Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Viewed: Theater

Wow. I really didn’t expect to not like it. I didn’t dislike it; I just didn’t like it. How can I not like an Indiana Jones movie? But I can explain my disappointment with one word: “unbelievable.” The action was unbelievable. I’m not saying, “unrealistic,” here. None of the IJ movies have been strongly realistic.

I noted immediately how this movie didn’t start out like the previous three movies. The previous movies started out with a sequence showing Indy, himself, in some kind of adventure, situation, predicament unrelated to the main story to come. This one starts out showing people who are not Indy. And then when Indy is brought into it, the situation isn’t unrelated to the primary story — it’s the beginning of the primary story. Now this was not a problem for me, but I did notice the departure from the standard formula.

Where the movie lost me was when he ran into the town in the desert. (It’s hard to talk about this without giving things away, but I’m trying to not spoil it.) I started loosing my suspension of disbelief the more I saw of the town, and then I completely just dropped it when Indy saved himself from the “event.” At that point, it was obvious that this movie was not even trying to nod at realism. And when the story and events go so far from realism, believability is the casualty.

This early in the movie I came to realize this is not a pulp-style movie — it’s a pure fantasy. Raiders of the Lost Ark felt more down to earth, realistic, believable, with a real human hero in the real world. There was some little magic in the story, but it wasn’t the story. Temple of Doom also showed Indy as a real human hero in a realistic world. The magic was a little more obvious, but still small compared to the overall story. The Last Crusade had Indy evolve a little out of real human hero and into fantastic hero, and the magic was more part of the story. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull shows Indy, right from the start, as a fantastic hero in a fantastic world, with the magic playing a very prominent role in the story. Unrealistic, unbelievable.

I mentioned, in a recent post, my fear that the Indiana Jones movie would have over-the-top stunts and effects that didn’t fit the style of the 1980’s versions. Well, it does. The stunts and effects were not believable. They were too fantastic, too super.

I don’t hate this movie. I just don’t have any feelings for it. Once I was taken out of my suspension of disbelief, I didn’t feel like I was watching an Indiana Jones movie. It did have a few really good action sequences and humor moments, but a “cool” or a chuckle here and there doesn’t overcome the overall “meh” I felt watching it. The unbelievability left me with apathy for the whole thing.

I don’t know if there’s anything after the credits because I wasn’t interested enough to hang around and see.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com