What I learned from this movie is that I need to take George Lucas at his word when he says he makes movies for kids. I knew nothing about this movie going in, other than I was confused by photos I had seen promoting the flick which looked like they were from Raiders; i.e., Indy being chased by a bunch of “natives” in the jungle. All I wanted was a couple of hours of entertainment and instead I was served a steaming pile of horseshit.
The premise was a good one but overall I just found it incredibly boring, predictable, and stupid. I mean, not only were plot points blindingly obvious (Did anyone not realize almost immediately that Mutt was Indy’s son? Did anyone not realize Marion was going to drive off the cliff? Was anyone surprised by the frigging spaceship?) but the frigging DIALOGUE was predictable (in the truck, when Indy says he’d been involved with a few women but they all suffered from the same problem–“they weren’t you.” Gak.)
I wanted to like it but it just felt like a mishmash of stuff from other movies executed badly. It had entertaining moments but for me they were few and far between.
I also hated the skull itself, which looked like a piece of lucite stuffed with saran wrap.
In order to make my girlfriend happy, I actually saw this movie a second time, today. This time, what bugged me was how apparently nobody involved in making the movie knew in what century the Spanish conquistadors were riding around Latin America. Indy refers to them having been buried for five hundred years; later the Ukranian psychic chick refers to them in the “fifteenth century”. Did nobody involved, from the writers to Spielberg to the on-set crew, to Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett, have any dim memory of the childhood rhyme about Columbus and 1492?
I saw this film earlier - give it a C-. I grew up with the IJ films but I don’t have any particular attachment to them so their memory wasn’t sacred, I’m judging it purely on its merits as a film.
I agree with pretty much everyone above - way way way too many plotholes and a requirement that you not so much suspend your disbelief as make it levitate for the entire movie (hey, maybe the crystal skull does that too!), story that frankly wasn’t that interesting, characters that were dull and uninvolving and dialogue that - well - didn’t seem to exist. I’ve not come away from the film with any quotes that I like and want to hang on to (the only one is the “they weren’t you” one which makes me want to vom). And yes, the children and small animals in the audience realised that Mud (I heard Mud, I’m sticking with Mud) was Indy’s son and Marion was the mother he was referring to the moment he mentioned her.
I will say however that LeBoeuf did a good job in his role in this film, I think he was probably the most entertaining part of it (although he possibly had the worst entrance of any character in a film ever - Shia, sweetie, you’re not James Dean, and you never will be). Also the CGI in this film was very good, although it’s just as well as it seemed to constitute about 75% of the screen time. As much as I loved the mushroom cloud effect I thought to myself straight away “Yeah, enjoy that view Indy as you’re going to be dead in about two weeks max from massive radiation poisoning”.
Godawful. There were a few smile-worthy lines, and a couple of actual laughs. Beyond that, I was not even slightly entertained. So much extraneous, useless stuff in the movie, starting with a nuclear explosion and ending with Indiana Jones himself. He had absolutely nothing to do in the movie. Virtually every plot point was moved forward by someone else.
So many inconsistencies have been pointed out already, but my favorite was when Indy told Mutt to find a weapon, so he reaches for a sword…instead of the gigantic freaking machine gun mounted on the front of the car. Might have been helpful.
I did like the Wilhelm scream appearance, though. First time I’ve ever seen it come from someone who wasn’t falling to his death.
This is the best film in theaters since Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith in 2005. Almost all the movies of the past few years have been just awful… an embarrassment. Let’s hope the Indiana Jones franchise turns it around.
Just got back from seeing this with my son and my wife.
The highs: how neat it was watch an Indiana Jones movie with my 11-year old son. I have a clear memory of me watching Raiders of the Lost Ark in the theater as a 13-year old, a full 27 years ago… And FWIW, I did have a big grin on my face about half-way through the movie, during the jungle chase scene. As the movie plodded to the end, though, the plot holes were starting to pile up for me, and I hadn’t even left the theater and made it home to my fridge.
The lows, in no particular order:
The title is a few words too long. Either go with “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” or “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.” I’d go with the latter. What does “Kingdom of” add to the title, anyway?
In the warehouse, Indy gets a bead on Colonel-Doctor Irina, and then tells the 20 Soviets aiming at him to drop their guns, or the Colonel-Doctor gets it. Indy then becomes aware that Mac also has a gun on him. So what? What’s 21 guns compared to 20 guns? Mac presumably wouldn’t get paid off if the Colonel-Doctor gets shot, so he wouldn’t want her dead either. The only advantage Mac would get by revealing himself as a traitor at that point would be if he had shot Indy without warning.
