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

So we saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last weekend. I’ve been meaning to write about it but have had a million other things going on in my life right now that needed to be contemplated at length.

So anyway back to Indiana. The movie was…ok, that’s about it. Maybe another reason I didn’t write this review earlier is my inability to properly give a review without handing out some major spoilers.

So beware, everything beyond this point will most certainly contain spoilers.

Seriously: Major spoilers below – You were warned.

If I typed out all my thoughts about this movie you’d be reading for days so I’ll just make a list.

Things I liked about Indian Jones IV:

• Indiana Jones IV – enough said.
• They brought back some of my favorite characters; Indiana and Marion
• Marion was always my favorite and no one else can play Indiana Jones besides Harrison Ford.
• They did tributes to those favorite characters that weren’t included in this movie for various reasons.
• Connery didn’t want to come out of retirement and Brody died from Aids in the 90’s.
• Great one liners as always
• An interesting adventure – something you always want to see
• Even if the topic might not be what I had expected given the topic and my knowledge of the topic.
• Marion doesn’t spend ¾ the movie screaming like most women in movies when faced with a challenge.
• This item almost made the whole movie for me in itself. Nothing ruins a film like a screaming blond… they anger the blood.
• I thought there was great on screen chemistry between everyone.

Things I didn’t like about Indiana Jones IV:

• They give up “the big secret” way too early and easy.
• Even though we all knew it was coming I would have liked more suspense surrounding the unveiling of another Jones.
• Too much CG
• Before seeing the movie we watched a great little program with interviews from the cast. One thing that was continuously stated was how they didn’t use much CG. WRONG. Some scenes CG was needed (ants etc) others I swear it was just thrown in there so they could spend more money. It was worse than the wasted CG cow in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.
• Steven ripped off some serious scenes from other movies. If you watch it you should be able to pick them out everything from “reusing” a line to almost identical shots from another film. It was almost as bad as The Messengers, in that the need to figure out where things were from became a game.
• The biggest offender in my book was a comment from Indiana to Mutt about bringing a knife to a gun fight. A line I find to be incredibly similar to a favorite Sean Connery line from The Untouchables. Matt has suggested that it was a tribute to Connery but either way it didn’t set well with me. Plus it ruined the whole scene because I was taken over by my anger and could think of nothing else, I have a tendency to obsess
• Unneeded scene - full of CG (a twofer).
• I won’t go overboard with this rant, even though I could, trust me. There is a scene which is a complete rip off of a popular children’s tale and is at least 95% CG. Not only is the idea of the scene outrageous, but it is completely unnecessary and adds nothing to the film. Well except the chance for me to spend another five minutes gawking at the horror of it.
• Aliens, that’s all Aliens
• Actually I was ok with the aliens I really was. It was done in a way I could stomach… until the spaceship. Insert eye roll here. Didn’t they realize that previous Indiana Jones films worked best with religious relics? Why go so radical on this one. If Steven wanted to remake ET there were so better options out there.

So with all that in mind I’ll buy it when it comes out because it is an Indiana Jones film. But I’ll be glad that it won’t have the privilege of being included in my box set with the originals.