Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

originally posted on SurfJedi's Musings

I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tonight. I am going to have to disagree with a lot of the critics on this one. This was definitely an Indiana Jones movie. While I could have done without a few of the scenes, I think it still came out well in the end.

The movie begins in Roswell, New Mexico, which is an indication of where the rest of the movie is going. Meet Indy's new brother-in-arms, who has an irritating habit of calling Indiana by the nickname "Jonesy". "Jonesy." Really? What about "Indy", or "Indiana", or even "Junior?" This was one of my few gripes.

For the first 20 minutes or so, it was hard for me to get behind the fact that it was really Indiana Jones, with the exception of the escape from the warehouse. He wasn't wearing his trademark jacket, and the hat seemed to morph from the trademark, to some bleached out, white-ish hat, and then finally back to the one we know and love. Once he gets to Peru with Mutt, things get back on track.

This movie was full of improbable fights, action sequences, and escapes, which is why we all watch Indy movies. Again, parting ways with the critics, these things are why we watch summer hits. We don't want excellent dialog, or well-manicured lines. We want to see stuff blow up. George Lucas has a habit of ruining dialog, so none of us expected anything good in that department anyway.

If I could change something, I would have Indy use his whip more. He gets it out a couple times, but it seemed like he forgot he had it for a while. Another element missing was the name "Indiana Jones". He went by Henry for most of the movie, only referring to himself as Indiana once, but then catches himself and goes with Henry. I think the point was to honor his dad or something, but I thought it was a little lame.

The above gripes notwithstanding, this is a MUST SEE, though I doubt I needed to tell you that. This installment definitely was more appealing to me than "Temple of Doom", so I would rank this one 3rd place of the 4 movies. As far as comparing to other movies, 4 out of 5. I loved it.

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