More Movie Madness

Well, I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this weekend, and I have to say, it wasn't as bad as I expected. Of course, it wasn't as good as I'd hoped either, so it kind of evens out.

My hunch about Harrison Ford being too old to kick ass and chew bubble gum like he used to turned out to be an accurate one. In several scenes he seems to be obviously struggling with the high physical demands of an action movie. However, the screenwriters did use this to their advantage a good portion of the time, purposely casting Indy in an older and wiser role, and leaving a good bit of the physical work to 'Mutt', his surprisingly interesting and worthwhile sidekick played by Shia LeBeouf.

Shia is really the standout of this movie as far as I'm concerned, and after his similarly surprising performance in Transformers, he's pretty much cemented his place on my list of "Young actors to keep an eye on". Going into the movie I thought his role was going to be a lame ripoff of Indy with little depth or interest, but he ran with the character and made it work as a completely separate entity that is interesting in its own right. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but if Lucas and Spielberg do decide to spin this character off into his own film, and rumor has it they will, they may actually be able to produce a worthwhile picture.

The ever-hot Cate Blanchett did a good job working with what she was given as the film's bad guy, but in the final analysis the character came off as underdeveloped and a little bit cliche. Unlike the previous Indiana Jones villains, she really doesn't stand on her own as a character. A little more exposition by the scriptwriters might have helped here.

All in all, I'd say that the new movie is probably worth the cost of a matinee admission ticket, if only to revel in the nostalgia that the Indiana Jones franchise is loaded with at this point.

In the end I give it 7 out of ten lashings.

Now, just for the sake of switching gears without a clutch, I also watched another movie this weekend that very few of you have probably heard of called Psycho Beach Party.

Now, for those of you who don't know, I have a distinct masochistic streak that manifests itself as an intense desire to punish myself with horrible, horrible B-movies. This film is a pretty funny send up to the B-movies of the 50s and 60s, especially the psychedelic beach teenager movies of the era that almost invariable featured scantily clad (for that time) teenagers running around on the beach surfing and getting killed off in strange ways.

Anyway, the main draw of this movie other than the purposely campy atmosphere and ridiculously cheesy dialogue is that those of you who, like me, are fans of Buffy and Angel will recognize Zander (Nicholas Brendan) playing the main romantic lead as a beach bum psychology major named Starcat.

Those of you who are interested in this sort of spoof will find this one entertaining, and there are plenty of cringe-worthy bits of over-the-top acting and hackneyed phrases to keep any B-movie fan laughing.