Monday, May 26, 2008

No time for love, Dr. Jones!

Harrison Ford is the paragon of American manhood. Smarter than John Wayne, more able to read ancient runes than George Clooney, not less attractive to women than his wife, like Brad Pitt. Better looking than Humphrey Bogart. Hairier than Bruce Willis. Not as whiny as James Dean. He has smaller ears than Will Smith (what? They're like wings for his head. That's not normal.). And he aged monumentally better than Sylvester Stallone. Sure, give me your Steve McQueens and your Robert Redfords and your Paul Newmans. I retort with two names: Han Solo; Indiana Jones. Neither of them had to eat 50 eggs, did they?

And for this we have to suck it up and thank George Lucas. Without him, Harrison Ford would be just some extra in Apocalypse Now. Well, maybe he'd have a movie career, but it might be more D.B. Sweeney-ish (Harrison Ford, starring in Cutting Edge 4: Wheelchairs on Ice! Catch it!).

So it is with a grim determination that I ignore the cutaways to freaked-out gophers in the new Indiana Jones movie. I adamantly look past Shia TheBeef swinging from vine to vine with his new monkey pals. And I swallow hard, and applaud the inevitable alien plotline.

Why do I do this? Shouldn't I be raking this 2 hour "thrillride" over the coals, trashing the waste of Cate Blanchett, rolling my eyes at the 1980's-style Soviet bad guys, banging my head against the obvious Indy-Mutt connection?

Spoiler digression - none of these are spoilers. If you can't predict any of this from the preview, you are either Child (who is 5 months old), or an Amish farmer. And if you're an Amish farmer who's been watching the Indiana Jones preview, you're going to hell.

Anyhoo, I can't do any of those things. Perhaps other critics will just add this to the abominations of the three Star Wars prequels, but I can't even bring myself to hate George Lucas for those. Because he made Star Wars. And Empire Strikes Back. And Raiders of the Lost Ark. And he made Harrison Ford. And he gave Mark Hamill his 15 minutes. And he gave Kevin Smith a reason to live. And he put Carrie Fisher in a metal bikini. And he made snakes scarier than Nazis.

So what did I think of the new Indiana Jones movie? In all, it was pretty sweet.

2 comments:

Ali said...

you know everyone quotes that backwards...in the movie it was actually, "Hey, Dr. Jones, no time for love."

ahahaha.

haven't seen the movie yet...am a bit skeptical about the whole alien thing....

DGB said...

Yes George Lucas gave us Star Wars and Indy Jones. But he's also given us Jar Jar, Phantom Menaces, some of the worst performances in Natalie Portman's career, endless boring senate hearings in Star Wars movies, crystal skulls and a character named "Mutt."

The man I used to love is no more.