Friday, April 18, 2014

Indiana Jones Week: The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Spring Break Adventure

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Day 5 of Indiana Jones Week and yes we still are NOT reviewing Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. YAY!!!!   For reasons following that, how about another Young Indy adventure?  This time around I thought I would bring us stateside with Indy surviving the horrors of High School, being a soda jerk and dating Nancy Stratemeyer (daughter of Edward Stratemeyer, creator of the Bobsy Twins, Tom Swift and Nancy Drew).  Not too interesting, you say?  How about a Spring Break that ends with a Mexican Revolution?   This is The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Spring Break Adventure.

Father drones on after a few sherries. 

Pancho Villa:  I thought I was riding with men, not killers.  Soldiers and heroes not looking for more spoilers to be spilled.




In February 1916 with Spring Break on the rise, Indy (Sean Patrick Flanery of The Storyteller, Into the Fire, Masters of Horror, The Insatiable, Stephen King's Dead Zone and Dexter) is itching to take his gal Nancy (Robin Lively of Wildcats, Teen Witch, The Karate Kid, Part III, A Deadly Obsession and The Wrong Woman) to the prom.  But Mr. Stratemeyer is busy with the latest Tom Swift and hasn't the time to have the car repaired before the dance.  Thomas Edison's assistant Professor Thompson (Mark L. Taylor of Innerspace, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Arachnophobia) assures Indy he can fix the generator to the car when thugs steals Edison's new battery design plus the prototype.  With the break-in, the theft of both plans and battery swiped and word of German spies; Nancy and Indy try to unravel the mystery.

Gee whiz, bicycles don't get you girls!













The adventure doesn't end there when Indy travels with his father to visit family in Albuquerque New Mexico where Indy goes "camping" with his cousin Frank (Stephen Graf of No Job for a Lady, Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal and 6:41) to Columbus New Mexico for a taste of a good ole brothel.  Unbeknownst to the boys, Pancho Villa (Mike Moroff of La Bamba, Robocop, Cage, Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn) and his revolutionaries had raided the town for goods and supplies.  Indy chases the bandito Francois (Francesco Quinn of Platoon, Casablanca Express, Murder Blues, Top Dog, Nowhere Land and The Young and the Restless) jumps the guy and the two start grappling.  Indy is taken at gun point thinking this is the end when Villa is less than pleased with this petty behavior, chastises the men and they fall in line.
Stirred by the General's passion and words, Indy joins the revolution and carries on the fight to free Mexico as the US forces seethe their way into Mexico waging war against the revolutionaries at the request of the Mexican government.


A few comments to make about the film now.   During the riding sequence, Flanery got to ride Tornado, the horse Harrison Ford rode in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  This episode is later referenced in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as Indy talks with Mutt.

 Mike Moroff's grandfather actually rode alongside the actual Pancho Villa and his aunt received love letters from the revolutionary himself which Moroff inherited.  A true piece of history in Moroff's eyes.

One more Frito Bandito joke and you are off the picture!

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