Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [use spoiler tags, please]

[Gemini Cricket]

Brown leather jacket -> black leather jacket


What made me laugh more than the hair combing was the Brando hat he wore when we first saw him. Oy.

[€uroMeinke]

What I liked about the comb thing was it was used as a moment of recovery - his uncoolness or embarrassing moment happens and the comb comes out as if to say, "I didn't mean it, I was just fixing my hair"

I was also delighted that they went to Peru for personal reasons - seeing Cuzco and Iquitos on the map made me squee and feel a personal connection to this fictitious character and his adventures.

[tracilicious]

I'm still pissed about Mac's character. I was so annoyed in the beginning that Indi had a sidekick. Even moreso when we were supposed to believe that they had a long history as a team. But he was so annoying, and his character was useless. I didn't understand his motivation when he ditched the alien scene and started hunting for treasure and I couldn't have cared less when he flew off into the void. But why would he want to fly into the void? No clue! Asshole.

[BarTopDancer]

I thought the hair combing turned into a nervous habit.

I completely loved it, hokiness and all. It's kinda like 24, you have to suspend reality. In 24 land there is never traffic. In Indy land carboats can survive 3 giant waterfalls.

I also figured that once all the knowledge was transfered from the alien she saw the truth and could no longer be of this world.

[Gemini Cricket]

The moral of the story: the more you know, the more likely it is that your eyes and skull will burn.

[Boss Radio]

When one considers the source material - the cliffhanger serials of the 30s, 40s and 50s - and really examines the different levels of homage both to the serials, and to itself, the film succeeds on almost every level.

Pocorn entertainment that defies every known law of gravity, physics and plausability is exactly that: entertainment.

Gene Autry battled aliens in a serial. Sherlock Holmes outsmarted Nazis, as did Batman. These movies (and Star Wars before Lucas convoluted it beyond recognition) share more in common with Flash Gordon, The Lost City, The Phantom Empire, The Lone Ranger, Frank Buck's Bring Em Back Alive, Spy Smasher, and Zombies of the Stratosphere then they do with Iron Man. As far as Raiders comparisons go, both Star Wars (77) and Raiders succeed in their first chapters because they were both "new" and both offered strong character development, which laid the groundwork for future sequels.



For me, the movie hit all of my checkpoints of greatness:

Atomic test
Area 51
Red Menace
Flying Saucer
Ancient Astronauts
Hot chick villain
Rock n' Roll youth culture
Fonzie

I entered the picture with low expectations, this being the post Phantom Menace era, and was happy.

Was it perfect? No.
Was it fun? Yes.

I could have done without the Close Encounters alien at the end, but other than that and the Tarzan/Jungle Book sequence, I was cool with it.

Since they did have a Close Encounters-shaped alien, Richard Dreyfuss should have poked his head out of the flying saucer and said "Come on, already! Let's get back to that other movie!"

[CoasterMatt]

I had a whole lotta buncha fun.

I'll be seeing it again in a few days.

[tracilicious]

But why is nobody else pissed about Mac?

[katiesue]

What about the motorcycle? Is it still somewhere in Peru? And why Mutt? Was it the dogs name?

[innerSpaceman]

I'm not familiar enough with serials to know how over the top they go in the physics-defiance department .... but I'm willing to give the Indy series the benefit of some doubt because of my ignorance of the genre.


... and because I am tickled by other stuff that I assume and/or recognize from the B-movie / Serial genre, such as the Scientist Gone Native/Madman. For this film set in the 50's, I loved the incorporation of the Commie Red Menace, the Greaser/College Jock rivalry, the Atomic Bomb and, frankly, if Aliens and Flying Saucers had not been the paranormal element of this Indy romp, I would have been disappointed with the thematic exclusion. It may be Spielberg's over-used element, but if the shoe fits ...



Hey, I certainly don't mean to say we shouldn't nit-complain. It's perfectly valid. I just think there are bigger fish to fry in the problem department (though GD linked it nicely when he observed that if you're noticing lots of nits, you're likely not being sufficiently entertained).


And, I guess I'm repeating myself here, but the nits of implausible or impossible physicality are elements long established for this series decades ago ... when I complained about them mightily. I'm not here to deny anyone the same pleasure ... but it does seem a little hollow to be expecting gravity to pull downwards at this point.


Still ... if it pulls you out of the movie, it pulls you out.


Maybe I've complained so much about Indy's physics-bending tomfoolery that I'm over it. Certainly, in this last film, the higher over the top they went ... the less I minded it. I didn't blink an eye at the flying atomic refrigerator of womblike safety. Smaller touches like the Mutt's effortless monkey-vine swinging bothered me more.


(BTW ... did anyone think his name was "Mud?" I didn't notice it was Mutt till the end credits ... which is too bad, since that's a great joke.)


Anyway, though I found it hackneyed even as it happened ... I found myself crying at Indy and Marion's wedding! And I continued to cry through a bit of the credits when I realized I was entertained enormously and that the movie didn't completely suck .... which is all I ever hoped for.



I almost wished I'd left it after that first amazing screening. But it's good to come down to earth and recognize it as a seriously flawed film.

It's still my second favorite in a series of 3 very, very flawed films ... and one absolutely perfect movie.