Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull is the fourth installment of the successful Indiana Jones film series. I can’t remember feeling more disappointment in a movie with so much hype since, well the Matrix: Reloaded. After the farce that was the Star Wars prequels George Lucas not content on damaging one beloved movie franchise set his sights firmly on another.
The movie that no one wanted to make
It was no big secret that Spielberg was finished with the franchise after the Last Crusade. Indiana Jones riding off into the sunset, crusade seemed to be the perfect bookend for the franchise. Looking to milk the teat of another one of his cash cows, Lucas set out to make a sequel that everyone wanted but no one wanted to make. After much persuading (a suitcase full of money) Lucas managed to convince Spielberg and Ford to get on-board (plane pun intended) for a fourth film. It had everything going for it, Steven Spielberg is a good competent director, and has made some of the most iconic movies of the past thirty years. And it had a screen play that was written by someone that wasn’t George Lucas. So what went wrong?
George Lucas
George Lucas had a lot to do in writing the initial story, and in the past Spielberg would have confronted Lucas if he didn’t like his ideas. For example, originally the third film was going to be set in a haunted castle. Spielberg hot on the heels of making Poltergeist said that he didn’t want to make another horror movie so soon. For whatever reason Spielberg was past the point of caring and didn’t put a stop to Lucas’ bad ideas. Initially the film was going to be called, Indiana Jones and Saucer Men from Mars, the story deemed to be too similar to Independence Day that was performing well at the box office, so that idea was shelved. The story for Saucer Men from Mars be found here, be warned though, it is utterly turd, it features pirates, aliens and flying saucers (from Mars I presume). However various aspects of this screenplay made its way into Kingdom of the Crystal Skull such as, Roswell aliens and Indy getting married. Why does Lucas have any say? He only created, produced and wrote all the movies in the franchise.
Pointless Characters
A lot of the characters in this movie are pointless, other than cutting to awkward cutaways to show that they are still in the movie they are only there to provide expository dialogue. After they meet the Russians in the jungle the characters of Mutt, Marion and Ox become completely irrelevant and pointless. They later fall into the “give them something to category”. In The Last Crusade, Indiana had his father and Marcus Brody tag along with him. The difference here is that Indy carried his father and Marcus for the final third of the movie. That made Indiana feel more of a hero. In the Crystal Skull the characters are giving something pointless to do, such as the Mutt fencing scene and swinging with the monkeys Ala Tarzan. These moments add nothing to the story or enriches the movie in anyway.
McGuffin
If you didn’t already know the McGuffin of the Crystal Skull is aliens. Whilst working on the fourth Indiana Jones movie, Lucas wanted to do something that pays homage to a 1950s B-movie. In truth then the movie should have been set in a control room with men in white coats working away to find a solution to a threat to humanity. Usually this threat would reveal itself to be an alien, robot, or an alien robot. Lucas couldn’t make up his mind on which aliens to use in his movie so he used Roswell aliens, and the Mayan crystal skull aliens and shoehorned them together. He uses the popular Roswell aliens as everyone has heard of them. and the Mayan crystal skull aliens that no-one (other than Dan Ackroyd) has heard of. It wasn’t a popular choice and didn’t play out well. Blending the 1950s B-movie idea with the 1930s serial style caper was an odd mix and a one that didn’t work.
Things I didn't like
Below is a list with a detailed analysis of things that stand out in this movie that did not work or make sense.
- CGI gopher during the opening - Stupid
- Indiana Jones using a refrigerator as a means to survive a nuclear blast - Stupid
- Fight with a blow dart wielding gang that has no bearing on the movie at all, other than to inject some action (why does that guy die when Indy blows dart up the pipe the wrong way? Did he have poison on both ends of the dart?) - Stupid
- Fencing duel in the jungle – Stupid
- Tree eating machines - Stupid
- Shia Le Beef swinging from trees with monkeys like something out of Tarzan - Stupid
- Car/Boat driving/sailing of the top of waterfall - Stupid
- Indiana trusting Mack when he has shown countless times that he can't be trusted, making Indiana look stupid - Stupid
- Natives covered in body paint that are playing hide and seek in the ruin/ spacecraft that just get shot to bits by the Russians, what was the point in that – Stupid
Things that I did like
- I like the shot of Indiana Jones silhouette standing in front of the mushroom cloud, this is a visual indication that Indiana Jones has now entered the nuclear age.
- The diner scene between Mutt and Indiana is quintessential Spielberg and works really well. The interactions of the two characters conversing which each is well done, Mutt takes a beer bottle from the waitress and then Indy puts it back without the waitress noticing.
- The bike chase through the university campus is really good action sequence is well put together, it’s just a shame that there aren’t more moments like this in the movie.
- And that's it.
In the end everybody lost with this movie, except Karen Allen. She got to feature in a big budget movie, a change of pace to her current job working as a checkout assistant. The movie undone a great ending to the franchise and has in some way damaged the Indiana Jones franchise. With Indiana Jones V in the pipeline we can only imagine what monstrosity Lucas is cooking up. I’m holding very little hope that it won’t be anything but utter turd. RIP Indiana.
Shameless link to my next review "Batman v Superman: Yawn of Justice".