Here’s a hint–when someone betrays you, don’t trust them again!
The refrigerator survival and waterfall survival were eye-rollingly bad.
Every time I saw the crystal skull, I thought of the alien from the Alien series.
How long was the path through the woods, anyway? Did the tree-clearing truck keep going despite the battle?
Why did the Soviets keep following the same stupid sequence: (1) Capture Indy and gang; (2) Indy and gang temporarily escape; (3) Soviets attempt to kill Indy and gang with automatic weapons and amazingly poor marksmanship; (4) Soviets recapture Indy and gang, and letting bygones be bygones, tie them up again instead of killing them; (5) rinse and repeat. I lost track of how many times this sequence repeated itself.
Coming out of the theater, I had it rated behind Raiders and Last Crusade, but ahead of Temple of Doom. Now I think I’d put it last place.
Saw it last night. A fun little movie, but no masterpiece. It got worse as it went along for me. I actually thought the whole “Russians are everywhere” fanatic hype coupled with “holy shit there’s the real KGB” thing was sort of silly and enjoyable.
Okay, early on in the movie, when Ford is looking at the picture of Sean Connery, and thinking about his dead Dad, did anyone else hear the voice from that scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail? “I’m not dead yet…”
I don’t think the people next to me knew why I was laughing at he sentimental scene.
And, of course, that crappy John Williams incidental music – but that’s part of the package, and has been the whole series.
Shia LaBeouf plays a character nicknamed “Mutt”, clearly pronounced, listed in the credits, and even embroidered on the character’s jacket. There’s nobody in the movie called “Mud”. In his entrance scene, he’s clearly meant to look exactly like Marlon Brando in The Wild One, down to the tilt of his hat, which I don’t think you see again.
Saw it yesterday. One question: Did anybody else notice John Williams reusing bits of the War of the Worlds score, particularly the bit when the tripod first rises out of the street?
Just saw it - yeah, the plot has as many holes as a screen door (my reaction to the climax - if the aliens are so all-powerful when the skull is returned, how did the Spanish dude steal it in the first place?), and yeah the survivals were improbable (though I thought the “nuclear blast - fridge survival” scene was perhaps a bit of sly fun poked at the equally-improbable “Duck and Cover” educational civil defence ads of the '50s).
But with a bucket of popcorn and two hours to kill, it was a fun, mindless ride. Which is all, after all, that I was asking of it.
My main complaint was about the villians of the piece. They just did not impress, compared to Nazis. Not Kate Blanchet’s fault, but the Soviets were rather forgettably written.
The food scene.
It was a mean movie, almost sadistic. There was no fun in ToD, especially after the opening sequence.
Short Round, easily the most irritating sidekick ever.
Kate Capshaw didn’t bring much to the film… except a $100 million divorce.
Saw it yesterday with my 11-year-old son and his buddy, also 11. We were all underwhelmed. Raiders of the Lost Ark, for all of its plot holes, did it first and did it best, even now.
Much of what I’d say has already been said, but I’d add:
It looked like Maj. Spalko was going to read Indy’s mind at Area 51, but then said he was tough to read. Then she never used her amazing psychic powers again.
Going down three giant waterfalls was just too much.
Ditto the fridge and the A-bomb test.
I’m sorry, but I’d rather remember Marion as she used to look.
The wedding scene at the end was unflatteringly lit and annoyed me for some reason.
Nice to hear about Indy’s OSS work during WW2 and his rank as an Army colonel. And riding with Pancho Villa, too! Was that from the TV series?
Indy’s stumbling off of the rocket sled was funny.
Tenebras, fake towns were built for several actual atomic tests and the damage was filmed. Indy just happened to stumble into one of them.
Anyone notice that the Nazca Lines were actually glowing at night in the distance when Indy and Mutt climbed up to the cemetery to find the Spanish conquistadors’ mummified remains?
Once she gets over her mad, Marion starts calling him Indy. As for the prof no longer objecting to his iven name, that’s simple to explain. He reconciled with his father in Crusade, and presumably they had a good relationship afterwards. Now his father is dead, and he misses him; when someone calls him by his father’s name, it feels, at worse, bittersweet, and maybe even feels a little good.
