Harrison Ford, 65, has made light of his age while promoting the film

 

The long-awaited new Indiana Jones movie will receive its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival later.

 

Stars Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett and Shia LaBoeuf will join Steven Spielberg and George Lucas on the red carpet at the French Riviera resort.

 

Reporters got to see the film at an official screening ahead of the launch.

 

The BBC's Mark Savage said it was "very much in the style of the first three films". "The set-piece stunts are second to none," he added.

 

"There's also a sly acknowledgement of internet rumours that that Shia LaBoeuf will take over the franchise," he continued.

 

Some early online reviews, with varying degrees of authority and authenticity, had been critical of the film.

 

Speaking to the BBC ahead of the screening, director Spielberg said that the return of the fedora-wearing archaeologist had been inevitable.

 

"This was something that the public really asked us for," he said.

 

But he admitted he was nervous when he started shooting Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the fourth instalment of the adventure series, after a 19-year break.

 

"You don't go into any project, whether it's a further adventure like the Indiana Jones films or its something brand new out of the box without saying: 'Wow, what am I doing?" he said.

 

Spielberg tried to make the film using old-fashioned B-movie techniques, rather than computer graphics, in keeping with the original trilogy which made its screen debut in 1981 with Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

 

"I needed to model this movie to become a kissing cousin with the first three," he said. "I didn't want this to be the Bourne Ultimatum of the new generation of Indiana Jones."

 

The plot has been kept strictly under wraps, but it is known that it opens in 1957 at the height of the Cold War, and that the hero is on the search for a solid gold skull stolen from a lost city and guarded by the living dead.

 

Scenes in the trailer show Harrison Ford, now 65, make a joking reference to his age.

 

"This isn't as easy as I remember," he quips. Ford has brushed off comments that he might be too old to return to the swashbuckling role - and looked tanned and healthy walking along the beaches of Cannes for interviews earlier this week.

 

Later, he partied the night away with girlfriend Calista Flockhart on a yacht moored just off the town's famous Croisette.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7406990.stm

Indiana Jones is back - and on form

 

Special effects have been largely jettisoned for the film

 

Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford's dashing hero, was infamously named after George Lucas's pet dog. And there were rumours that the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - the fourth movie of the film franchise - was the runt of the litter.

 

So it came as a surprise to many people in Cannes that the film was so entertaining.

 

Swashes were buckled, rips were roared and sticks were slapped.

 

The film suffers slightly from the mumbo-jumbo plot device of that titular Crystal Skull, but it was always thus.

 

Every Indiana Jones movie has what creator and co-writer George Lucas calls a "MacGuffin" - a mystical artefact that the intrepid archaeologist has to track down - be it the holy grail or a sankara stone.

 

This time, Jones is on the trail of a skull that must be returned to a lost city in the Amazon which is guarded by the undead.

 

It is a load of old nonsense, of course, but the journey is worth the price of admission.

 

Visceral quality

 

All the classic ingredients are thrown into the mix - murky temples with devilish contraptions, ancient pictographs scrawled on walls, and horrible creepy-crawlies scurrying over the imperilled heroine.

 

Director Steven Spielberg has largely jettisoned computer generated effects (much to the chagrin of tech freak Lucas) with the result that the film's action sequences have a visceral, physical quality you rarely find in modern-day blockbusters.

 

An extended sequence with Shia LaBoeuf and Cate Blanchett careering through the rainforest, swordfighting astride two army vehicles is a pure adrenalin rush.

 

Cate Blanchett plays a Russian baddie

 

As ever, Spielberg brings both humour and visual flair to sequences where other films are happy to provide mere spectacle.

 

The film kicks off at the height of the Cold War, with Dr Henry Jones Junior captured by Russians.

 

Like Ford, the character is older, if no wiser. David Koepp's script wisely gets his star's advancing years out of the way early in the movie.

 

"What are you? Like, 80?" asks Shia LaBoeuf, a James Dean-inspired tearaway motorcycle freak who gets wrapped up in the adventure.

 

B movie inspirations

 

Like much of the supporting cast, however, his character is little more than a sketch. Cate Blanchett and John Hurt in particular are given little space to flex their considerable acting muscles as a Russian baddie and a bumbling shaman respectively.

 

Better realised are the little tips of the fedora to previous Jones adventures, and the B movies that inspired them. La Boeuf even apes Tarzan at one point - maybe indicating another film franchise Spielberg would like to resurrect?

 

For the hardcore Jones fans, this film was never going to live up to expectations.

 

One cinemagoer leaving the first press screening in Cannes said: "George Lucas, you gotta stop hurting us".

 

But this is no Phantom Menace or Godfather III. The quality control has been maintained, despite the 19-year wait.

 

And as Indy himself says, "I dunno kid, it's just a story."

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7407209.stm

Yeah should be awesome!

Lot of people are saying they didn't screw it up. Hope they're right.

 

 

:dance:

I'll check it out as soon as its released.