Well, a low-budget movie with big-budget aspirations. That often goes wrong and unfortunately it is also thecase for Crystal Skulls. The TV channel had scheduled this film as Horror / SciFi. It certainly isn't. The film is never scary (or even thrilling) and the greatest ambition is to be a kind of modern Indiana Jones adventure movie.
Good news: some beautiful filming locations, neat costumes, realistic gunfights and actors who are funny at times.
The bad news? All the rest...
There is much wrong with 'the scientific facts' this film presents to the audience. Anyone who watches the documentaries on NGC, even if it's just on occasion, gets a few of the errors out. Two examples:
Pyramids in Bosnia? Hoax!
The engine of the helicopter that fails? You won't survive that.
Logic? This movie rattles on every level! For example geographic locations and distances. The film lets the characters fly around the world, on routes that are often not the shortest, with stops that make no sense.
Or how about politics? American soldiers stationed in Spain who just take control of a private company in Austria. I hope you don't have to have a master's degree in international law to realize that this would result in a diplomatic crisis.
My final thoughts?
Would it not have been better to tune down a few violent scenes, send the main character out together with his younger nephew on adventure and then show the whole as an adventure series for the youth, after the children's programs? Big kids and young adolescents will forgive Crystal Skulls for the flaws in the plot and appreciate its strengths (the locations, the adventure) more. A bit of a missed opportunity.
