+%235%3A+RAIDERS+OF+THE+LOST+ARK’; addthis_pub = ‘wyverex’; [...]

By: Kristina

Kristina — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 05:58:35 +0000

By: Grundy

Grundy — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 03:12:51 +0000

And yet you keep on doing it.

By: Kristina

Kristina — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 03:02:11 +0000

I don’t need meth to know Pineapple Express was doo-doo.

By: Gazz

Gazz — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:44:20 +0000

Something tells me, such Kris comments are designed to get a reaction! lol

By: Grundy

Grundy — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:48:35 +0000

You need to stop doing all the meth Kristina.

By: Gazz

Gazz — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:41:38 +0000

Now come on, lessen the flat out batshit crazy talk young lady!

1) You can say that it didn’t work for you and you can say that you didn’t like it, but to say it “blew chunks”? That’s ridiculous! Almost as ridiculous as a “three popcorn” review of INDY 4. Oh, wait…

2) This is not an argument you can win and you know it! Ha Ha! The armies of common sense will match against you, and over you!

By: Kristina

Kristina — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:24:29 +0000

Pineapple Express blew chunks. I’ll go to war against anyone who says otherwise…and WIN!!!!!

By: Gazz

Gazz — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:53:44 +0000

PS – Grundy, thanks for the video links! I’d “heard” about this and it is very, very funny but I’m surprised there was not more resistence or distaste from Spielberg.

I mean this is a guy who was stalked and threatened with the rape of himself and his children by some nutjob, now jailed. I can’t imagine him seeing the funny side in this!

I think the whole INDY 4 thing can be explained perfectly by none other than my Dad:

“… I think the problem is that with the first set of movies they made it seem so effortless and so easy to make just absolutely brilliant action movies. And this time round they’ve dropped their hand in poker and revealed they’ve got nothing – and that it is hard, and it isn’t effortless!”

By: Gazz

Gazz — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:53:22 +0000

Kris, I may not agree with your opinion but I respect your right to have one! I would most definitely say that – in my humble opinion – this is a three “popcorn” movie if judged as a piece of blockbuster fare. It’s possibly one of the weakest, if not the weakest, of the summer blockbuster entries BUT I measure it on performance, set-piece and the like and as mixed-a-bag as it is, when I added all that up it struck me as only fair to rate it as what it is – enjoyable! Even the set-pieces, flawed as they are (and boy are they!), are entertaining. Ford comes round to fully evoking the character wonderfully. John Williams score is a peach. Elements of that jungle-chase evoke very fond feelings of what could have been. There is SOME genuinely good stuff in this film. Enough, in my opinion, to give it a ‘three’!

And believe me, it pains me that in good conscience I could only give it that. My attachment to the franchise had me sat in front of my PC for ****in’ ages, trying to find reason to justify giving it JUST a three ONCE AND FOR ALL as a rating I would stand by forever! I couldn’t do it! Four? I gave it Four (and at one point “Four and a half” if I remember correctly!) and that is absurd, I admit that! But it’s not a bad movie. It’s not a boring one either!

When you start trying to review it as an Indy movie, within the Indy cannon, and with that particular weight of expectation, then you and I start to enter into an area where I may well agree with you – as an “Indy movie” it could be considered “two popcorns” and I wouldn’t put up too much of a defensive fight to convince you otherwise.

But trying to review it as both a film (and what merits it brings to the table) AND an “Indy movie” is where I fell foul in the past so now I’ve got enough distance from it to be able to say that if I’m going to recommend it, if I’m going to speak well of it then I cannot in good conscience speak of it as an “Indy movie”, I can only speak of it as an enjoyable piece of fluff a la The Mummy and The Mummy Returns (which is kind of a subtle snub in itself don’t you think?).

DIE HARD 4.0, for me, was a ‘three popcorn’ DIE HARD movie and a ‘four popcorn’ standalone piece of blockbuster fare!

ROCKY BALBOA was a ‘five popcorn’ ROCKY movie and a ‘four popcorn’ standalone piece of blockbuster fare!

RAMBO was initially a ‘three popcorn’ RAMBO movie and a ‘two popcorn’ standalone piece of blockbuster fare! The more I watch that movie the more I come to kinda like it, it has to be said so I’ll go with ‘three’ and ‘three’ now!

And Indy? Man… I would say as standalone piece of blockbuster fare it’s a ‘three’ and as an INDIANA JONES movie it’s a ‘two’!

And Kris?

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS?

‘Four Popcorns’

FACT!