Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

... is really just the deleted scenes from the first three Indy movies. I can’t believe a reader of this blog said it was important to see this potboiler the first weekend because the emulsion deteriorates. Trust me, emulsion is the least of this film’s problems.

If you’re an Indiana Jones fan, better than spending two hours watching this movie, go to Disneyland, wait in line an hour and fifty-six minutes and then just take the ride.

There was something new added to the ending, however. I will give them that. But it was so utterly ridiculous that the denouement of the Hope/Crosby comedy, ROAD TO UTOPIA was more plausible and in that one fish talked.

Harrison Ford did an admirable job considering he’s approaching the age of the artifacts he’s collecting. Action heroes tend to be more believable if they’re younger than Keith Richards. Still, I thought Harrison pulled it off nicely. But Van Damme, please, don’t get any ideas.

Cate Blanchett played Natasha from the Bullwinkle cartoons. Russians are the new Nazis. Sporting a Prince Valiant haircut and a form-fitting gray dominatrix uniform, poor Cate trotted out every Roosky cliché short of “die you capitalist lackey dog!” She seemed to be having fun though. Playing Queen Elizabeth I guess she never got to fire a gatling gun.

It was good to see Karen Allen again. Shame on her for leaving Hollywood to live a normal happy life.

Shia LeBeouf also came aboard to ensure a younger audience and sequels. We learn that his character is really Indy’s son. I would have posted a spoiler alert but village idiots could see that coming from the first frame. There’s one action sequence where Shia is running while dodging a million rounds of machine gun fire. They cut to Indy who has a big grin as if to proudly say, “Yeah, that’s my boy!” It’s the typical reaction any father would have upon seeing their son shot at by hundreds of soldiers.

Steven Spielberg directed with his usual attention to detail and mastery of the camera. But there wasn’t a shot you hadn’t seen from him before. And there were the requisite skeletons, ancient temples, spider webs, snakes, leaping from car to car, treasure maps, curses, monkeys, poison darts, natives, caves, riddles, double crossers, quicksand, fistfights, kidnappings, and cliff hangers to remind you that this was really cool 27 years ago.

What’s most disappointing is how the movie fell apart. The first half hour was rollicking fun and it looked like this was going to be a fun ride. But then it just sank under the weight of its own franchise. Pity because I really wanted to love it. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is still one of my favorite action flicks.

But here’s all you need to know about this one: Indiana Jones survives going over what is essentially Niagara Falls and lives through a full-out nuclear explosion.

And then it gets stupid.