I have been a huge fan of Indiana Jones since i was a little kid. I watched the movies when i was around 9 years old and have watched them over and over again many times after that. I even got into these god awful books when i was a little older, written by Rob MacGregor and Wolfgang Hohlbein and so on, dealing with Indy and Stonehenge, the Easter Islands, the Oracle of Delphi and so on. Since i am a bit older now, 25, i am not a fanatic anymore, but i still love the trilogy dearly and was very impressed with the DVD box release. You can understand that i was pretty excited about this movie being made and went to the movies yesterday with a lot of anticipation. Everybody knows that anticipation can be a very dangerous thing. So dangerous in fact that George Lucas felt obligated to say in an interview that people should not expect too much. It was just a movie. Anyway, i didn't go to the cinema to see how they managed to mess it up. I wanted it to be good. Really, really good! Although i liked the opening scene, capturing both the decade the movie plays in and the Indy-feeling with a trek through the desert, i pretty much knew that i would not be exalted in the end about 15 minutes into the film. Call me old fashioned, but after a 19 years hiatus between the last Indy-film and this one, i would have loved a cooler introduction to our hero, especially because they already gave the scene away in the trailer. I'm not gonna ramble about everything i disliked, but i feel that a couple of things that went really wrong have to be mentioned. I therefore will limit my nagging down to three points: 1. The Villains: At no point in the movie you get the feeling that the Russian army is on Indy's heels. It's merely a crazy Russian lady (Blanchet with her worst acting to date, and the most ridiculous fake accent since Costner in Robin Hood) who, for some unknown reason, thinks that she can read minds. The explanation of her, acting in Lenins name, or at least fulfilling his dream, is so unbelievable and forgettable, that she does never develop a real character and stays a shadowy figure till the end of the movie. Her handful of Russian soldiers and their honcho seem like a bunch of outcasts who have been expelled from Russia for believing in crap like a crystal skull. I don't even wanna mention Mac, the double-wobble-triple agent, who JUST WANTS SOME GOLD! 2. The team of heroes: Clearly wanting to copy the team of the last Indy-movie, this team lacks everything that their predecessors had. While the struggling between the generations worked due to an awesome performance by Connery and Ford, the choice of making Williams Indy's son was a bad one. All the cleverness that went into their teacher-student relation before their blood relationship was revealed is taken away instantly and the fatherly feelings, developing DURING an action scene, are just painful to watch. John Hurt goes home with the price for the most unnecessary character in the movie, babbling something that sounds awfully like a walkthrough guide through an adventure video game. And poor old Marion, being introduced in the last third of the movie, does not much more but being the chauffeur, yelling "Indy" to remind us what movie we are watching, and correcting her sons sword fight (wince!). 3. The script: I'm not even gonna try and point out the numerous flaws that this script has, but whereas the previous three Indy movies all used action sequences in order to get the story and Indy from point A to point B, the action in this one seems so arbitrary, not supporting the already weak plot (which is most certainly the worst thing in this Indy movie) at all. When nothing else goes, let's just put some wild natives in there, who live in sealed holes and are simply there to keep the pulse from becoming a flat line. If i had to pick a favorite part of the movie (out of introduction, plot and climax) i'd go for the introduction. Not that it is particularly great, but i rather watch Indiana Jones surviving an atom bomb, than leaving action scenes for LeBeoufs character to take over or watching an alien getting rid of the main villain before blasting of into "the space between spaces" (thanks for nothing, David Koepp). How Lucas, Spielberg and Marshall thought this screenplay to be acceptable is completely beyond me. How bad must the other ones have been then?
All in all, for me, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a disappointment. My girlfriend who never watched the other movies, enjoyed it pretty much, except from the alien plot line. So i'm not quite sure, how much of my bitterness derives from holding Indiana Jones' other adventures in such high regard.
All in all, for me, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a disappointment. My girlfriend who never watched the other movies, enjoyed it pretty much, except from the alien plot line. So i'm not quite sure, how much of my bitterness derives from holding Indiana Jones' other adventures in such high regard.