Wonderful character development!

Truly Dreadful Film

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I was dumbstruck watching this. Yeah, it's obviously not as well-executed as the original, but you have to admire the dedication and energy.At the end, after the lid on the ark comes down and Indy and Marion hug, I cried. I didn't cry at this point when watching the original. I was just so touched at the love and passion these kids lavished on trying to pay honor to the wonderfulness of the original.Well! All that gushing aside, anything else? This was certainly a worthwhile enterprise, but I do sincerely hope these kids have gone on to create and wrangle media. It'd be nice to see them get a budget and bring something fully of their own to marvelous fruition.

Like Blueghost, I saw it at SF Indiefest and had a great time.To take stars away from this film based on its technical merits (eighties Betamax, bad sound) would be grinchlike and silly. Sure: when you go into a remake with a $5,000 budget, made by three friends who started in 1982 at age 12 and wrapped the project seven years later, you admire the concept even as you think you just might be in for a couple hours of junk. You would be wrong about the latter. This will stand as one of the most ridiculously awesome successful experiments ever committed to film.They set one of their parents' basements on fire, and (at least as they tell it) the parents only belatedly caught on and demanded adult supervision, which apparently didn't help much in that the "supervisor" was a total pyro. They did the famous truck chase in all its glory. They obtained snakes. Spider monkeys proved trickier, so Snickers the dog filled in. They scored an honest-to-God submarine. What can I say? Bring on the documentary, and the original on video for all to see.

Currently the review meter is at 4.something stars. That is just plain wrong. I don't understand how anyone could see this and give it a bad rating. It's obvious more work and ingenuity went into it than most other actual Hollywood movies. The bar and truck scenes are both exciting and were brilliantly shot and edited...by freakin' kids! There's pyro, stunts, kissing, blood, violence, all that great stuff. How they were able to stay on course with such a long enormous project and have it come out so spectacularly well is the stuff of legend. These guys set themselves on fire and jumped out of moving trucks. They deserve to have a major film made about them.Fascinating and watchable as hell.

I haven't watched all of this yet, though I'm thrilled to now have a copy of this hard-to-find video which I had read about at various times over the past few years. Makes me want to get out my camera and start shooting. I'm also thrilled to hear that Daniel Clowes is working on adapting these kids' adventures for a big-screen film. Maybe their story will inspire the next generation of Spielbergs.I'm somewhat surprised to see that no one else has commented on this film, though I suppose it's a bit difficult to find. My suggestion is to look for obscure film torrent sites like Karagarga, though some probably require invitations. I believe the film was shown in Austin a few years ago at the Alamo Drafthouse, but I wonder what sort of condition it was in at the time. The copy I have is fairly poor -- not unlike something you'd find on a VHS tape from 1985 that was re-recorded over several times. Makes me wonder if they'll show clips from the actual adaptation in Clowes' film or if they'll re-shoot clips using the actors who will play the kids in the movie. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out...