Well, that could have been much worse. As a franchise, I’ve never held Indiana Jones at all that high a level. I mean there are only 3 movies and one of them is the extremely flawed Temple of Doom. So when it came time for Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, all I wanted was a fun time. And hey that’s what it delivered.
It was nice to see the band back together for one more turn. This is one of the greatest roles in the history of film and Harrison Ford slips back into the fedora like no time has paced. Well, lots of time has passed but Indiana has never been a superhero so watching a man in his mid-60s fumble around and save the day is not that difficult to believe. Plus it is just awesome to hear Harrison deliver all of these lines in that weary seen it all voice. The return of Karen Allen was a big positive. She was always the best of the Indiana Jones females and the chemistry is still there between the two of them. On the other hand, Cate Blanchett is always awesome. This may be her first go around in a big ole summer flick, but she was a great villain. Maybe it was just the fun accent and the use of the sword. Who knows? John Hurt was fantastic in another one of his crazy ass character roles. You need an older actor to play wacked out of his skull? Find John Hurt. I didn’t even have any real beef with Shia LaBeouf; I have no real interest in seeing him take over the franchise but that doesn’t have anything to do with Crystal Skull.
Sadly, there was noticeable CGI creep in this installment. The past films have attempted to film as much as possible in camera. And that works for this type of movie. This is supposed to look and feel like something that was filmed over 50 years ago. Although it was all good work and never came off cheap, did we really need CGI gophers, Shia swinging like Tarzan, inter-dimensional gateways, just overall fricking aliens. I will freely admit that the shot of Indiana standing in the middle of a sandstorm with the mushroom cloud in the background was amazing. The inclusion of Ray Winstone’s Mac also irked me because it begged to be a character that we had already seen. The double/triple agent stuff would have worked better if we had seen their supposed history together. Or maybe I just miss Sallah.
Hopefully, The Dark Knight can find the middle ground in between Iron Man and Indiana Jones. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did not disappoint me but I still have room in my heart for another nearly perfect summer movie. Then again they made a 4th Indiana Jones film nearly 2 decades after the 3rd one. I am thankful for that.
8 out of 10
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