LaBeouf Says He Dropped the Ball on ‘Indy 4′

Published by Jeff Leins on May 18, 2010

Last week Shia LaBeouf sounded off about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, admitting he “wasn’t impressed” with the sequel and more specifically “the heart was gone.”  It was quite a surprise, especially coming from the rising star of so many recent blockbusters.  Well, it turns out he wasn’t finished.

At the Cannes Film Festival promoting Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, LaBeouf also openly discussed the shortcomings of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  He told the LA Times, “I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished.”

LaBeouf, who played Mutt Williams in the fourth installment of the continuing franchise, added before taking the blame instead of veteran producers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.  “You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg].  But the actor’s job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn’t do it.  So that’s my fault.  Simple.”

“We need to be able to satiate the appetite,” he said. “I think we just misinterpreted what we were trying to satiate.”

Furthermore, LaBeouf wasn’t the only one.  Harrison Ford “wasn’t happy with it either,” according to his 23-year-old co-star.  He shows a tremendous amount of respect for Spielberg in the interview — why shouldn’t he? Spielberg only made his career — but says the “genius” filmmaker should know “when you drop the ball you drop the ball.”

Surprisingly tough talk from LaBeouf and for seemingly no reason other than a few extra headlines and easy plugs for the Oliver Stone sequel.  I’m looking forward to two years from now when Shia admits the problems with Wall Street 2.  Or, at the very least, his disappointment with the awful Eagle Eye.

What do you think?  Do you agree with LaBeouf’s criticisms of Indy 4?