Sarcastic Movie Reviews

Twenty seven years ago, Indiana Jones was fighting the Nazis in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

By my math that means he should be battling ‘The Beatles’ in this movie, but somehow it’s 1957 and the Germans have been replaced by the Russians.

Couldn’t they have at least made it “East Germans?”

Anyway, it’s a moot point because Harrison Ford is now well into his seventies and the only thing he should be fighting is cholesterol!!

badum bum… heeeey, thanks for coming out. Try the veal!!

If you’ve seen the original movies then the big gimmick here is the winking and nodding that’s going on, as everything makes a cameo….and I do mean EVERYTHING.

I half expected “Short Round” to be delivering some Chinese Food to Indy in the middle of a temple fight.

“No time for chicken balls Dr. Jones.”

This is the most convoluted Indiana Jones plot ever. It has something to do with dead aliens, a crystal skull and (of course) an ancient temple hidden in the jungle somewhere. Quite honestly the story makes NO sense (uh… the last piece of the puzzle in the Peruvian temple is from a crash site in the Nevada desert from the 1950’s?!!), but they think that tossing in a car chase into the story every seven minutes will distract you long enough to stop you from thinking.

For me boredom worked just as well.

You can tell that this movie was rushed into theatres because I’m going to point out a REALLY bad piece of editing trivia here.

At one point Indy is tied up in the back of truck and “Mutt” tosses him a switchblade.

Indy presses the button and you hear a ripping sound, followed by Indy looking worried and Mutt saying ‘What did you do?’

And then?

Nothing.

Indy stands up and cuts everyone else free.

WTF was that all about?!!

They must have cut the scene out that explained that little exchange because it makes no sense at all.

This is almost as bad as the scene in Raiders where Indy is on top of the submarine right when the captain says “dive” and he’s still hanging onto the top of the sub four days later after it crosses the South Pacific Ocean!!

Here’s my favorite plot hole in THIS film though.

The crystal skull is so magnetic that it will pull metal up off the floor, and crowbars stick to it like glue.

At one point in the film, there’s a sword fight on top of a pair of speeding trucks and the skull keeps getting tossed from one vehicle to another.

Why isn’t the skull stuck to floor of the METAL truck!!?

Even better, why aren’t the swords getting stuck to the skull everytime they pierce the burlap sack that’s holding it as they toss it back and forth?!!

Normally I’d let something like this go, but they made such a big deal of how magnetic it was at the start of the film that it’s kind of important.

So, as long as we’re on the topic of lazy writing, let’s break down just how badly they ripped off the original movie in this film:

Do you have a ten minute fight scene that takes place on a convoy of moving trucks, filled with soldiers along the edge of a cliff?
Affirmative.

Do you have a temple scene in which a poisonous dart pierces a piece of wood that someone is holding?
Thunk!!

Got any angry cannibal chase scenes?
Of course.

Does Indy risk life and limb getting something out of a temple only to find jack booted bad guys waiting at the exit for him so that they can take his prize?
Hell ya.

Heck, they were so busy stealing scenes from their own movies that they even lifted a classic line from “The Untouchables” when Indy tells Mutt that he brought ‘a knife to a gun fight’.

How do you expect to steal one of the most memorable lines in the history of film and think you’ll get away with it?

I’m surprised Indy didn’t grab a RPG and scream out “Say hello to my leetle friend!!”

But wait, I’m not done yet.

Is there a classic scene in which a bad guy obsessed with gold, finds a treasure vault that is crumbling to the ground, and then spends all of his time stuffing coins into his pants instead of running for the exit?
That’s a big ten four good buddy!!

Ya, but please tell me that they don’t actually re-do the scene at the end where the bad guy activates the ancient artifact and then has his face melted do they?
Fortunately not this time!!

(Ok, I’m lying… YES THEY DO!!).

This was the second biggest disappointment in the history of films. The only way it could have been worse was if Indiana filmed his honeymoon in night vision mode and then stopped having sex to answer the phone.

I give it two out of five stars.

Who do you think would win a fight between “Robocop” and “Ironman?”

Wouldn’t that be a cool movie?

Two robots fighting in the streets of some huge American city, knocking down buildings, crashing into mass transportation vehicles!

Oh wait, that was “Transformers.”

There’s another screenplay idea down the crapper.

Now that Marvel has pretty much run out of the big named super heroes, we’re digging down into the second tier titles.

Iron Man, Ghost Rider, Hell Boy… honestly, how many people read these titles as a kid?

Still, it’s a hell of a lot better than what we’ll be watching in seven years.

Just for giggles I went on the internet to see how many characters are left in the vault.

Here are my top ten choices for super hero movies in 2015.

“Zzzax” (I think the third “z” is silent)
“Rusty Collins” (also a great mixed drink!!)
“Major Mapleleaf” (Tie Domi saves Honest Ed’s!!)
“Wallflower” (ok, maybe this one is a bad choice)
“Hargen the Measurer” (by day he hosts “Holmes on Homes”)
“Strong Guy” (clearly thought up on a Friday afternoon)
“Great Gambonnos” (I dated her. What can I say? She had great gambonnos)
“Freakshow” (another girl I dated… twice)
“Doctor Bong” (he’s going to fight crime as soon as he can get off the couch)

… and finally, my personal favorite:

“Jawynn Dueck The Iron Christian of Faith” (I just want to see him in tights).

I’m getting ahead of myself though. How is Iron Man as a movie?

First of all it’s a comic book, so if you’re going to get upset because Iron Man survives slamming into the earth doing 200 mph, then this movie is not for you.

Iron Man’s suit has tiny super air bags hidden inside and you just can’t see them ok?

Go watch “Fried Green Tomatoes” or something. You’re annoying me.

Also, yes it’s highly unlikely that an international arms trader would actually silk screen his logo onto the side of missiles that will probably kill millions of innocent civilians (unless his name was Donald Trump).

Still, that kind of fake product placement is only slightly less annoying than all of the Audi vehicles being driven around in the movie.

The story is about how a rich, womanizing, weapons dealer gets captured by a group of terrorists in Afghanistan that ARE NOT the Taliban.

They may look like the Taliban and may have sex with goats in a cave, but any similarity end there.

Lord knows, that we don’t want to get on Osama Bin Laden’s bad side eh?

Forget the bombings, I don’t want to watch Starr Jones standing outside of a courthouse in Los Angeles giving us her legal opinions when they sue us for slander.

Anyway, Tony is mortally wounded before he is captured, but somehow surgically implanting an empty soup can in his chest that is attached to a car battery is keeping him alive. Instead of building a missile for the enemy, Tony builds a giant metal suit equipped with a rocket pack and flame thrower (while also improving the soup can so that it powers itself) and he escapes into the desert.

If you’re going to ask how come the terrorists didn’t notice that the missile looked a lot like Sir Galahad, I would once again point out to you that the man is being kept alive by a glowing can of Chunky Soup.

You’re totally killing my buzz. Stop asking questions.

Tony escapes, and decides that he will no longer build weapons, but will instead work on something that will benefit mankind.

No, it’s not a cure for cancer. It’s an improved robotic suit that he can fly around in.

How does this benefit mankind?

Shut up, shut up, shut up.

Geeze, I’m going to slap you soon.

Once you get past that, this is one of the funnest (if Iron Man can survive being slammed into a concrete wall without a helmet, I can use the word “funnest”) summer movies I’ve seen in a long time.

It’s hip, it’s glib, it has funny robots that beep like R2D2. What more so you want?

Summer isn’t about thinking. It’s about having fun.

Just ask “Doctor Bong”.

4.5 stars out of 5.