Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

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If you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t want to spoil the surprises, then do not read this review. This is a review of what happened and was revealed in the film and my own impressions and opinions. So I do point out the “surprise” elements and this is considered a spoiler.

I just finished watching the latest installment of the Indiana Jones series with my five year old boy and I have to say it was so outlandish and unbelievable yet so much fun as well.  The movie is part tribute to the former trilogy with recurring themes, characters and even showing the arc from the first movie being uncovered in a broken crate in the warehouse at the beginning of the film.

Overall the film was very enjoyable and it held pace for my five year old to follow and enjoy with me.  The film almost played with the inconceivable especially how Indiana Jones can survive a nuclear blast merely by closing himself in a lead lined refrigerator.  To how they can survive a waterfall hundreds of feet high when the water at the bottom was so shallow the vehicle touched bottom.

If you take it as a fantasy action picture which it kind of is this film crosses into X-Files territory a little bit with the UFO / Paranormal research elements and aspects behind it all.  Shia LaBeouf plays “Mutt Williams” who is the son of Marion Ravenwood (Kallen Allen reprising her role from the original film) and Dr. Jones. The chemistry between Indiana and Mutt are very good even early on, and get better with the Dad, Son jabs once Indiana finds out Mutt is his son. Though I like Shia LeBeouf as the kind of oafish but likable character, his Mutt Williams was a little unpolished and wasn’t likable I thought in the beginning of the film. They did a good job of showing how Mutt was kind of chip off the old block toward the end of the film.

There were a few points in the film I didn’t like the main being the duel between Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchette) and Mutt from atop moving vehicles.  The computer generated sequences were so obvious it distracted heavily from the whole scene.  The Nuclear Bomb scene was also so unbelievable and originally had me worried the whole film was going to be crappy based on the sheer nonsense of thinking Indiana could survive the heat and bashing around of being thrown miles from inside a Lead refrigerator.

The film also pointed out that Indiana’s father is dead, but didn’t he drink from the Holy Grail in the third film?  In fact so did Indiana, wouldn’t this have made them immortal?  Or did they have to keep drinking from it to be immortal?

I was awed by the final scenes in the film when the returned the skull and the extra-dimensional being reformed and transported back to its own dimension.  I liked the poignant fact that the “aliens” were knowledge hunters and collectors, kind of like archaeologists and this is why they had only “spoken” to Dr. Jones and his associate Dr. Oxley (played by John Hurt).

The film ended with the marriage and the possible torch being handed over to Mutt Williams as taking over the family exploration business in a gesture of picking up his fathers hat.  I don’t think it will catch on, but this film was a nice conclusion rounding out the trilogy nicely.

So despite some nonsense and lack of believability if you take it Indiana Jones as kind of a 1950′s action hero who is untouchable, unscathable and survives against all odds, this was a very enjoyable film and did not disappoint.  At least not in my opinion, but I tend to like almost all movies and dislike very few.

-Dragon Blogger