Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

In prep for seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull I watch all three previous films this past week. I hadn't seen them in a long time. Raiders is still the best and kind of perfect. Temple of Doom bothered me more than I remember. There are some fun stunts but the tone is wrong switching between really childish and pretty disgusting and Kate Capshaw was just shrieking the whole time. Last Crusade surprised me that I liked it a lot. Sean Connery was a little corny but it's hard to imagine anyone else in the role.

So how did Crystal Skull match up? I put it just behind Last Crusade but I think some people could put it ahead of it. Harrison Ford is the best he's been in years, really returning to the role of Indy. The film is of course all stunts connected with some plot excuses. For the most part, the chases are done very well, particularly the first one in a warehouse and another one while driving through a jungle.

My problem was that sometimes they got too crazy even for Indiana Jones. Both of those chase sequences end with really ridiculous things. The first one bothered me a lot and set the tone for the rest of the film. I won't ruin it but I can handle all the bad guys always missing all the good guys, but you'll know what I mean when you see it.

Also I found the major story reveals to be really obvious. It probably would have been better to not know Karen Allen was in the film. She was very good, but you're not surprised when she appears. Also the final archeological site was really obvious to me too, though parts of it were fun. Shia LaBeouf was pretty good as the greaser sidekick and Cate Blanchett was fine as the evil woman caricature. The two hours went by quickly and were fun even if not suspenseful. Yeah, it's even worth full ticket price.

*Spoilers*



Ok, so I couldn't handle escaping the nuclear blast in a lead lined fridge. Just way too stupid. Also surviving not one but three waterfalls was ridiculous. I liked the Area 51 stuff. The group I was with all wondered about why the lamps and things were only selectively magnetically attracted to the box and later were annoyed that gold wasn't magnetic but they mentioned it wasn't really magnetism so we were geekily satisfied. I was ok in jungle with Indy destroying the road making machine and yet there were still roads for the jeeps to drive through, even parallel roads, but falling over the three waterfalls was a bit much. And having John Hurt selectively remember lines just in time to deliver them was too simple a plot device. I just assumed that Shia LaBeouf was Indy's son and wasn't surprised by that at all. I also thought it was obvious the skull was extra-terrestrial and the temple was a space ship. As soon as they started talking about "the return" I figured it would take off at the end and I was convinced when the circular stairs appeared (and then disappeared) around the rocket looking thing (which I guess wasn't a rocket).