Movie review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
A few nights ago I got together with some friends and a bottle of Stoli, in celebration of my friend Chris’ 24th birthday, to watch Indi 4 – and I’m so glad there was a bottle of Stoli. I told myself I was going to hold off on a review until I re-watched the original three, but I thought it would be more fair to do a review of the movie with my initial review and (if I find myself feeling any different) I might do a followup review.
First: Overall I thought this was an okay movie, but it certainly could have been better. This movie suffered from what I like to call the “King Arthur” syndrome – the movie would have been a fucking awesome movie if it didn’t have anything else to do with King Arthur. Just like King Arthur, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” could only have only benefitted with having nothing to do with the Indiana Jones series – the story was compelling enough, and fun (but a little too over the top in a couple scenes, but I’ll get to those later (there will be spoilers, beware), the fact that they got Karen Allen back to reprise her role from “Raiders” is commendable.
Recasting characters is one of my biggest pet peeves with movies, case and point: “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” or as I affectionately refer to it “Terminator 3: The One That Doesn’t Exist”. In T3 I really think Edward Furlong should have been back to play the role of John Connor; he was the right age, and HE’S JOHN FUCKING CONNOR!
Anyway, there were a few scenes that would have been entirely beyond belief for me had I not been on my way to drunk and I will list them here as obscurely as possible for people who have seen the film and to not ruin anything for those people that haven’t seen it yet: the fridge, waterfalls, “George of the Jungle”. At those points my mind just kind of checked out and it left a foul taste in my mouth, one I would much rather have not tasted. It wasn’t vomit from too much booze.
There certainly are other things that both me- the main story didn’t bother me, but the resolution of it bothered me. I have thought about why these things bother me, and I came to one conclusion; George Lucas only makes sequels to his movies to put a giant buttplug in his fans asses. He likes to see them squirm, when he does these things he thinks “what would really make them uncomfortable? Oh, right! Something uncharacteristic of my previous attempts at this franchise! And IcyHot as lube for when I put this ungodly huge thing up their asses.”I’d say the final verdict is that if you’re dead set on seeing this movie in theatres then do so, but just realize that there are true evils that lie within the celluloid and they make fansboys cringe and attempt to hang themselves with their limited edition Indiana Jones bullwhips.
-Tyler