My first movie premiere night! I have ALWAYS been a HUGE fan of Indiana Jones and own the triology. This movie is not in the class as the originals. The movie is about a “B”. Harrison Ford was able to pull off Indiana Jones again. I was happy to see he looked the proper age. Shia is a welcome addition to the series, he would be a great choice for #5 with him taking over the lead role and Harrison doing the Sean Connery.
I liked the move from Nazi to Russians and for the time period seems believable. But what keeps this movie from being a classic is the Aliens, just doesn’t fit with the other movies…aliens…the 4th film is about aliens. Several cgi scenes are unbelievable bad should have been removed from the plot…the chase thru the jungle, rocket sled, nuclear blast and motorcycle chase. No need to go into detail, those cgi scenes added no value. Indy and Marion relationship was clearly under-developed. There could have been a better connection with ‘Mutt’ jones his son.
It appeared Indy had to many people as side kicks…the girl, the kid, the friend, the traitor. I liked the movie but thought it should have been smarter, should have stayed true to the originals with religious artifacts plots not aliens. If you remove the previous 3, this movie struggles. If you didn’t have Harrison Ford…well thats another story. I probably won’t watch the movie again but it is great to see Harrison as Indy again …so watch it just for that but don’t expect a classic film.