Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is NOT the Worst Indiana Jones Movie

So to repeat what I titled this post, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is NOT the worst Indiana Jones movie, that honor undeniably goes to Temple of Doom.

So the first real issue is Indiana's love interests. Out of the three he is given in the four films, Willie is by far the worst. She is fully  useless through out the whole film, mostly used for comedy relief as she is just annoying, spoiled and whiney, nothing else. I don't believe for one moment Indiana would be attracted to her, as she lacks common sense and is just unlikable on ever level. There really is no doubt he ditched her as soon as possible and most likely forgot about her, hoping to never see her again.

Then we have the plot.  The story for Temple of Doom is not compelling, you just don't care. Which is a big problem, since it has Indy doing his most noble of missions, yet there is something lacking. I can't explain it, but of all his quests, this one I really didn't care if he completed it or not. Helping the village and freeing their children should matter, should have some depth and passion to it, yet that didn't seem important to Indy and so it wasn't important to us. We just were never given an sense that he was as interested in finding the Sankara stone as he has been in finding every other artifact we see him go after. He also treats the whole thing as something to do just because he has some free time.

Then we get into the adventure itself. There are no clues to follow, no big journey to take and really no adversary of note for him to be up against. Most of the action takes place in the last third of the film, with little before that. And while it is great to get a sense of the culture, it just slows everything down, killing off any possible sense of urgency. And the main adversary not showing up until half way through as well. The head priest is the only Indiana Jones adversary who is not in a battle of wills with Indy, he just has a lot of armed men and some brainwashing potion. Character wise this was a simple villain with simple motivation. Even when Indy was under his power, it never really felt like he had done anything to out smart or earn his victory over Indy. He just had enough armed men.

And I will never understand the big finally chase, as it is just stupid. They knock over a reservoir of drinking water, than somehow magically is a dam breaking in a river and flooding a deep cavern system. Sorry, there is no way the amount of water that the reservoir could hold at its fullest, could possibly do anything more than just make a lot of stuff wet right in the area it was knocked over in, let alone create a violent river that ignores physics, flying over the deep mineshafts and ripping apart the side of a mountain. I didn't notice it as a kid, but now it is just idiotic.

I won't go into the moronically inaccuracy of the big dinner scene and how it could be viewed as culturally offensive as it was just a huge comedy scene that was supposed to gross you out, with none of it being accurate for that culture.

It also felt like there was not real resolution of closure for the film. Yeah, Indy got the stone back to the village and freed he children, the big bad head priest was killed, but it all felt meaningless. From a logically point of view, the cult would still be around and there would be nothing stopping them from doing it all again with a new head priest as soon as Indy was gone. That village feels like it will find itself in the same situation before too long, as they have a super magic stone that they don't hide and no way to protect it on their own. They kind of are inviting people to steal it from them.

So while I do have my problems with The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as it is far from being a perfect movie, with a great deal of unjustifiable flaws in it, I find it to be a better movie in general than the Temple of Doom.

Of course we now have the fifth Indiana Jones movie in the works, which if all goes as planned should be out in 2022. No Lucas or Spielberg this time around, which I'm not sure is bad thing.

So there is my opinion and my defense of it. I am watching the film as I write this, so I clearly do not hate the film, I just have my issues with it.

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