Thanks for reading my Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull review.  Beware that they’re minor spoilers throughout the review so read at your own risk.

After waiting for nearly 20 years, fans of Indiana Jones across the globe finally have a chance to see a new movie on the big screen.  Wednesday/Thursday at 12:01 AM I had a chance to go to a midnight screening for Indiana Jones in a packed theater with people hotly anticipating the start of the movie.  To my surprise it turned out to be a good crowd that didn’t cause any disruptions.  Before I get into the review of the picture, I’ve been reading several websites reader comments about Indiana Jones 4 and I honestly can’t believe what I’ve been reading.  The past couple of years movie goers seem to anticipate hating movies instead of enjoying them for exactly what they are.  When you compare not only this movie or any action adventure film against Raiders of the Lost Ark your always going to end up being disappointed and that’s what a lot of people have been doing.  Sometimes people make me wonder what exactly they were expecting when going to see a movie.  Let’s look at Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and find out why it’s another amazing but not perfect installment of one of the most entertaining franchises in the movie business.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull once again brings back the brilliant collaboration of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford for another adventure set 19 years after the events of The Last Crusade.  With the return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood, Indiana Jones 4 brings in a new cast of sidekicks and villains.  Shia LaBeouf from Transformers and Disturbia fame joins Harrison Ford as Mutt Williams.  Also joining the cast is Oscar winner Cate Blanchett who plays the Soviet agent and villain Irina Spalko.  Supporting these characters is Ray Winstone (Beowulf), John Hurt and Jim Broadbent.

The one thing that I love about Steven Spielberg and what makes him such a captivating director is the fact that he knows how to set up shots and make them look incredible.  Despite whatever the popular opinion or the personal opinion is of the audience I think it can all be agreed that Indiana Jones 4 holds some amazing visuals in which only Steven Spielberg can come up with, of course with the help from George Lucas and a very talented staff.  Among some of the more delightful visuals for example was an absolutely incredible amazing shot of a nuclear blast with the silhouette of Indiana Jones standing in front of the mushroom cloud, a shot that could be argued as the coolest in the entire franchise.  The nuclear blast alone also signifies the change in era from the last films.  The first 3 films took place in the 1930’s before WWII, that also gave the franchise a more serial feel to the films, but now the change to a post WWII Cold War era changes the feel of Indiana Jones.  This is one of the complaints that I’ve read, the complaint that this movie doesn’t feel like an Indiana Jones movie, a comment in which I find ridiculous.  Although I respect the opinion of others, I completely disagree with that statement.  Of course it doesn’t feel like your traditional Indiana Jones film, it takes place 19 years later!  The character is old, the time is different, the mentality of the American culture is different, the world powers have different goals, and I could continue but to save time that should be good enough.  All of these things are evident and carried out in a very entertaining way.  These things put together makes Indiana Jones a completely different film from the first three but what makes it an Indiana Jones film is Harrison Ford and Ford continues his massive presence although older.  His presence is what makes Indy 4 an Indiana Jones movie and for that alone, yes, it feels like an Indiana Jones film.  The look and the feel of the 1950s is there and done extremely well in the only way Spielberg knows how. 

For the longest time people would be skeptical on the age of Harrison Ford.  Now that he’s an older man, would he be convincing as Indiana Jones?  Kingdom of the Crystal Skull answers that question and laughs in the face of anyone who doubted the vitality of Harrison Ford.  Continuing the physical performance of this actor, Indiana Jones can still kick ass in a fight but also deal with the fact that he is older.  The respective age of Harrison Ford is carefully executed giving us funny scenes and interactions with his new found sidekick Mutt Williams (LaBeouf).  Dealing with the age so well among the excellent execution of the 1950s is attributed to the excellent acting of Ford and the excellent direction of Spielberg. 

