Review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) by Gamed2Long — 21 Dec 2013

There is a moment watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when I realized that maybe seeing this film was a bad idea. That moment occurred less than 3 minutes in when way too much time and effort was spent focusing on a CG gopher, that did not look at all real. It added nothing to the plot and just looked bad. Someone, somewhere made a bad choice leaving that in. In effect choosing cheap thrills over trying to make a good movie. There were a lot of things like that because it was the start of a long disappointing ride.

My favorite moment in this film is when Indiana Jones rides out that nuclear blast in the lead lined fridge. He comes out the other side alive and in one piece. Sure he gets the awkward scrub-down after. But he`s not cooked hamburger, which is a testament to how ridiculous the film is as a whole.

I don`t really remember much of the ``plot`` of the middle of the film. Something about not dead-dead people, a crazy friend and indies son played by actor Shia Labeouf. I get they were trying to go for an Indie 2.0 here. Maybe create a character likable enough for a spinoff franchise, or taking up Harrison Ford`s mantle. In this regard they failed badly. His character has all the swagger of Indiana at the end of the original trilogy, without having done anything to earn it. And it makes him extremely un-likable. They should have gone back to basics. Choosing an actor that more reflects Indiana at the start of the first film and show him growing up.

Throw in all the extremely unlikely chase sequences (I know how ridiculous the original trilogy is in that regard, but the setup was better), the intermittent magnetism of the crystal skull, Harrison Ford being ``too old for this sh*t`` and capping it all off with that bizarre out of left field ending. And what you are left with is something so awful it does not deserve acknowledgement as an Indiana Jones film. This is a bad B movie with A list actors, an A list director, and a huge budget.

If one good thing came of this film it is this. Scientists went back and examined the crystal skull`s in the museums, and found them all to be fraudulently passed off as historical relics, when they are more simply modern art.