Opening the Pandora's Box...

I was standing in line to buy my cinema ticket to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at GSC One Utama yesterday, something I haven't done in a long, long, time. A young couple slipped into the line behind me and started talking. Being alone in the line, I was soon shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation. (Yes, I know, I know...pathetic, but you hear the most interesting things that way) Anyway, this young couple soon began discussing the selection of movies on offer at the cinema and I use the term discussing loosely here. What I really mean is that they were riduculing each movie and trying to see who could come up with the more disparaging comment. Inwardly I was rolling my eyes, 'one of those' I thought. You know the ones I mean. It's the type who go watch "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and then walk away saying 'oh I didn't like it, it was too much like a cartoon'. Those sort. The pretentious nitwits who have no idea what they like in a film but run it down anyway, because they are too cool for it. Right before I go off on a tangent, let me tell about the single comment that really caught my attention. They soon began talking about Indiana Jones, naturally, and the young man had only one thing to say about it: "Retarded!"
Obviously I was intrigued by this scathing retort, especially as I was stuck in a hellishly long line about to fork out my rapidly dwindling savings for a ticket to see this movie. I was convinced that this comment was just more of the same 'I'm too cool to breath' crap that they were spewing and soon had put it out of my mind. After all, it's Indiana Jones that I was about to go and watch. I hardly expected it to be a goldmine of information nor a fount of knowledge. I had no illusions. I was going to watch a movie that was purely entertaining; like a roller coaster ride at the fair.
I staggered out of the cinema two hours later and only one ran through my mind. You guessed it, "Retarded!" Even with my low standards, it was appalling. It was so retarded that as I write this, barely a day later, I can hardly remember much of the movie. What I do remember does it no credit. Harrison Ford can't possibly be that hard up for money that he would stoop to reprising a role that he's at least 25 years too old for. I don't care how he aged, he's no Sean Connery and he honestly couldn't carry off Indy. The whole appeal of Indiana Jones was somehow gone. His lines were unfunny, his movements were stilted and the plot - OH MY GOD! - the plot was mind-numbingly inane. I hardly think even a twelve year would have been all that impressed with this movie. I know the pre-teen boys in the row behind weren't. In fact they were insulted by the lack of intelligence in the movie. In times when most children are growing up on a diet of series like CSI and Numb3rs, it is highly insulting that the writers ask anyone to believe that gunpowder will float through the air being drawn magnetically to the carcass of a dead alien.
Indiana Jones should have been allowed a noble and dignified death, instead of being dredged up and lampooned like he was. On a side note, Shia LeBoeuf acquitted himself very well in the movie. The boy has oodles of talents and bushels of mass appeal and truth be told, I think his future in the industry is bright, provided he doesn't go the Lohan/Downey Jr. road.

So Indiana Jones was a bust, but there was still hope left in my Pandora's box of sorrows, or so I thought. Last night, two friends and I went to watch "Prince Caspian". Now unlike my naive friend, who re-read the book just last week to prepare herself for this 'event', I last read "Prince Caspian" about 5 years when this same friend presented me with the entire collection. Read them all in one sitting and haven't gone back to them since; in fact, I can't even find the book now. Anyway, that being the case, I watched "The Chronicles of Narnia" and I absolutely loved it. The children were a little stilted in their acting, but somehow, for that story and against that backdrop, it simply worked.
So it was with some pretty high expectations that we entered the darkened cinema. Unfortunately for me, disappointment had to decided to make a day of it. "Prince Caspian" while nowhere near the 'retarded' mess of Indiana Jones, it was still disappointing. I have learned my lesson after the fiasco that was "Lord of the Rings" and nowadays I try not to watch a movie based on a book if I have already read the book and if I do, no longer do I expect it at all to match the book in anyway. Many a well written book has been taken apart and disfigured by the demons 'artistic license' and 'mass appeal'. I digress; the point I was trying to make was that I had no such illusions about the fact that some changes would have to be made in order to fit it into a two and a half hour movie, but little did I expect this. It's like the screenwriters read the first page of the book and the last page and then decided to re-write the bits in between however they wanted.
Unlike Indiana Jones, this movie will appeal to the pre-teens and the spectacular shots, amazing creatures and the fantastic CGI will carry the movie. For those, who enjoyed the writings of CS Lewis however, it will prove riduculously trite. For adults who haven't read the book, enjoy the scenery and CGI because you're not going to experience a lot of first rate acting or even a decent plotline. All in all "Prince Caspian" turned out to be one of those movies which have to rely on the CGI to save it. I can understand that in a lot the original screenplay, but when you've already been handed the storyline by one of the greatest storytellers of his time, to massacre this movie, was a crime, I don't think I'll be able to forgive or forget for some time to come.
Just Me.