Indiana Jones and the Rise of the Godless Tornados!

You remember that episode of WKRP when a tornado was bearing down on Cincinnati, still reeling from the giant Lizzard attack, and Les Nessman couldn't find the file on what to do in case of that certain emergency, so instead, he's ordered to use the instructions on what to do during a communist invasion, and whenever it says "Russian" to substitute in the word tornado? Yeah, that one. Hilarity, needless to say ensues. I was reminded of that, today, when I finally managed to carve out a couple of hours to go and see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Geritol Tablets.

As a firm believer in the exponential Law of Diminishing Returns on this particular franchise -- hell, I thought he was too old in the Last Crusade, and being totally prepared to take the shoveling face-fulls of the usually high levels of Spielbergian bullshit* during the action scenes, and steeled for whatever Lucas considers as comedy, I felt I was ready for whatever they chucked at me. And for the record, what I saw wasn't all that terrible, just a bit tired and overdrawn -- even the normally thunderous THX fisticuffs were toned down. Sad. But that's what I expected going in. And the only thing that really bugged me was that the much ballyhooed return of Marion Ravenwood was a total bust as Karen Allen was completely wasted from what I got to see. Which brings me back to Les and those "Godless Tornadoes" -- for you see right at about the part when Indy and Co. fought off the Rooskies, the deadly ants, and took a ride over not one, not two, but three treacherous waterfalls (and I'm not even going to get into how he managed to survive an atom bomb detonation), then found the lost city of whatever, was surrounded by natives closing in for the kill, when the film abruptly stopped with about ten to fifteen minutes to go, the lights came up, and the theater manager informed us that sirens were sounding a tornado warning and we had to evacuate the theater immediately because it was headed right for us! (My home is somewhere in the middle of that huge reddish blob on the map.)

Again, the movie wasn't all that bad; it isn't terrible, I just didn't like it all that much and the last few scenes would really have to be something to change the overall verdict. And yeah, I am a little disappointed for missing the ending -- but the scenes of blind panic on some of the theater and mall patrons as they freaked and rushed about was more than worth it, quite a surreal scene -- but I'm not sure if I want to waste my free pass on seeing it again to finish it up. And honestly I don't think I can say anything worse than that. And if for some reason George and Steve-O decide to try their hands at another one, it's time to pull a Roger Moore and turn the reins, bull-whip and fedora over to somebody else, and somebody really, really needs to give them Nathan Fillion's phone number.