Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: 'Mac' George McHale (Ray Winstone)

Comments for death : Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: 'Mac' George McHale (Ray Winstone).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2008 11:07PM by old bluffer.

While you didn't mention it in the write up, i think it is worth noting the ridiculous number of historic events that Indy was suppose to have been involved in:-

- The Roswell Incident
- The Manhattan Project
- Riding with Pancho Villa
- McCarthyism
- Testing Jet Engines at Area 51

It did have an element of Forrest Gump about this aspect, which was not pleasing. I half expected an Elvis lookalike to appear and be told by Indy that he "ain't nothing but a hound dog".

Also, the references to other films is nice if used sparingly, but every single scene had some reference or other to a Lucasberg production.

That ending was cheesey as hell - i dont want to see Indy getting married and a gust of wind blow the hat into the path of Sheer LaBollocks - he can feck off. It should have ended with the alien saucer landing outside Barnet College, playing the close encounters tune, and whisking Indy, Marion, and anyone else with half a brain cell left to realise that this franchise is dead in the water, off to a galaxy far, far away.

Overall i give it 4 whips out of 10. It tried too hard to be funny and to hard to be clever and ended up cocking the whole thing up.

I've got a feeling the historical references to past adventures were a nod to fans of the "Young Indy" TV series. Could be wrong though, I never watched that.

Quote
old bluffer
I've got a feeling the historical references to past adventures were a nod to fans of the "Young Indy" TV series. Could be wrong though, I never watched that.

To be honest, I think there's a good reason why you didn't see it. I don't know about you, but I never saw Indy has an eye-patched old man spending his days in a museum...



I quite liked the movie, myself. That said, since I wasn't born until after the last Indy flick, maybe I'm just too much of a young whippersnapper. I'd easily take it over something like The Statement any day. It's good but not great and to be honest, that was what I expected from the film. But if The Dark Knight disappoints, there'll be hell to pay...

I did notice that Mac's death did remind me a lot of Benni's death from The Mummy (1999).

-----------------

My DVD Aficionado page!

My reviews at ThatGuywiththeGlasses.com!



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2008 06:30PM by old bluffer.

Good spot Matt, that is my exact feeling (that Mac's death was like Benni's in The Mummy). Mind you, most of the scenes were a pastiche of one film or another.

I liked the addition of the aliens, it was more realistic than incorporating the actual supernatural like in Raiders and Last Crusade.

In an absolutely shameless plug, here is my Indy 4 review - in video form!


-----------------

My DVD Aficionado page!

My reviews at ThatGuywiththeGlasses.com!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/02/2008 11:02PM by old bluffer.

Hey, nice work on your first video review!
One thing that did spoil it a bit for me though was the sound quality, it had loads of pops and what I believe are called "plosives" when you have the mic too close. I'd invest in a better mic if you can, and play some test recordings back on decent speakers to hear the quality. It doesn't need to be amazing for YouTube, but pops are unpleasant to listen to.
How long does it take you to edit the videos and clip art together?

I mostly agree with your review, aside from how good the film is. For me it was a 6/10 film at best - which isn't bad, just nothing to get excited about. I haven't read the posts at IMDB, but it doesn't surprise me the film is getting slated - people just had big hopes for it.

Speaking as someone who has given it a less than glowing review, I'd like to say that I most definitely did not go into the cinema with the intention of hating it. In fact, I was enjoying it fine until well after the "fridge" scene. I can't pinpoint where it started to become apparent that the film wasn't a classic after that - possibly the first lengthy chase near the college.

Yeah, it took me a week to edit it all together because I kept occupying myself with other things (see my reviews for The Invasion from last week). The actual audio I spent a day on. It may not sound like it, but there were lots of gaps and pauses (by removing them, I halved the length). Some of the audio distortion might be because it was recorded online using free call porgrma Skype and my friend was going to fix it but we decided to post it as it was because it had already taken a while. My mic is usually better quality than that, as my voice work in short films will tell you. The video clips themsleves took ages to do. I had to download the trailers and TV spots, convert them into AVIs and edit out the title cards. For the film clips, I had to rip the whole DVD to my laptop, convert the sections I needed and edit those in. You'll notice there's no Last Crusade footage and that's because the latter process takes ages.

The "hating it" comment was more directed at all the IMDb/Empire/etc., who were nitpicking extremely minor details. I have to admit I had low expectations (9 out of 10 times I usually have this) so maybe I was just easily pleased, but I did enjoy it.

Also, if you're wondering how old I am, I am 17. Yes, I do sound 12, but that's how old I am. My co-host is two years younger than me and sounds older, which as you can guess is a trifle embarassing.

-----------------

My DVD Aficionado page!

My reviews at ThatGuywiththeGlasses.com!

I agree with the review stating that Mac's death was unsatisfying.

I truly felt nothing for the character. For me I'd be like, "Hey, if you wanna let go then go ahead. If you wanna escape, then let's get moving". His good/bad orientation that switched too often certainly put me, and possibly other audience members, at an inconclusive emotion towards his character. Thus unlike Elsa (which we can see now Spielberg has tried a pattern of pulling betrayal) Mac's death was nadda. Not memorable in the very least.