TOP MOVIES
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull e.tv, Channel 194, Today, 20:00
I’m not taking the mickey when I say this is a must-see movie. Not because it’s good — but because it’s one of those movies you have to watch to see just how wrong Hollywood can go.
The original trilogy was fine; we didn’t need any more — and we certainly didn’t need the unnecessary sequel to shoehorn in aliens. Let’s get something straight, Indiana Jones is about an archaeologist stealing ancient, supernatural relics from booby-trapped tombs.
Could the writers not think of a new one for Indy to chase?
Okay, this farce kicks off with Indy (Harrison Ford, pictured) — who really looks past it now, by the way — being forced by a communist operative (Cate Blanchett) to reveal the location of an alien skull. She wants the skull so that she can reunite it with the rest of the creatures’s remains, which will cause it to resurrect itself and grant her boundless knowledge in return. Somehow, she just knows this will happen.
Of course, they can’t let a commie win, so Indy and his friends set out to stop them. Shia LaBeouf clowns his way through his most annoying role to date as Indy’s bastard son, Mutt Williams. The action bits are also badly handled. The crowning moment is the infamous scene in which Indy survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a fridge, which is launched thousands of meters. It’s one of the most ridiculous things filmed to date.
I could go on forever about this egregious mockery, but give it a watch yourself if you fancy a good guffaw.
Alien: Director’s Cut e.tv, Channel 194, Friday, 22:25
Just last week I mentioned in this slot that the good old monster movie seems to be a lost art. Well, here’s another fine example of what modern monster movies lack.
Alien is a dark, sci-fi classic from 1979 in which a space ship full of mining engineers respond to a distress call from a nearby planet and accidentally pick up a hostile alien stowaway.
What makes it so good? Well, it’s the atmosphere of dread and uncertainty; the fact that we don’t want these characters to die, and the fact that they do actually take intelligent measures to protect themselves, rather than just wandering idiotically into the meat grinder for our amusement.
It goes a long way to ensuring your immersion into a movie when you can think, yes, that’s what I would do in that situation.