Today was Day 2, and I snuck off to the local theater again to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the 4th and probably last installment of the Indiana Jones franchise.
Well, it should be the last installment.
Look, I’ll be the first to tell you that the Indiana Jone series has been great, but it’s officially jumped the shark. They’ve nuked the fridge on the series — it’s over.
With this installment, the franchise has been moved so far away from Raiders of the Lost Ark, that is can’t be reconciled and carried on any further.
Game over.
I grew up on Raiders. It opened in 1981 — right smack in the middle of my youth. Temple of Doom, with its dark and gloomy message, came out just as I was starting high school, and The Last Crusade came out while I was in college. Formative years, all of them.
Easily, Raiders was the best of the lot, and then Last Crusade, and then the mutt of the pack, Temple of Doom. It should have ended there. Chrystal Skull slides into the list between Last Crusade and Temple of Doom.
I’m OK with them having made another movie. They milked it a little bit more, and made a very neutral film. With the return of Karen Allen and her Marion Ravenwood character, the movie is something of closure for the series. It was so complete that there was even a scene with Indy at his desk, looking at a photo of his dad and a photo of Marcus Brody, and being all sad and stuff. I really thought Harrison Ford was going to turn to the camera and ask for a moment of silence or something.
But this was no Raiders. This wasn’t even Iron Man. At this point, they’re just dragging down the good name of Indiana Jones.
I could have done without the late-in-life love story. I could have done without the ants and the slew of other filler scenes. I could have done without the whole nuked-the-fridge scene. I could have done without the whole smoke to the eyes visual trick. I could have done without the boring fight scenes and predictable vehicle chases.
But what I could have used was someone explaining why the Soviets thought there was a connection between the skull and psychic powers, specifically. I could have used Indiana Jones, Mr. Über Patriot, just clamming up and holding fast to his answer of no, at pretty much any of the times he did say no. I could have used some creativity.
The movie tried to be all action, all the time. It’s just that the scenes weren’t threaded together anywhere nearly as well as they were in Raiders. And a comparison to the other movies in the same franchise should be expected; Raiders is the standard by which all Indiana Jones movies are based.
- I paid $7 to see this, and it was worth it. Not because this movie by itself was that great, but because it is / should be the last one in the series.
- I would probably buy this movie on DVD, but only because I have the other three and because I would want my kids to see the series several times.
- I would not go see it again in a theater.
- I would not — I do not — look forward to future installments of this franchise if they are anything like this one.
- I might tell others to go see it. If they’ve seen all of the others, and are fans of all of the others, I would. Otherwise, no.
- I could watch this movie again in a year.
- I did not recognize Cate Blanchett.
- I think I need to go watch Alien vs. Predator right away, as I now know that to be the sequel to this movie.




















