Bigger, faster, louder. So much worse. Spielberg does his damnedest to drag our memory of the adventure yarn classic Raiders of the Lost Ark, and of Harrison Ford as an actor, down the u-bend in a pale line extension, even failing to find an object of interest for the quest. You knew where you were with God and Nazis. Sketchy aliens in a sketchy Latin America? Blah. The implausibility factor is also cranked up to 11+ as a worryingly geriatric Indy dodges a crack Soviet platoon's machine guns by running a bit and then survives a nuclear blast at ground zero by hiding in a fridge. In the first twenty minutes, for the love of God. Presumably Spielberg intended to induce chortles of incredulity at his audacity, not at the amount of resources or acting talent being wasted here. The habitually excellent Cate Blanchett and Ray Winstone, as the principal baddies, now get strike one against their name. At least the strike count is long over with John Hurt, a veteran big-buck whore, as a loopy professor, and you expect nothing from teen squirt of the month Shia LaBeouf as Indy's sidekick, nothing being what is summarily delivered.
It's even visually uninteresting, the fight choreography scattergun and antsy, the sets derivative rather than evocative, the photography right down to the level of TV-movie flat at times. Could it only be 3 years on from Spielberg's coldly gripping Munich?
3/10
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