Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

[kalkamel]

This is my review with lots of SPOILERS. If you don't want to be spoiled, don't read on, TURN BACK NOW
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Note: Earlier today I posted a review of this movie which was sort of mixed, but mostly favouring it, even placing it third after Raiders, Crusade and before Temple of Doom in my list of fave Indy flicks. Perhaps it was too soon after watching the movie or maybe it was that inner voice inside me really wanting to like this movie. Well, a few more hours have passed and the reality has finally sunk in. What follows is my true feelings and review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.


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As most of you know, I live and breathe Indiana Jones. I'm a member of both the Club Obiwan and the Indy Lounge forums. I collect the props (you can see them currently on display at the Outpost), even make some of them myself. I have the screen accurate costumes and hats, I have numerous reference materials and books on the original trilogy and I memorize every line of dialogue in Raiders and Last Crusade. These are my two favourite movies (in that order) in the Indy trilogy with Temple of Doom being third... the deadly combination of Willie Scott and Short Round kinda spoils it for me. I saw Crusade several times in the theater during its run in the late 80s and when it ended, I longed for another Indy movie.

Throughout the years since Crusade, there were many talks of making a fourth movie. There were frequent discussions on the Indy forums as to what adventure would be featured in this fourth movie. Everything from Atlantis to the ark again was possible. Then Lucas and Spielberg announced that Indy IV was indeed in development and that Lucas had found a McGuffin worthy enough for an Indy adventure. I was excited.

Many (including myself) was worried that this Indy comeback might have been a little too late. After all, Harrison Ford is 65 years old. So in order to account for Indy's ageing, the period had to be adjusted to the 50s instead of the 30s like in the original trilogy. That meant no Nazis. I don't know about you guys but to me, the Nazis will always be Indy's arch-nemesis.

When it was announced that Shia LeBoeuf was cast, I thought to myself "Oh God... Spielberg and Lucas are gonna f*ck this up bigtime!". I was afraid of another Short Round annoying sidekick repeat. Then came the rumors of Area 51 and aliens, and I was really me worried. Indy's niche has always been the supernatural occult ("Professor of Archaeology. Expert on the occult and how does one say it? Obtainer of rare antiquities"), not sci-fi.

Then the behind the scenes videos srated appearing on the official site. Adventurebilt's Steve Delk was announced as the hatters for the new movie and I was happy for him; I have one of Steve's masterpiece and I've corresponded with him on email several times while waiting for it. I was a bit miffed that they didn't ask Peter Botwright and Wested to do the jackets and instead went to Tony Nowak.

Then the official one sheet image came out with that alien looking skull and I became a nervous wreck! What is happening to my favourite franchise??

So today I walked into the theater to watch the fourth instalment of Indiana Jones' adventure, not putting my hopes too high. The verdict?

As I mentioned in my fore note, I really wanted to like this movie and that influenced me in rating this flick immediately after viewing. Now, that no longer clouds my mind. My honest take is this: finally the Indy fan knows how the Star Wars fan felt after the Phantom Menace was released.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has got to be the most non-Indy Indy film ever made.

Sure there were some Indy moments. The warehouse scene, especially when they enter it, with the Ark theme playing creepily. I was hoping that the Russians were looking for the Ark, but no dice (though there is a nice surprise). The pics of Henry Sr and Marcus on his desk was a nice and sad touch. Indy looking un-amused while Mutt was chuckling after the Russians crashed into Brody's memorial was a throwback to the Crusade motorcycle chase scene. And Indy saying "I've got a baaaad feeling about this" was a nice throwback to Han Solo. The scene in the sandpit with the snake made me chuckle.

But these are mere homage to earlier movies. Its like Spielberg and Lucas were trying to invoke our love for the original trilogy in order to persuade us into thinking this movie was worthy enough of the name Indiana Jones. Well, it didn't work.

