Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Walking out of this movie I just thought about one thing. The potential. The great potential....

The great potential for George Lukas to team up with the Washowski Brothers and combine forces to produce the most insanely expensivest, most stratospherically terrible movie ever made! I think the combined wrecked sensibility of these two powerhouses and their absolute now otherworldly interpretation of what is exciting and funny could smash together in an mega-orgy of corniness, lame adventure, plot confusion, and overworked special effects to create a movie of such horrible proportions that people might actually physically die from over exposure while watching it. In fact, it could become a movie so powerfully awful that the brave viewers who decide to see it will have to come equipped with some device or suit that could provide emergency sensory deprivation to protect themselves from the sheer unrelenting force of the film's non-stop horrendousness.

This is the only potential I saw after being pummeled by this crystal catastrophe.

There was so much that was so blindingly f*cked up about this movie I seriously don't even know where to start. Right at the first minute, when I found myself staring that the gopher from Caddyshack, I knew something was maybe not clear in the heads of the filmmakers. And for the first half hour, I stared slackjawed-- blindly fumbling with my hands out in front of me in a haze of confusion--- while dodging whistles of illogic and puke-worthy dialogue that would buzz right past my ears like giant computer generated gnats. Scene after scene was disjointed and purposeless and dumb dumbed. Everything looked terrible and budget-cheap. Not nostalga-cheap. High-budget spoof worthy cheap.

I simply couldn't believe that after all this time Spillberg and Lukas couldn't yank 20 decent (or at least coherent) intro minutes before skidding into the compost heap of old jokes, not scary shocks, and retro-lame action.  I wrestled with my brain to watch this trainwreck from some angle to provide at least a acceptable level of enjoyability-- but I was forced to find satisfaction and solace only in mentally tearing this thing to pieces. And the tearing was a genuine effort because the whole production felt like I was sifting through 50 hours of completely random dailies cobbled together by some lazy a-hole with an old copy of Final Cut.

The glue that held this movie together was made of a death dry substance. Crustified and ancient. Like the glue wasn't really glue at all. More just some sort of crumbly concoction that held scene to scene to scene only with a common stench. A dead body stuffed with mayonnaise stuffed in a trunk type stench. I just couldn't believe how awfully fully off it f'in was!! As if they decided to completely dismiss the fact that people might actually want to pay attention to their movie and enjoy it. And at its worst this flick made my my brain slap both hands over its mouth like it was watching some horrible car accident about to happen (the snake rope! really?!). At its worst best, it was simply a kid falling off a jungle gym (what was that nuke town what huh why was he there what a lead-lined fridge ok whatever fine huh yay?).

Fortunately this movie built up to an ending of such staggeringly appropriate terribleness that it was actually satisfying in context. It was a relief. And as a bonus, it wrapped up with a sentimental backhanded smear across my face. As I watched the credits, I wondered what could have possibly happened here. What went on behind the scenes to allow this so wrong script to go forward as was. Could anyone have told George Lukas to step away from the keyboard? That he'd done enough damage to childhood memories over the years with recent efforts? And could somebody have told Spillberg that directing via remote video sessions from his vacation house-- just wasn't working out? And he'd need to show up on set to direct it at some point? I guess not. Oh well. That's that. At least, with the Star Wars movies there was a new hope for redemption. With this garbage, it only made me worry that they'd make another...

Three Good Things about this Movie

- It did jolt some semi-fond memories of Temple of Doom.
- At times it crossed over into a level of bad bizarre that teetered on becoming good.
- I guess the skull was sort of creepy I guess sorta not really though...

Three Bad Things about this Movie

- When they played the Indy theme song now and then it just made me sad. (Picture an old drunk humming it in a dark alley at 4am... all slow).
- Shia Le Boof is getting increasingly difficult to look at.
- There was no super bad guy or bad girl that I wanted to see die badly.

Ok yes. Maybe this review can be interpreted as undeservingly harsh. Written by some bitter grownup who can't dive back into childhood and swim around just for fun. But I honestly don't believe that. At all. I really can dive back into being a kid disturbingly fast sometimes. Even if the sign says 'No Diving!' But just to make sure, I went back and asked the 14 year old me what he thought of the "Crystal Skull" and he told me that I speak the truth here--- and that this movie did indeed "totally suck ass."

His words. Not mine....

CHYATT???<<<