Indiana Jones Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Review

*may contain spoilers*


I've heard the doubts, how can they make a fourth Indiana Jones movie with Harrison Ford being somewhat past his action hero days? Well folks, Harrison Ford as Indiana wasn't an issue, he did a good job and the script played to the fact that he was older. The real problem with this movie was one minor issue and one major:


Monkeys and Aliens.


But I'm getting ahead of myself...


First off, the movie was a lot of fun if you're an Indiana Jones fan - if you haven't seen the previous movies you may still find it entertaining, but I know that a lot of the jokes depend on your having seen the first few movies at least once. Still, I am and Indy fan, so I had fun seeing this film. It also added more of a background to Indy's character which was interesting but not terribly relevant. I think the best parts of the movie centered around Indiana's interactions with both his son and Miriam. The kid who played 'Mutt' did a great job with his role and both he and Harrison Ford worked well together.


The action scenes were fun as well, if a bot over the top at times. Apparently you can survive a nuclear explosion in a refrigerator - as long as your far enough away - but that part of the movie was somewhat unbelievable. Don't get me wrong - I read comic books - but coming out of that type of situation without a scratch (and no new superpowers)... well, like I said, some of the action was over the top. There was a great motorcycle chase though, as well as a fun jungle/car chase. I also loved all the tomb and hidden temple scenes, but I'm a geek like that. Overall, the action was decent and allowed the writers to play up Indy's son a bit.


Lets talk about the monkeys then. During a car chase 'Mutt' ends up in the trees while the chase continues without him and looks up to see a monkey in the tree. Instead of just allowing the kid to get the idea to swing in the trees from seeing a monkey all of a sudden there are 30-some monkeys all swinging in the direction he needs to go to catch up. So obviously he starts swinging with them... into a bad guys car.... where the monkeys then attack the bad guys. This was one, ridiculous, two, unnecessary, and three, a waste of money as they were all CGI monkeys. Seriously, I was cringing the entire scene.


The next issue I had with this movie was the aliens. Yes, I understand that an entire TV series spawned from the idea that Egyptians built the pyramids. I even happen to like said series. But aliens as the builders of El Dorado? And at the center of the plot of an Indiana Jones movie? With a giant UFO to top it off?? What were they thinking?!? It was just too much for a movie series that up until now how been grounded in the world as we know it with a bit of supernatural religion thrown in. Tall members of the Asgard race was just too much for me =/


Regardless of how much the aliens pained me I still had fun watching this movie. If you're an Indiana Jones fan you should still go see it, just know that you'll have to take the good with the bad. This one is about on par with Temple of Doom, we swapped a whiny bimbo for a flying saucer, but there are still parts of the movie worth seeing.