The most obvious failure in this movie is the McGuffin, i.e. the Crystal Skull. I seriously don't know what possessed Lucas into thinking this McGuffin was the clincher. I mean, Indy and aliens? What's up with that? The movie started out decent enough, but when the Russians recover the crate they were looking for and open it to find an alien carcass, I thought to myself, "oh god, no!". My worst fear is realised.

My next complaint is Indy himself. One characteristic of Indy that we love from the original trilogy is his cockiness. But here, he seemed to have mellowed... a lot. Sure people get mellow with age, but this is Indy! We like cocky Indy, not boring Indy! And the Russians. Definitely lacking the great bad guy vibe, unlike the Nazis. We hate Toht in Raiders and Vogel in Crusade... classic! Here we get Cate Blanchett as Spalko with a bad Russian accent. Lame.

And there were more loopholes in this movie in our local legislation.

The graveyard ninjas? Who were they?

The Mayans coming out of the temple cracks? What's their story?

The triple agent deal with Mac... was that really necessary?

The great power sought by the Russians at Akator? What was it actually? Being sucked into a vortex and taken away?

The Mutt grapevine swinging sequence had me shaking my head. What? No Tarzan yell?

That whole ending scene with Akator collapsing felt too Mummy Returns for me (some of the people in the theater said the same thing). In fact, this movie seemed to rip The Mummy quite a lot. Take the big giant ants sequence. They swallowed a guy whole same way the scarab beetles swallowed their victims in The Mummy.

And a flying saucer in an Indy movie? What the f*ck??

When the fedora blew to Mutt's feet at the end and he tried to put it on, I was saying "No! No! No! No! No!" Luckily, that didn't happen.

I waited 19 years for this and was seriously disappointed. This was a movie that should have never been made.

[kalkamel]

Even after a second viewing (a free ticket I might add), there's just no saving this film.

It is beyond lame.

It is an ABOMINATION.

For me, Indiana Jones only had three adventures; Raiders, Temple and Crusade. Crystal Skull never existed.

[nihilusgs]

I admit,I chuckled a bit at the vines. XD

Did you notice the Ark in the box during the warehouse scene?

[vkkf1977]

Kal,
I don't blame you. I may not be a true and true fan of Indy, but I certainly cringe with the alien thing. I think they were trying to play with Area51 and what goes along with it, but it's gotten too fantastic, one that goes unbelievable. The rest yes, this one no...

The scene that really bug me the most? The Tarzan thing. I was just staring and how ... stupid and I really mean STUPID can it get! I know in Indy we suspend a little disbelieve, but this is one scene I just couldn't swallow...

But I do love the part where he finds out that he's the daddy! The look on his face... and yes, the snake scene. How can 1 forget that. Truly priceless... and disappointing... too disappointing...

[tylerdurden]

Kalkamel,

I feel your pain, brother.

I too, am a hardcore Indy fan. In fact, the first time I went to watch “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, I was actually dressed in an Indy costume. Unsurprisingly, I got quite a few bemused looks & giggles.

So needless to say, it was impossible to not have some degree of anticipation and expectation about it. Though I'd already braced myself for a bumpy ride, with the knowledge of the stuff Lucas had insisted upon, the lacklustre early test screenings, etc.
Even then, when the end credits rolled, my immediate reaction was... a deep sense of heartbreak.

I mean, I actually took off my fedora, as people at funerals tend to do as a mark of respect. Because it felt like as if a good friend had died. And along with it, a part of me.

The part of me in childhood that used to play the film over and over again on the family VHS, then over and over again in my mind, reliving the glorious adventures of Dr. Henry Jones, Jr.

That sense of innocent joy and adulation had died in the mire of poorly-used CGI, unnecessarily convoluted scripting, and a climax that was thoroughly uninvolving (for both the protagonist and the audience).

Now, let me pull back a little bit and qualify my reactions to “Crystal Skull”. I’ve had the benefit of watching it a second time, to put things in perspective. Unfortunately, my feelings were pretty much the same, save for a few things that didn’t seem as grating upon another viewing.

