Breen.es@XEROX.ARPA (07/17/84)
I finally saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom last week. I waited
this long because I wanted to avoid the lines. I saw IJatToD in
Westwood (70mm,THX-dolby), and was not at all disappointed. Large,
well-appointed theatres are a must for epic adventure. Now about the
movie -
I might well be the only person who was disappointed in this film.
Raiders was such a great film that maybe I expected too much from the
sequel. Where Raiders relied entirely on non-stop adventure (a la
Saturday matinee serials), IJatToD doesn't take itself seriously enough
(by seriously I do not mean devoid of humor, rather I mean seriously
with respect to the genre of epic adventure) and at times becomes a
campy parody of Raiders. Don't get me wrong. I thought it was a good
flick. It just wasn't what I expected or wanted it to be. The test of a
good adventure film is, for me, the willing suspension of disbelief. I
had no problem with Raiders (except for the ending), but there were so
many times in IJatToD where it seemed that Spielberg was just going for
the laugh by creating utterly impossible events that I just couldn't
suspend my disbelief. Indiana Jones didn't survive this film because of
anything he did. He survived only because it was written that way in the
script. I don't want to spoil it for anyone so I won't give an actual
example, but it was comparable to a man driving a car at 100 m.p.h.
into the side of a locomotive and walking away without a scratch. C'mon.
All in all, I think it was worth 5 bucks, but I wish Spielberg had made
a serious sequel rather than this campy parody of Raiders.
*****KARATE KID - MILD SPOILER******
On Saturday we (my wife and I) went to see Karate Kid and we both
enjoyed it very much. It features Pat Morita, in the best role of his
career, as an aging Okinawan who befriends a high school student with
problems, i.e.:
1) he just moved from New Jersey.
2) the girl he's interested in has an ex-boyfriend who enjoys
watching people bleed.
Our young hero does a lot of bleeding until he asks his friend to teach
him Karate. This is a typical "underdog gains respect" movie except for
Morita's role. I really think his performance is Oscar caliber. He is
funny, touching and forceful, and yet he maintains a reserved quality
throughout the entire film. This quiet understatement is what makes
great performances. The rest of the cast is competent as was the
direction, but Morita's performance is definitely worth the price of
admission.
-Mr. Mike Turner.wbst@XEROX.ARPA (07/17/84)
RE: IJatToD You're not the only one! Compared to Raiders (and by itself for that matter), IJatToD was an excessive formula movie.