Indiana Jones and the Targeting of the Demographic Groups You Don't Belong To

Saw the new Indiana Jones movie yesterday, and the short review is "don't see it." Reports that the sequel captures the same swagger as the old movies are way off base. It's just an extension of the brand into an inoffensively marketable, family-friendly action adventure along the lines of "National Treasure." (I saw the last twenty minutes of "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" on the plane last month, and it was legitimately not bad. The conclusion of Indy 4 felt like a stale retread in comparison, with Harrison Ford failing to generate the same charisma as Nic Cage in a similar leader-of-an-ad-hoc-family-unit role. Also, the climax of "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" didn't draw any ironic applause from the audience, although that may have been a function of being on an airplane.) The way I see it there's no point in complaining about this: it's just the world we live in.

It's not Star Wars bad, but any question of whether George Lucas would handle this script with anything more than his customary grace is answered by about the time when Indiana Jones, emerging from a refrigerator that's been launched across miles of the desert by a nuclear explosion, is quizzically greeted by a CGI prairie dog. That is all of 20 minutes into the film, and, again, it is just the world we live in.

There are many parts that don't suck, at least toward the beginning, particularly the motorcycle chase through Yale, although that's probably less interesting if you weren't around New Haven during the filming.

There has been a protest registered against the movie by the Russian Communist Party, which objects to the cartoonish Russian Communist villains. In fairness, an accurate portrayal of late-1950s Russian Communist activity would have featured less KGB meddling at Area 51 and more brutal suppression of popular uprisings in Hungary.