On the whole, I think “Crystal Skull” is HALF a good movie. Specifically, the first half. Most of my negativity and disappointment about the movie stems from the 2nd half.

What's good about the first half? Quite a lot, actually.

“Damn, I thought that was closer.” The scene where Indy misjudges his swing and crashes into the Russians’ truck is still pretty funny, no matter how many times I see it. It’s also a nice nod to Indy’s advancing years. He’s no longer as nimble and sharp as he used to be, and he’s still coming to terms with the fact.

That iconic shot of Indy standing against the nuclear mushroom cloud. It’s both spectacular and eerie at the same time, and a perfect summation of the 50's milieu the filmmakers chose to place him in.

Speaking of the 50's, I absolutely enjoyed and embraced the setting (More on that later).

Contrary to most screen heroes, Indiana Jones is one of those characters that actually gets BETTER as he ages, because experience informs and defines him. Of course, I would have liked to have seen more of the character in his prime, but I think there's definitely a place for an older, wiser, and a more wistful Indy.

2 scenes perfectly capture this: when Indy gazes at the photos of his loved ones who have since passed on, his colleague remarks that they've reached an age "where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away". So poignant, and so subtly mirrored by Harrison Ford's look of loss.

Then later, in the scene where he's about to board the train: He's lost his job, he's all alone, and that expression on his face betrays the weight and the price of a life spent adventuring. To me, this was one of the most emotionally-charged moments in any of the Indiana Jones films. And it would never have worked with a younger, cockier Indy.

Back to the 50's. Here, Spielberg really gets it right. The clothes, the music, the social and political climate. And the visual style that cinematographer Janusz Kaminski paints with is mostly spot on. At the onset blatantly candy-coated (the fake suburb in "Doomtown", the diner scene), then cold and metallic as the movie wears on. It's certainly a departure from Douglas Slocombe's gorgeously rich style, but it fits right in with the feel of the era, a dichotomous period of optimism (post-World War 2 economy was booming) and paranoia (the reds, nukes & McCarthyism).

Which brings me to the whole bit about the aliens. Now, lots of people had problems with it. I didn’t. Again, this is in keeping with the whole 50’s sensibility. Pop culture of the time was steeped in tales of little green men, flying saucers and inter-planetary war. Sure, you could look at it as a metaphor of the American’s fear of Communism. But why be so academic? The 50’s were a veritable science-fiction goldmine. B-movies, comics, pulp novellas, oh my. Most of them were irredeemably cheesy by any standard, but they were also tons of fun.

So not only do I NOT have a problem with this Indy movie departing from the realm of the supernatural, I applaud Spielberg & Co for paying due homage to 50’s sci-fi.

Unfortunately, it’s HOW that they chose to use this material that proved to be the movie’s major fatal flaw. As if realizing that extraterrestrial mythology would be an unnatural fit for our “expert on the occult and obtainer of rare antiquities”, they transplanted it to another character, Dr. Oxley. But he’s not actually a character, he’s a plot device; a cipher whose sole function in the movie is to spout cryptic mumbo-jumbo. Big mistake Number 1: Notice how the whole film grinds to a screeching halt right about the halfway mark. The entire camp scene is comprised of incessant---and none too engaging---chatter. You could have skipped this entire scene and not really missed anything important, not even the revelation that Mutt is Indy’s son. Because in the age of the internet, we already found out long ago!

But back to my earlier point. Big mistake Number 2: Indy has always been the guy who knows his Shit. And if he doesn’t know, he’ll figure it out somehow. This time, Indy doesn’t even believe in, much less know what the heck’s going on with all this alien stuff. So he spends the rest of the film consulting a looney non-entity. Which in effect, relegates Indy to the sidelines. This pretty much neuters the character’s power, as it makes Indiana Jones appear utterly clueless and worse, unassured.

Even more unforgivable is the climax where Indy is reduced to little more than a spectator in his own movie. Big mistake Number 3: He does very little of consequence, and has little bearing on the ultimate outcome. One could argue, he didn’t do much at the climax of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” either, he just shut his eyes and let God handle the bad guys. Yeah, but at least Indy KNEW what was at stake and what to do to save their own lives. Here, it’s almost by accident that he even makes it out alive.