A lot of people out in the world don’t like Shia LaBeouf for reasons that I haven’t found yet.  Here in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, LaBeouf character is much more then what first appears but if you can’t figure out what it is by the first half of the film, then you’ve never seen movies before.  LaBeouf’s performance for the most part is predictable with his acting style and personality.  That however is not a bad thing at all because he is very entertaining as Mutt Williams, a character that Indiana Jones sees himself in.  Although Jones is the classic macho adventurer, in his older age and his relationship with Mutt, he starts to act more and more like his father Henry Jones Sr. once played by Sean Connery.  If you look carefully at some of the scenes you’ll see the roles reversed from The Last Crusade but I’m not going to give those scenes away because I don’t want to spoil you too much.  Speaking of Sean Connery keep your eye out for a very charming tribute to Connery and Denholm Elliott (Marcus Brody), you’ll notice it when Indy is at home with the Grail theme playing from John Williams.  LaBeouf has proved that he can keep up with action in Transformers and he’s no different in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  Lucas gave him a very meaty role to chew on and banged out a entertaining and funny performance.

I could go on for a much longer time about the things well done, but I’ll stop with that here by saying that the most refreshing thing is that many of sets were really built and not totally CGI although visual effects were surely present.  It’s always nice to see actors act on real sets and not blue screen backrounds. 

Of course with all of the good things present in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull there is also a few things that didn’t work and could have either been better or cut out completely, starting off with the most ridiculous scene in the movie is towards the end of the film.  So far everything I’ve read is in complete agreement that when Shia LaBeouf’s character Mutt, is swinging in the trees with a group of monkeys…. is horrible.  That entire scene was really stupid and honestly not done very well.  ILM is a great company for visual effects but it seems like someone fell asleep at their computer when working on that scene.  Even if the CGI was good the scene still turns out to be really stupid and interrupts the pacing of the action. 

Another CGI screw up **WARNING MAJOR SPOILER** was the extraterrestrial that was revealed at the end of the film.  Although the space ship departure looked amazing the alien itself was not very impressive.  What kills me is that they could have used an animatronic puppet and it would have worked so much better.  Why you ask?  Because the Alien only makes an appearance for probably 15-30 seconds.  It didn’t do anything that needed all of the CGI work. **END SPOILER**

Finally, the misfire with characters starting off with Ray Winstone (Mac).  Don’t get me wrong, Ray Winstone is an awesome actor but his character was completely useless and really didn’t need to be involved in this movie.  He did nothing to advance the plot of this movie, nothing at all.  Next Cate Blanchett as Irina Spalko: Cate Blanchett is captivating actress who’s extremely talented and that’s obvious with all the awards she’s nominated for year after year, so that being the case she’s fine as Spalko.  The problem with the character is that it’s not rich enough.  There really isn’t anything for Blanchett to work with except look strangely attractive in her bad haircut and ugly jumpsuit.  Lastly, is it just me or did Karen Allen look a bit uncompfortable as Marion.  In Raiders of the Lost Ark she kicked ass but for Crystal Skull she seemed like she was just uncompfortable.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull also had some plot holes, but I won’t get into that.

Overall, if your an Indiana Jones fan or not, you should be able to enjoy this for what it is.  Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a pretty damn good movie even though it’s full of a bunch of problems but what movie isn’t.  People of all ages will have a lot of fun with this movie and kids will love it.  It’ll be a great movie to introduce your children too when it comes to Indiana Jones and from there it will only get better once you show them the first three movies.  When it comes down to where this places among the other three films for me, I’m force to say last with Raider first, Crusade second and Doom third.  Crystal Skull being last in my list however isn’t saying much because I really like this movie. The big difference is the macho-ness that was in the first three, especially the first two, is basically gone in Crystal Skull and that’s unfortunate.  Rating this movie is very difficult for me because I’m so bias to these movies but if I had to rate this just as a movie critic, I would probably say this is a 7.5 out of 10.  That said, for the simple reason that I love all the Indiana Jones movies, my own personal rating would probably be either an 8 or an 8.5 out of 10.  I’d have to see it again to make sure and I will be seeing it again.

-Phil