You want fun? It's fun

Rating: 7/10 (8 May 2004)

I think it fairest to watch a movie more in terms of what it means to be, than in terms of what I think it should be. (For an example of how wrong you can go by violating this, see Roger Ebert's review of The Fellowship of the Ring, which should have been titled "How I Would Have Shot the Book" [and thank God he didn't].)
But I digress.
Stephen Sommers wanted to ramp up the action, the looks, the story, and the plain old zing-bang-pow. In that, he succeeded admirably. The action sequences are fast and fun, the movie's got bags of eye-candy, the actors do just what they're supposed to do.
You want creepy? See Alien again. You want atmosphere? See Mimic, or Sixth Sense, or Halloween.
But if you want a sort of Indiana Jones Digs Up Three Cool Monsters... well, here you go.
Yes, I wish it had had some more humor. (See Hellboy.) I could have lived, happily, without the friar's hypocrisy. And the makeup on Igor was so incongruous, so 70's-throwback, that I thought it would end up as a plot-point. It didn't; just incongruously bad makeup.
But my oldest son and I had a great time... and that's generally why we go to movies!