What can one say about one of the greatest films ever made?
The opening scene with Indy and Dr. Octopus traversing the booby-trapped cave in their attempt to retrieve the golden idol alone is better than most feature-length films. Then you've got the market place stunt-palooza, the Well of Souls sequence, the fist fight with the German around the spinning airplane, the Jeep chase, and the best claymation-exploding-head sequence ever filmed!
Instead of pointing out the awesomeness of everything that is so obviously awesome, I'd rather discuss what makes Indiana Jones the single greatest hero in cinematic history (Atticus Finch my ass, AFI!). Check that. What I really want to talk about is why Indiana Jones makes all modern film heroes look like total pussies.
First of all, Indiana Jones is a man. That sounds simplistic, but there's a big difference between an 80s film man and an oughts film man. Indiana Jones liked to do two things: fight and fuck (not particularly in that order). The problem with modern film heroes is that now they have to be all deep or emotionally-damaged or suffer from some haunted past, but all it does is make them come across as emo bitch boys.
The only emotion a true man should ever feel is horniness.
This bitch boy movement is perfectly illustrated by comparing early James Bond (Sean Connery) to contemporary James Bond (Daniel Craig). Early James Bond was suave, he was witty, he could throw down, he had cool lasers and shit, and he was a walking hard-on. Modern James Bond is all brooding and dark and needs a shitload of therapy. I don't care if he's more like the character in the book or more "fully realized." I don't need him to be "fully realized" to enjoy watching him kick ass for an hour-and-a-half (See also modern Batman).
Next, Indiana Jones is many things, but one thing he is not is an asshole. Modern heroes are huge douchebags. Take Tony Stark of Iron Man fame. Stark comes across as a total asshole, but he's funny so people like him. Why do people like assholes?
Jones and Bond, like Stark, are both confident womanizers, but they never come across as assholes. They're both guys who are going to get the job done by any means necessary and they're always fighting for some greater purpose, never for their own glorification. I think as society has become more self-centered and selfish, that idea of someone who fights for something larger than themselves has gone the way of the dodo...which is sad.
Finally, Indiana Jones has that Everyman quality to him that truly separates him from other heroes of the era. He's not as over-the-top as Arnold. Sure he fights the entire Nazi army by himself, but before he manages to claim the ark he's buried alive with snakes, beaten up by a Nazi twice his size, shot, thrown through a windshield, and dragged behind a moving vehicle at high speeds whereas Arnold kills people without even firing his gun (Commando, anyone?). Indiana Jones is just a normal guy who knows how to get the job done without his hat ever falling off!
The only thing Indiana Jones ever failed at was fathering Shia LaDouche.
BURN!
No comments:
Post a Comment