Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull

So, Susan and I finally got some time to ourselves tonight. We brought Kylie to a babysitter for the first time- she turns 3 months old tomorrow. My sister Lori watched her and we had Zion go to Ladina’s.

Anyways, we went to go see Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull. It’s THE movie to see this Memorial Day Weekend. The theater was packed. And the movie? It sucked!

Now I love adventure movies! I love Harrison Ford! I really love George Lucas and Steven Speilberg. I even love Indiana Jones, but this movie was really not good.

The movie was cheesy, completely unrealistic, and predictable from the first frame: a nice little cartoonish prairie dog popping up out of his hole and looking into the camera’s lense. The stunts were ridiculous, the scenarios were ridiculous, and final climactic scene was beyond ridiculous!

There were some nice odes to 1950′s culture- a la American Graffiti- because that’s George Lucas’ thing. There was an undertone of The Cold War and McCarthism throughout the film as well as a great scene in the beginning involving a nuclear bomb testing.

There were, however, some interesting characters: in particular Cate Blanchett’s Irina Spalko and the next Indiana Jones, Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt Williams. Evey character was supposed to be way over the top and cheesy, so that being said, the acting was up to par.

Some scenes were just too ridiculous for words though. For example: There was a scene in the jungle where Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt gets trapped by a hanging vine during a car chase. Once he does; dozens of little monkeys immediately join him and teach him, yes teach him, how to swing from vine to vine like Tarzan until he catches up to the rest of his party??? To be fair though, that same jungle car chase scene was pretty good until the monkeys joined in.

And to make myself very clear: I love aliens. I love the unexplained. I love UFOs. I love ancient mysterious archeology, but aliens, ALIENS, DO NOT BELONG in Indiana Jones.

The thought of aliens interacting with ancient cultures and influencing them is fascinating to me, but Crystal Skull hurried the theories by the viewer, made them completely unbelievable, and ultimately cheapened the whole idea and the whole movie.

Bottom line: once Indiana Jones encounters aliens, what else can the future hold? Answer: Nothing. See Iron Man with your hard earned summer movie money. It’s WAY better!!!

One Responseto “Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull”

1. Bo Lane says:

   May 26, 2008 at 12:48 pm

   For those who haven’t seen the movie yet … you should’ve warned us about the spoilers.