my Movie

Movie Details

Title:   Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Director:   Steven Spielberg
Year:   2008
Genre:   Adventure
Times Seen:   2
Last Seen:   05.27.17

Other Movies Seen By This Director (12)
- Bridge of Spies
- The Fabelmans
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Jaws
- Jurassic Park
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park
- Minority Report
- Munich
- The Post
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Ready Player One
- War of the Worlds

Notes History
Date Viewed Venue Note
05.27.17Blu-ray Someone at work mentioned that the Nazca lines were in this and I didn't remember that so I thought I'd watch this again now that I'm more familiar with the ancient astronaut theory to see if, somehow, I liked this better than I did ten years ago.

Nah.

I mean, i still WANT to like it, but there's just too much... Shia swinging from vine to vine, the ants, knowledge being the treasure... it's just too much. And instead of the Nazca lines helping it kind of made things worse since, now that I've been there in person and seen them, the whole sequence feels ultra fake to me because i know that area doesn't look anything like that. They used the fakest most CG composition of the lines I could imagine, like when a sitcom goes to Mt. Rushmore and they're all just standing in front of green screen with a postcard from Mt. Rushmore behind them.

Anyway, still not good.
06.03.08Alamo Village Ahh Indiana Jones 4. Spoilers. Like I'm not the last person on Earth to see this.

OK, so while watching i remember thinking i was enjoying it more or less but when I try to look back on it the only things I can think of are things that I didn't like. So just assume that the little moments and smirks in between the big problems are what made me enjoy the movie and proclaim that I liked it more than didn't like it. I'm still not sure I like it more than temple of Doom but whatever.

So.. yeah. Basically, I didn't like the plot. Thought it was dumb and the opposite of cool. And moreover I disliked how a lot of sequences in this one seemed wholly impossible. I get that there probably REALLY isn't a Holy Grail or stones that heat up or whatever but those at least remained plausible. Shia swinging from vines over random cliff-sides, gigantic tower-keys that don't seem to be able to reset themselves, the chances that of all the crates in that huge warehouse (which used to be a cool nameless warehouse somewhere and is now gay because it's area 51) the one with the ark gets broken and displayed in the foreground, the existence of ants the size of centipedes and KNOWLEDGE BEING THE FUCKING TREASURE all took me out of any kind of moment I may have been in. I wanted to like it. I was trying to like it. I succeeded sometimes but then it would stop abruptly.

And above that, something about seeing 60-year old indy still trading foley punches... Not that I wanted Shia to have one second more of screen time, but I think they missed opportunities for Indy to not be able to rely on his physicality and have to use his wits more. I will say that Jim Broadbent is a worthy successor to Denholm Elliot and it was nice to see Karen Allen again and Ford actually acted in this even though he didn't sound like himself sometimes... but come on... aliens? motorcycle-riding literature advice?

Largely I blame two people: George Lucas and David Koepp. I have no way of knowing who was responsible for what but the area 51 thing stinks of Mr. George lets-turn-boba-fett-into-every-fucking-storm-trouper Lucas and all those random interjections of clunky exposition pale in comparison to all three previous films.

So again, all the bits I'm not mentioning I probably liked. I still kinda feel like it shouldn't have been made though.