Big Mistake Number 4: the CGI. Now, I’m not one of those loser fanboy-types who detest everything about Computer Generated Imagery. Like stop-motion animation or matte paintings, CGI is a tool, a means to an end. Poor CGI is no more or less jarring than poor old-school techniques like rear-projection (eg: the Zeppelin scene in “Last Crusade”) or miniatures (the mine car chase in “Temple of Doom”).

But there IS a fundamental difference between the examples I listed and the use of CGI in “Crystal Skull”. The old effects techniques were all physical, in one form or another. Miniatures require puppets painstakingly manipulated frame-by-frame. And even with rear projection (a precursor to greenscreen), the actors are required to interact with physical objects within a physical space. So in that sense, it’s all still “real”.

Contrast that with CGI monkeys or CGI ants swarming all over the characters. I’m sure there’s a way to make it totally convincing, but they sure failed to achieve that here. But the bigger sin is that the over-reliance on CGI has robbed the action sequences of their vitality. Their sense of peril. In “Raiders”, when you saw Indy being dragged under a truck, it was for real. It was a stunt double, but the guy was actually in the dirt, being pulled along at 35 miles an hour.

When you try to replicate this with CGI, the eye can somehow tell it’s being conned. Example? The dueling vehicles along the edge of the jungle cliff. One look and you know there is no cliff, so no danger, and thus, no suspense. I ain’t suggesting they should’ve dangled Harrison Ford from a cliff’s edge for real, but the need to top the last stunt has led to increasingly outrageous set pieces which necessitate executions that could only be safely realized in the computer.

CGI also tends to conflict with Spielberg’s directorial approach to stunts, especially in the Indy series. The man’s like a jazz artiste, always improvising, always coming up with new gags on the spot. This sort of spontaneity can never sit at ease with a tool as cold and calculated as CGI. Indiana Jones was all about the gleeful “making it up as I go” unpredictability. CGI is carefully planned right down to the last pixel.

Also, I felt the movie suffered from having too many characters with little to contribute. Why did we need the character of Mac? Because Indy didn’t have enough sidekicks? Just so there could be the added “dramatic tension” of double/triple-crossings? Yippee. Without him, I think Indy would’ve had more breathing room, and therefore much more chance to shine. Even Marion comes across as an afterthought. Karen Allen seems to realize this, so she compensates by over-acting horribly throughout. This is all the more saddening, since she was such a welcome presence in “Raiders”.

In time, I might be able to overcome many of my misgivings about this movie. “Temple of Doom” was also wildly uneven, but it still had an easy kind of magic that “Crystal Skull” struggles to capture. As of now, it rates below the other 3 films.

But having said all that, a sub-par Indiana Jones flick still towers above any imitator (National Treasure, The Mummy, etc). And that’s why I might find it in me to try on my fedora again someday. For now though, I’ll just keep re-watching the trilogy to ease the pain.

[kalkamel]

Tyler, I too contemplated wearing my AB fedora, my Wested and MkVII bag to the first viewing but decided against it. I'm glad I didn't. This movie did not deserve that kind of devotion.

Did you know what was the first thing I did when I got back home after that viewing? I put on Temple of Doom. For many many years, this "prequel" to Raiders had been my least favourite of the Indy films so I thought now that I'd watched Crystal Skull, would I still choose Skull over Dooom? You know what? Temple of Doom was waaaaaaay better than Crystal Skull! I had newfound appreciation for it, I kid you not! Indy in Temple was brash and cocky; his retorts to Willie reflects this. The conveyor belt fight with the Thugee guard was awesome. The suspension bridge scene... no scene in Crystal Skull could ever match that. I even hummed "Anything Goes"a few hours after watching the movie! lol

Which brings me to one thing. In Crystal Skull, the audience just doesn't feel that there's any grave danger or threat at all. The stakes weren't high enough. In Raiders, the stakes were high, and familiar: Hitler wants the Ark of the Covenant to rule the world. As Marcus Brody put it, "The army which carries the Ark before it is invincible."

