Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Let me first say I have been excited to see this movie since I first saw previews to it. I grew up on the first 3 films and loved each one of them and in preparation for this film I watched all of them again.

In the newest installment of the Indiana Jones saga the hardest thing for me to get used to is that Harrison Ford aged 20 years since we saw him riding off into the sunset in the Last Crusade. I really liked the fact that they embraced this in the movie rather then tried to disguise it. They actually poked fun at it with “Old man” and “Gramps” comments from Shai Labeouf’s character “Mutt” and even in the dialogue that Indiana uses.

I liked that they changed bad guys in this one even though it was always enjoyable to watch the Nazi’s get theirs in the first and third films. Indy is up against the Russians who are hell bent on retrieving a crystal skull from the same warehouse that you see in the end of The Raiders of the lost Ark. Needless to say they don’t get their hands on it during the opening scenes in which Indiana escapes their clasps and a Nuclear blast to boot!

Indiana then teams up with Mutt Williams in an effort to find Mutt’s mom and a mutual friend of Jones and Williams who seems to have been the only person who had been to the hidden city of gold where the crystal skull is to reside. All this while eluding the Russians only to get captured, then escape, then get captured again, then escape….well you get the idea, all in an effort to return the crystal skull to the city of gold before the Russians get their hands on the power of the skull.

We all know that the first films had their fair share of gruesome scenes but it seems as though Temple of Doom pushed that over the edge with the whole heart getting ripped out of the guy’s chest thing. I have noticed that the gruesomeness was toned down a bit in the Last Crusade and stayed on about the same level in the Crystal Skull. There was a battle with huge fire ants in which a few of the Russians bit the bullet, but it made you squirm in your seat more than anything.

All in All this is a very good movie and if you are any kind of an Indiana Jones fan you will really like it. The ending was a little over the top and definitely had George Lucus's fingerprints all over it, but I think that you will really enjoy it!