Futile effort

The new "Indiana Jones" movie opens Thursday, but chances are that if you're even remotely interested, you've already read a review. This is in stark contrast to the wishes of the studio, which tried as valiantly as Harrison Ford's anti-aging makeup person to keep reviews under wraps (at least Stateside) till opening day. The AP's David Germain reported from Cannes:

In an era of Internet spoilers, fan blogging and online video diaries where filmmakers show off their tricks, Indy returns with the old-fashioned covertness Spielberg always has favored.

"He is the only one in the world who keeps his cards face down on the table until the 11th hour, 59th minute, 59th second, and nothing deters him from doing that," said Jeffrey Katzenberg, Spielberg's partner at DreamWorks.

Yet it's proving impossible to keep this film -- or any other -- totally under wraps. Not only have reviews leaked out about "Indy" -- particularly a scathing one from an unnamed distributor whose negative opinion received big headlines on Drudge -- but we've already been through several cycles of conventional wisdom about the film (it's terrible, it isn't as bad as you thought, it's actually halfway decent). And it hasn't even opened yet.

The interesting thing is that the studio just kind of gave up trying to keep all the domestic reviews bottled up. The invite that critics received for the Sunday morning press screening had the usual stern warning: No reviews should be published before opening day, not even online. And that means you, too, bloggers.

Yet by Tuesday, Rotten Tomatoes listed several mainstream reviews of "Indiana Jones" from its "Top Critics," including from USA Today, Boston Globe, New York Daily News, the Newark Star-Ledger, the Arizona Republic and Los Angeles Times. And it didn't appear that all of those critics had actually seen the film at Cannes. In fact, a San Francisco press rep, when asked about a review from a Fresno press screening, threw in the towel on Monday and said: Go ahead and post.