With this in perspective, the audience immediately realizes emotionally how high the stakes are. The beginning of the movie establishes Indy and Belloq's mutual hatred, and that Belloq would not hesitate to kill Indy (he signalled this to the Hovitos). Again, the stakes are clear. Throw in a couple of Hitler nasties, and you've got a nice set of clear bad guys with clearly high stakes on the line.

In Temple of Doom, when Indy et al arrives in the Mayapore village, the stakes are spelt out by the village shaman. The Sivalinga stone stolen from the village has caused it a lot of suffering and an evil power has reemerged in Pankot Palace. We see Mola Ram and his band of Thugees and we know these guys are bad news; Mola Ram can rip your still beating heart out.

Same thing with Crusade, which undoubtedly rips off the same generic formula from Raiders. You can Indy vs the Nazis, this time for the Grail. A Henry Sr puts it "The quest for the grail is not archaeology, it's a race against evil. If it is captured by the Nazis, the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the earth." The stakes don't get any clearer than that.

Crystal Skull had none of that. The stakes: were they really that high? Not really, at least I wasn't convinced that it was. I mean whosoever brings the Skull to Akator will gain power? What power? No exposition on that. Of course in th end we see what that power is of course... the skull guys will thank you by putting your eyes on fire and then suck you to oblivion.

Col. Dr Irina Spalko was not really a bad guy, was she? She wasn't any threat at all, except of course with her horrible Russian accent. Her Russian comrades? Meh. You see them helping Indy out with the gunpowder and shot gun shells in the beginning, then you see them dancing outside their tents deep in the Amazon, and then you see the big Russian dude actually getting annoyed with Indy and Marion's bickering! If he was really a bad guy he would pop a cap in Marion's head the way Donovan pop a cap in Henry Sr in Crusade. There was no clear bad guy in the film. This is the fundamental flaw. The stakes aren't high, there's no clear bad guy, and so the audience isn't invested. The film lacks any emotional heart. When the stakes are high, the audience is engaged, and those otherwise stupid moments of comedy are welcome reliefs from the ever-present tension (like Temple of Doom). Without the tension, they're just stupid moments.

Also, in all three movies of the Original Trilogy, the audience know that Indy is in grave danger when he does a particular stunt. In Raiders it was the truck chase, in Temple it was the suspension bridge and in Crusade it was the tank chase. That's because each of these stunts were performed by real stuntmen, no CGI. It looks real because it is real.

In Crystal Skull, Indy was never in any REAL danger because most of the stunts were CGI. Take the chase along the cliffs for example. Blatantly CGI. The audience were never on the edge of their seats because we know that its all computer generated.

Ultimately it is the McGuffin that really spoilt this flick for me. Had they done a story around the real 13 Crystal Skulls (one of which is the Mitchell-Hedges skull) and their prophecy that they will only all be found if mankind is in a grave situation, it would have been far more interesting than that involving an alien skull. As I've said earlier, Indy's niche is the supernatural and occult. Once you try to mix the genres and have Indy involved in a sci-fi based plot, you're bound to end up with a lot of disgruntled fans.

I loved The Mummy. And I loved National Treasure (the first one). True, these flicks are knock-offs of the Indy series, but I find that Indy IV actually imitates these two franchises. Which makes Indy IV a second generation knock-off, and a poor one at that.

I recently read that George Lucas is getting another hare-brained scheme of making Mutt the leading character in the next Indy movies with Indy having a secondary role a-la Henry Sr in Last Crusade. Well, to that I'd say no thank you, and a big f**k you to George.

[tylerdurden]

kalkamel,

Hey, look on the bright side. At least now you have a newfound appreciation for "Temple of Doom", right! ;D

But isn't there ANYTHING at all that u liked about "Crystal Skull"?

