To be honest I can’t afford to see movies like I used to back in the day. A date night with my wife can be an expensive proposition and not because she has got extravagent tastes (she married me after all) but because of all of the extras:
Dinner before the movie can range from $35-$65 depending on whether we are at Applebees or Outback. The actual movie tickets can cost almost $20 if we go primetime. Popcorn, Drinks, Milk Duds are about $17ish. Add to that babysitting fees and fuel costs and you are spending over $100 for a night at the movies…cha ching!
But over the last two weekends I did something I rarely do. I double dipped on back-to-back opening movie weekends. Last weekend it was Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. This weekend it was Indiana Jones: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
I really enjoyed Chronicles. It was a good follow up to the first movie. It had spiritual points that I can use for the Dare 2 Share Invincible conference tour next year. I was tuned in from the opening scene through the final scene. But, and I hesitate to make this declaration, I hated Indiana Jones.
There I said it.
Don’t get me wrong, Harrison Ford did a great job in reprising his role as the combative and compelling archaeologist. Shia LaBeouf did a fine job as a whippersnapper whip snapper in the making. And the villain, Cate Blanchett, was very good at being vey bad. But the real villains in this movie were not the old school Communists of Russia but the lame writers of the movie screenplay. Indy should have hunted them down instead of the Crystal Skull and given them a good shellacking.
Please don’t misinterpret. I am a HUGE Indiana Jones fan. I really wanted this movie to be great. In the first thirty minutes of the movie I thought that it could be. The next thirty minutes made me start to doubt. Doubt turned into resignation over the next 1,800 seconds. The last cringe-inducing, please-don’t-go-there segment made me want to reach through the screen, grab Spielberg by the lapel and ask him, “Why? Why? Why?” The director of E.T. should go home, sit in front of his old school typewriter (the one he typed the screenplay of Jaws with) and bring back a plot worthy of his considerable talents.
If you watched Indiana Jones and liked it then good for you. My wife and I didn’t. Aslan’s roar beats Indy’s whip paws down in our humble opinion.
(Insert cheesy spiritual metaphor here)
