Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull...Nuke the Fridge and Me While You're at It

My high hopes for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull fell so far, they passed even my lowest expectations for a low-budget B-movie. The latest installment in the Indy franchise is a ridiculous “sci-fi buh-bye” to Harrison Ford in the title role. The movie reintroduces us to infamous Dr. Jones and while many of the mechanizations of the film will feel familiar to fans, the rest is a fabricated, stumbling story of a film.

The film does have its positive aspects, although they are few. Harrison Ford delivers a reasonable performance despite the nineteen years that have passed since Last Crusade. Also, every once in a while, the movie does hint at the classic crescendo of action, bravado, and sly wit that made the first three films classics.

However, in every other aspect, this movie is off the mark. First, the storyline is laughable. I can’t reveal the details without ruining it even further for those yet to see it, but the premise is so patently ridiculous that by the time the movie reaches its climax, many people in the theater either moaned or laughed (and not in a good way). Second, the action is poorly delivered. Instead of the cleaver mechanizations that threw Indy into trouble in earlier films, this movie simply plods along on the prophetic ramblings of John Hurt’s character. Third, almost every actor in the movie – including, sadly, Shia LaBeouf and Cate Blanchett – overact their melodramas to the point where their characters are completely flat and one-dimensional. Lastly, Lucas and Spielberg have fallen victim to the same infection ailing so many lesser directing talents: using an abundance of gratuitous computer graphics to try and save a soulless movie.

Even if I ignored my aspirations for this film, even if I pretended this was the first Indiana Jones I’d ever seen, I would have left with the same impression: this was a great movie not to make.