And yeah, I heard about Lucas' idiotic idea of having Shia take over the franchise. Good thinking, George! In the history of bad ideas, that's the equivalent of replacing Sebastien Shaw with Hayden-f**king-Christensen as the spirit of Anakin Skywalker at the end of "Return of the Jedi"! To me, that was sacrilege, and worst of all, didn't even make any sense! And don't you Star Wars fans try to explain this to me, cos I'm a hardcore SW fan too, so I've heard all the lame justifications before.

Or imagine re-starting the Bond franchise with the son of James Bond! Stupid ain't it?

The senile old man just doesn't get it. There can only be ONE Indiana Jones.

Speaking of the Mitchell-Hedges skull, notice how the script transplanted its qualities to the alien skull. The whole bit about how the alien skull was an impossible achievement because it was "carved against the grain and would therefore shatter", is apparently a feature of the M-H skull. But although some sources claim that tests were conducted at a HP lab that led to this revelation, it's never actually been proven. Very intriguing artifact nonetheless.

BTW, where'd you get your MkVII bag? I used a genuine World War II gas mask slingbag instead (with the gas mask still inside cos I was too lazy to remove it)...

[kalkamel]

Jun 3, 2008 16:24:42 GMT 8 tylerdurden said:

But isn't there ANYTHING at all that u liked about "Crystal Skull"?

Let's see.

The plot sucked.

The bad guys weren't bad enough.

Indy wasn't Indy enough.

Too many prairie dogs.

Too many plotholes.

Idiotic Tarzan and monkeys scene.

Horrible climax.

Well...

I guess there was nothing I liked at all about the movie.

Behind the scenes, though, probably the only thing that I liked was the Adventurebilt that he wore, made by my friends, Steve Delk and Marc Kitter. Nice Crusade bash with a Raiders block. His new jacket by Tony Nowak wasn't at all impressive. Give me a Wested any time of the day. And what was with the MKVII bag sling worn over the jacket instead of under??

Jun 3, 2008 16:24:42 GMT 8 tylerdurden said:

In the history of bad ideas, that's the equivalent of replacing Sebastien Shaw with Hayden-f**king-Christensen as the spirit of Anakin Skywalker at the end of "Return of the Jedi"!

Don't get me started on that... I refuse to accept that under that cool black exterior of Darth Vader is that whiny little b*tch Anakin. And I thought Luke was bad.

Jun 3, 2008 16:24:42 GMT 8 tylerdurden said:

Speaking of the Mitchell-Hedges skull, notice how the script transplanted its qualities to the alien skull. The whole bit about how the alien skull was an impossible achievement because it was "carved against the grain and would therefore shatter", is apparently a feature of the M-H skull. But although some sources claim that tests were conducted at a HP lab that led to this revelation, it's never actually been proven. Very intriguing artifact nonetheless.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, that would have made a much more intriguing plotline. Imagine if the 13 crystal skulls (the real ones, not the alien one in KOTCS) were somehow linked to the fabled city of Atlantis and Indy has to stop the Russians (real badass Russians not Spalko and gang) from reaching Atlantis and activating the skulls' powers... that's an Indy IV that I would wanna watch.

Jun 3, 2008 16:24:42 GMT 8 tylerdurden said:

BTW, where'd you get your MkVII bag? I used a genuine World War II gas mask slingbag instead (with the gas mask still inside cos I was too lazy to remove it)...

I got mine from a surplus store in the UK about 2 years back. Really excellent condition too. Broke my heart when I had to cut its original canvas strap to replace it with Todd's leather strap.








[/quote]

[Hisham]

The meat of my review on my site:

The Good

• The effective feint in the beginning with the hot rod racing with the military truck which gave the illusion of two golly gee gosh all-Americans participating in a quick race on the roads.
  
• A beautiful and haunting shot of the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion.
  
