Indiana Jones...

Topic: What is this? The Spanish Exposition? (You see, it all began some time in the 13th century...)

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[D.B.]

 and the Deathly Hallows Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Anyone else seen this then?

Massive spoilers ahoy...

Spoiler (hover to show)

"There's Indy! He's just a little old - it's still good, it's still good!"
"He's just met his long lost son. Just a little cliche - it's still good, it's still good!"
"They're on an alien spaceship. Just a little bizarre and out of place - it's still good, it's still good!"

"It's gone Pat."

"I know..."

That kinda sums it up for me. The start seemed a little shakey, but by the time they were in the jungle it was getting into a more familiar flow. However, it never quite took off. It's possibly my gold tinted memories of the earlier films, but the fact they were running round with a psychic alien skull just never quite clicked with me. It's a reasonable twist on paper, but just felt a little out of place the whole way through.

There were also a million and one little details that felt internally inconsistent. Apparently the US keeps all it's most valuable items in a hanger in area 51, and then test nuclear weapons within walking distance of them. The Russian Baddie Who Keeps Speaking With An English Accent^TM proceeds to steal an alien body from said hanger (with indy's help as he's seen it before; apparently the US overnment used archaeologists to identify crashsites in those days) for some reason -  it features once more in the film, then utterly forgotten. Indy escapes, and two FBI agents turn up and make a great show of doubting Indy's loyalty to the US, conspire to get him fired from the university... then never feature again. There's a long exposition when Mutt meets Indy about his mother getting kidnapped then escaping and posting this bizarre ancient note, that almost feels like they forgot to film a scene and had to explain it. Apparently the Russians have access to some marvellous massive lawnmover (somewhat resembling something from Mad Max) which they use to drive through the rainforest, and always bring it along when they're sneaking into the US... uh-huh.  And why did random groups of tribespeople come crawling out of the walls when they finally reached the lost city - okay, they were clearly meant to be the trible left there to guard it, but have they lived for hundreds of years in the crawlspaces or something? Anyway, the skull told Indy that he had to be the one to replace it and - oh wait, the russian lady just did, so I guess that detail wasn't important after all. And waddaya know, Indy gets married at the end (and his job back with a promotion for some reason) and his son is rather unsubtly set up to be his replacement should a further sequel look likely to be profitable. Mutter mutter moan moan...

Yeah yeah, I know it's not a series that's meant to be taken especially seriously (motorbiking through the library was amusing, as was the swordfight between two cars) and it's certainly several notches more enjoyable than the average latter day 'action' film. But it's still the weakest of the four films in the series for me. Perhaps it'll grow on me in time, but whereas in general the characters and events in the others felt like cardboard cutout archetypes, this felt a little bit closer to being two dimensional. 

[Molloy the Catburglar]

Spoiler (hover to show)

Interestingly enough, the whole alien crystal skull thing has always been the plot for the fourth movie, ever since it was come up with years ago.  It just took them a while to make.

Oh!  And as far as Indy being at Roswell goes, I was looking at the Wikipedia entry for the heck of it, and stumbled upon this:

"The book also introduced an alien account by Barney Barnett who had died years earlier. Friends said he had on numerous occasions described the crash of a flying saucer and the recovery of alien corpses in the Socorro area, about 150 miles (240 km) west of the Foster ranch. He and a group of archaeologists who happened to be in the vicinity had stumbled upon an alien craft and its occupants, only to be led away by military personnel."

So who knows?  Maybe they did their research a bit before veering off into pulp fiction insanity.

[D.B.]

Spoiler (hover to show)

...He and a group of archaeologists who happened to be in the vicinity had stumbled upon an alien craft and its occupants, only to be led away by military personnel...."

Goodness. Well then, I stand corrected!