rivers_bend

Subject line courtesy of the man in front of me in the queue who was so excited that he couldn't remember the title, nor figure that the ticket seller would probably know what he meant if he'd just said "Indy". *g*

Minor casting spoilers (none that might be relevant to any plot points) and reactiony, but no film spoilers,

First, I would like Cate Blanchette to be in everything please. Especially things with Shia. For they are AWESOME together. I can kind of imagine him fangirling all over her on the set, but in a way he thinks is subtle, and her wanting to pet him because he's so adorable. Not that I actually think this happened, but I like to pretend *g*

I want to go back and watch the earlier ones now, but from what I remember, they did a much better job of evoking the 50s for this one than they did the 30s/40s/20s in the others. At the same time, they had kick-ass women and a fairly modern sensibility about gender roles. You know, for an action-adventure movie. You have to leave your disbelief at the door, or the parking lot if possible, but that isn't unexpected. It had National Treasure levels of WTFery at times, but while everyone involved in NT seemed aware of that, I kind of got the feeling that this was taken a bit more seriously. It wasn't enough to harsh my squee, but I really do recommend not looking for logic or for obeisance to be paid to any laws of physics.

There are some fantastic stunts, some great model work (and some not so great), and the actors have great chemistry. Shia is ridiculously hot/cute/pretty. There are in-jokes, joke-jokes, and Cate cracked me up on more than one occasion. It's half sequel, half homage. But it's been YEARS since I saw any of the others, and I did just fine.

It's not the best film I've seen of the genre, but I wasn't disappointed, and if the 'rents or a friend wants to go and see it, I'd go again.

As to the trailers... anyone out there have an opinion on whether I would need to see Hellboy in order to enjoy Hellboy II? And is Hellboy any good? I have gone from having no desire to see Hancock to having lots. I'm glad the new Star Wars movie is animated. Unless that was an ad for a video game. It was really rather hard to tell. The pixar robot movie looks cute. If I NEVER see another preview for Kung Fu Panda it will be too soon.