Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Starring: Harrison Ford, Shia Labeouf, Karen Allen, Cate BlanchettDirector: Steven Spielberg
Year of Release: 2008
So they drag Indiana Jones out from storage after almost 20 years, dusting him off and sending him back out for one more adventure. Sounds great on paper but the truth is that the original three movies are held in such high regard, you have got to come out with a really, really, REALLY good story in order justify adding a fourth movie in to the mix. ESPECIALLY after such a huge gap in time between films. You shouldn’t just do it for the sake of doing it. There should be a damn good reason. Well, does the fourth film live up to that hype? Not even close unfortunately.
Where do we begin with the flaws in this movie. How about Shia Lebouff? Indy’s so-called son is thrown in the mix here as a psuedo-Marlon Brando “Wild One” figure that one assumes is supposed to attract a younger audience to the film. However, not only is Shia a lame, one-note actor, but he is given one of the absolute WORST moments in film history as he “tarzan” vine swings through the jungle in one of the film’s many chase scenes. Just appalling. Not to mention that he is immediately out acted every second he and Harrison Ford share the screen. If anyone ever had a thought that Shia would take over for Harrison Ford as the lead in the Indiana Jones movies, he must have been hit over the head with a crystal skull. Not even close. Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones is a film icon. Shia Lebouff couldn’t win an acting battle with a big car-smashing robot. As long as Shia has idiot costars like Megan Fox, he’ll be fine. But keep him far away from anything even resembling a classic.
The other big issue with this movie is the whole alien nonsense. George Lucas/Steven Spielberg had said that the previous Indy movies related to 1930s and ’40s serial adventures and that since this movies was set so many years later, it was supposed to connect to the 50′s UFO pulp movies. Problem is what we liked about the Indy movies was their sense of adventure that came from the ’30s and ’40s serial adventures. We don’t want Indy chasing UFOs in the ’50s, we don’t want Indy in the Summer of Love with hippies in the ’60s, we don’t want Indy going to discos with Shaft in the ’70s! NO ONE IS ASKING FOR THIS! Don’t update Indiana Jones! We like him fighting Nazis and evil cults, let it be.
And did we see Indiana Jones hide in a refrigerator and get blown across a nuclear test site by a mushroom cloud? Really, did I see that or was I hallucinating from overdosing on Shia Lebouffs back acting? Ugh.
It’s not 100% bad. Cate Blanchett is brilliant and clearly having fun playing a sinister Russian villian. Harrison Ford is always top-notch. Even as a bad Indiana Jones movie, it had better moments than a lot of other films even come close to. But at the end of the day, it’s just one big pointless disappointment.
Bottom Line: Watch it to say you have, but it doesn’t even remotely come close to the classic Raiders of the Lost Ark.
