Toy Bender

Because you demanded it (well one of you anyway) I decided to share my thoughts on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’m calling it my “thoughts” and not a review, because I mainly don’t feel like doing a true review and I also feel a bit biased. You see, I am a fan of Indiana Jones to begin with and I went into this thing with the goal of liking it, no matter how bad it was. (Although to be fair I went into The Phantom Menace feeling the same way and I’ve never liked that film, so it’s hard to judge how much my preconceived emotions affected me while watching this film.)

First though, I’d like to warn you that there will be MINOR spoiler stuff. It’s so minor though, you’ve probably already seen it reading about the film or buying the toys.

I came out of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull feeling both entertained and satisfied. While The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull wasn’t the best movie I’d ever seen, it was a good popcorn flick. I can understand any criticisms I’ve seen of the film, but they didn’t bother me as much as they have for others. The extra-terrestrial stuff was a little questionable, but the way I look at it it’s not much different than the idea that ghosts melted Nazi faces off in the first film or there’s a seven hundred year old crusader still alive in Last Crusade. It’s all a matter of what you are willing to believe in terms of both plot and physics.

The film is full of the humor and action that we’ve come to expect from an Indiana Jones film. The action was good fun and for those thinking there’s too much CGI, that’s really not fair. I have the feeling that there wasn’t anything in Crystal Skull that Lucas and Spielberg wouldn’t have done if they had the ability to do so in the 80s and early 90s. You only need to see the German airplane sliding through the tunnel in Crusade as evidence. I often wonder if there was an internet back then if people would complain about blue screen effects as much as they do about CGI now.

As far as the main cast goes, Harrison Ford has aged as well as could be expected and while he is looking a bit old, he plays the older version of Indiana Jones well. It was more than great to see Marion Ravenwood return as well. What’s funny is that I went into the film hating the very idea of Shia Lebeauf’s character Mutt Williams, much like I hated Jar Jar when I went to see The Phantom Menace. I just didn’t think that he could have pulled off any kind of tough character after seeing him in Transformers. Lebeauf managed to turn Mutt a likable character and that was nearly a miracle considering how much I disliked him going in.

One of the main differences between Crystal Skull and the rest of the films that might turn some people off is that Crystal Skull is very self aware. There are many things put in here specifically because there hasn’t been a new Jones film in twenty years and that this may be the last one. What was nice about Crusade as the “final” film was that it was just another Indiana Jones adventure. It didn’t act like a chapter closing at all. While there may be another film someday, this outing of Indiana Jones did give the impression that they were wrapping things up in a neat bow if it was indeed the final chapter.

If you were to ask me how this film stacks up to the other Indiana Jones films I’d saw that it’s a worthy addition, but in a manner of speaking it is also separate from the older films. The other Indy films have the benefit of time and nostalgia on their side. I think given enough time Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be accepted into the pre-established world of Indiana Jones films more so than the Star Wars prequels are tolerated by Star Wars fans.