Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Ticket (5/22/08)

When I was a kid, Star Wars and Indiana Jones were the movies I loved the most. My siblings and I often acted them out, and I wanted to be some combination of Han and Indy. I collected all the toys, played the video games, and (thanks to our new VCR) knew all the lines. To some extent, all of the above are still true today.

When Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out three years ago, I knew I wanted to see it on opening day. I had Red Sox tickets for the same day, so I caught a morning viewing before the game. I wasn’t anticipating a movie that was better than the original three Indiana Jones flicks, but hoped it would be full of similar action sequences and Indy one-liners.

My expectations were met. It was my least favorite of the Indy movies, but I still enjoyed watching it. Even though I think the dialogue wasn’t as good as Raiders, Temple, and Last Crusade, the action scenes were right up to par. I will never get tired of watching another narrow escape by Dr. Jones.

Many viewers questioned the alien element of this movie, but I think they missed the point. Every Indiana Jones movie had religious themes, and Crystal Skull did as well. The first three centered around Christian and Hindu religious artifacts, and the crystal skulls revolved around a religion that involved aliens. Also, all four movies had people trying to use these godly objects for evil purposes. The message in every Indy movie is clear: try to get powers like God, and you’ll get punished.

The only thing I really didn’t enjoy about the Crystal Skull movie was the ending. Cheesy, cliché, and not Indy-like.

Even though the 5^th Indiana Jones movie is only “in development”, you can still get your Indy fix in the new traveling exhibit, which is now in Montreal (don’t worry, there’s no hockey games being played to get in your way).

To check out more about the real story of the crystal skulls, you can go here and here. And to see the very graphic depiction of what the South Park guys think this movie did to Indy, go here.