I felt pretty bad for Harrison Ford throughout this movie because he looked decidedly out of place for a man acting in a movie franchise that was built up around him.
It's as if deep in the recesses of his own artistic consciousness, he knew that the idea of a fourth outing so many years later as the titular Indiana Jones was ill-conceived.
But the financial inducement must have been good, and "Firewall" was after all, quite a lot of house-and-car re-payments ago. So at some level, perhaps he had no choice but to plod along. And plod he does.
Assuming the heyday of these movies passed about 20 years ago, Spielberg needs to remember what George Lucas learnt with his Star Wars projects - it's OK to re-package an old product, but don't try to sell it to the same audience. Kids today won't respond to Indy in the way we responded when we were growing up - even with the relentless merchandising.
This movie would offer an intriguing exam poser for Film Studies students though: "Is it still considered 'derivative' when you copy your own work?"
Granted Spielberg almost had it though, laying some groundwork to introduce Shia LaBeouf as a new-age Indy. But his undoing lay in trying to re-birth an action hero fundamentally out of step with his target generation.
And while Cate Blanchett was deliciously evil, I have to say Karen Allen's performance is pure fodder for an "E! Online's Top 25 Most Embarrassing Comebacks in 2008" show.
It's as if deep in the recesses of his own artistic consciousness, he knew that the idea of a fourth outing so many years later as the titular Indiana Jones was ill-conceived.
But the financial inducement must have been good, and "Firewall" was after all, quite a lot of house-and-car re-payments ago. So at some level, perhaps he had no choice but to plod along. And plod he does.
Assuming the heyday of these movies passed about 20 years ago, Spielberg needs to remember what George Lucas learnt with his Star Wars projects - it's OK to re-package an old product, but don't try to sell it to the same audience. Kids today won't respond to Indy in the way we responded when we were growing up - even with the relentless merchandising.
This movie would offer an intriguing exam poser for Film Studies students though: "Is it still considered 'derivative' when you copy your own work?"
Granted Spielberg almost had it though, laying some groundwork to introduce Shia LaBeouf as a new-age Indy. But his undoing lay in trying to re-birth an action hero fundamentally out of step with his target generation.
And while Cate Blanchett was deliciously evil, I have to say Karen Allen's performance is pure fodder for an "E! Online's Top 25 Most Embarrassing Comebacks in 2008" show.