The Movie Was So Bad it Made My Stomach Hurt

Sorry this is about a month late...I have had some things going on...Yeah, for about a year I had a countdown on my G-Shock Watch for the new Indiana Jones. Actually, in my mind, somewhere I had been counting down for another Indy movie since 1989. So at midnight on May 22 I went to see the movie. I am a realist, I know I am no longer 15 years old, I know my ability to judge movies has grown. I know I can have a picky palette, but I generally go into summer movies with tempered expectations. For instance, The Phantom Menace wasn't great, Binks stunk, and there were things in it that were honestly less than perfect. I knew I wan't going to be blown away like I had been when I was a little boy...But I still remember walking out of Episode 1 excited enough to see it 3 more times on that 1st day. Sure, I wanted it to be better than it was...But, it was still a Star Wars movie. It didn't have a cool Han Solo character, it had a kid actor that delivered a weak performance but what are you gonna do? Even if it wasn't perfect I say a less than perfect Star Wars movie is still better than 80% of other movies. I mean, it is kinda like pizza: Pizza is pretty good no matter what...even if it is bad pizza, it is still PIZZA.

So with that mentality I went into the the Indy movie. Without telling you every time I bailed the movie out in my mind in the first hour I will tell you the exact moment when I couldn't take it any more. When Mutt (Shia LeBeouf) started swinging with monkeys!!! Done! That's it! Even though Lucas likes dumb stuff like that from time to time, I thought Spielberg would not let it go so far. Spielberg is good enough friends with Lucas to say, "C'mon man? Seriously George? You want me to have Indy's son swing with monkeys?" But Spielberg didn't. And it all fell hard from that point. I can live with the aliens, I can live with ridiculous Russian bad guys. Truth be told, I actually like Shia, I think he is a great young actor. But seriously how bad was Marion Ravenwood? John Hurt (Ox) What? How forced was the love story? Did anyone even care about any of these people?

Honestly, if I today watched Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time in my life at my age I might make fun of the melting face and the special effects at the end, but other than that that movie is almost perfect! It is almost 30 years old and it is still crazy good. There is no crappy acting, there are no stupid plot points. It is nearly two straight hours of chases, stunts, and action with a purpose that all moved the plot of the movie forward. Either Indy gets the Ark or the NAZIs do and Hitler takes over the world. On the other hand, Indy IV was all over the place and it didn't make me care who found a crystal skull for one second. By the end I was just saying someone find the Skull so I can get out of this theater. Indy was a total let down!!!

I was sad the next day. My stomach actually had some pain. Was it because I wanted the movie to be good and it wasn't? Had I not had enough sleep? Were the lingering effects of the film sitting so bad with my mind that a natural byproduct of my distaste was manifesting itself in a wicked stomach ache? Actually no! Turns out my appendix was the reason my stomach hurt. In less than 24 hours the pain in my stomach would become unbearable, my appendix would burst, be removed and I would spend a week in a California hospital. So that is why my stomach hurt...but, nevertheless, take it from me: Indy IV is a really painful movie experience with or without a ruptured appendix.