Weekly Movie Review: Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

[Lombaszko]

Right on Proto! I couldn't agree more with your review.
I get the feeling that the filmmakers were trying to make fans happy, but the way they tried to just didn't work. I can picture Spielberg and Lucas saying, "Well, we need to show Indy is an old man and vulnerable. Have him trip a little bit in this scene and be afraid of the snake in the sand pit scene. Phew! Glad we took care of that!"
All the interesting character bits seemed tacked on last minute, or in one scene added just to try and please us fans. The other three movies were so great because they showed how human Indy was throughout the entire story. It almost seems like Harrison Ford was playing Indiana Jones like a kid pretends to be Indiana Jones, whip, punch, save the day.

I agree with you Blackjack there was no need for Ray Winstone or John Hurt. Who fucking cares? Mutt was mentored by Hurt's character? So what? Hurt's performance was fine and everything but I found myself just not caring all that much. Even the plot of the skull, once they saved Marion I didn't care anymore. With Last Crusade Hitler was going to try and make an invincible army, and on top of that Indy needed to save his father who was shot. Ok, I'm interested and I care that he NEEDS to find the grail. Maybe I need to give Crystal Skull another viewing but "Russians getting knowledge" isn't a strong enough plot for me to care about.

Also, I read interviews where Lucas said that Kate Blanchett was a super badass and the ultimate villain, so I was pretty disappointed because she wasn't lame completely but showed signs of how good a character she might have been. I love when she gets flung onto the hood of the truck then turns the gun around and tried to blow Marion away. That was cool, show me more of that and I'd be happy.
Look at the Nazi guy from Raiders, he hangs up his coat and Marion shits herself.

Maybe as fans we expect too much, but they had years to work on this and I think it just comes up short. I know others are saying it's a serial movie and should be viewed that way, but I just can't. I think the filmmakers were too worried about how children would see the movie. These are the same guys who replaced guns in E.T. with walkie-talkies. So they added swinging monkeys and prairie dogs and had very little blood and guts. Who else was expecting Spalko's head to explode in a great show of blood and guts? Nope, we get CGI dust.

And I think that's a perfect critique for the film itself. All this wonderful buildup then it just blows away in the wind.