• Smooth Indy moves that pepper the first 3 quarters of the movie, like using the whip, playing chicken with the trucks, initiating the malt shop fight with the college students, the reverse blowpipe trick, pulling out a rocket propelled grenade launcher in the truck... I could go on forever. These made me grin non-stop throughout the movie.
  
• Shia LeBeouf as Mutt Williams. He didn't come as annoying and he played well against Harrison Ford both underestimating each other.
  
• The return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood. She looked like she had fun returning to the role and driving a duck off a cliff into the Amazon River.
  
• It might be over the top, but the swashbuckling action between the vehicles in the jungle was great.
  
• Role reversal of Dr. Jones where Mutt gave him an enthusiastic grin after a motorcycle stunt and he scowls back. Almost exactly what occurred between his father and him in The Last Crusade, also involving a motorcycle.
  
• Even in death, Denholm Elliot as Marcus Brody got a little piece of the action.
  
• A reference to an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles TV series was also mentioned. That was a very welcome snippet in the movie.
  
• True to 50s sci-fi B movies, they never once mentioned the word "alien". They did talk about spacemen or saucer men from Mars, and Kane from Alien managed to spurt out "interdimensional beings", but never "alien".
  
• The obligatory ophidiophobia scene appeared abruptly and without any warning, which contributed to its fun factor.
  
• Scenes that played out well and looked good with classic Spielbergian direction and camerawork to tell a story using moving pictures, such as shadows, unveiling of a villian, surprises in the shots (like the buckshots suddenly being pulled under the crates) and second layer of story told through the action of the characters as the actors are talking boring exposition (the malt shop scene).
  

The Bad

Take, for example. the ending of The Last Crusade where Indy chooses to let go of the sangréal, or Temple of Doom where he forsakes fortune and glory for the release of the child slaves. Those are great examples of having heart in the movie, where the main character has to choose well and his choice might not be self-beneficial but it is the right choice.

However, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has nothing of the sort in the last quarter of the movie. It was like watching a video game being played. Jump. Solve the puzzle. Avoid the traps. Evade the natives. Jump some more. Then they're captured and the bad guys get what they wish for... to their own damnation (as usual). The heroes escape while their surrounding is undergoing a chaotic computer generated transformation. Water carries them out and they escape the chaos and survive.

It sounds and seems exactly like the end of The Mummy Returns.

And of course, the monkeys and vine swinging. Not that I have anything against a bit of Tarzan hijinks in an Indiana Jones movie, but it's just too much of a suspension of disbelief when Mutt does it. Indy can do all these fantastic things because of his implied history (and those actually seen on screen in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) but Mutt's been established as a dropout.

So, yeah I didn't particularly like those parts.

Finally, I like the ending where Indy and Marion finally get hitched, with a fun bit where serendipity gives Mutt a chance to wear Indy's fedora... almost. But when the credits rolled, it seemed forced and too happily ever after to me. No quips. No comebacks. Nothing to remind us although it's a happy ending, there's still some cynical Indiana Jones-eque humour behind it all.

The Conclusion

To summarize, the first three quarters of the film was pure old school Indiana Jones fun, but the last quarter is like watching a video game, ending the movie on an impersonal note.

I would love to see another Indiana Jones movie as much as Harrison Ford appears to enjoy playing him again. True to the 50s B movie theme, I would even watch them if the titles were Indiana Jones and the Atomic Horror From The Deep or Indiana Jones and the Lord of the Undead Fiends as long as they lose the video game like action sequences and not lose the archaeological premise of the character. Heck, having Shia LeBeouf as Mutt around as a foil to Indy (and vise versa) should work wonders, just like Sean Connery in The Last Crusade.

[kalkamel]

Unfortunately, the formula of the 1950's sci-fi adventure flick is not the same as the Indy 30's Republic serial throw-back formula which is precisely the reason why KOTCS failed.

Just because it's the 50s doesn't mean, "Hey, now it's Indy and the Aliens!" would work.

50's B-movies have a different type of formula. If Lucas and Spielberg wanted to do a 50's B-movie homage they should have created another movie with another character instead of planting Indy into it.