Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, and John Hurt
Grade: A+

When Indiana Jones, Marion, and Mutt are tied up in the back of the truck in the jungle sequence, and Marion angrily suggests that Jones moved on during the interim period and more than likely had plenty of women, Jones had the perfect opportunity to tell her, “Yeah, I fucked a Nazi”.

What a waste. That would have been hilarious.

Summary

In Nevada in 1957, the US Army drives to a closed-off base, and the lead car race some teenagers on the way there. Once the lead car is about to check in, they are told the whole area is closed for the next 24 hours for weapons testing. This includes all on-base personnel. Colonel Antonin Dovchenko (Igor Jijikine) steps out of the car and is told the same. However, he bends down to tie his shoe, and his soldiers shoot everyone there, as he’s actually a Russian colonel and all the soldiers are Soviet troops. They drive into the restricted area and pull Indiana Jones (Ford) and George “Mac” MacHale (Winstone) out of the trunk of one of the cars. As he picks up his fedora that was thrown on the ground, Jones notes that this won’t be as easy as it used to be. Mac argues that they have been through worse, reminding him about Flensburg where they had twice as many. Jones counters with how they were younger. Mac says he’s still young, so Jones also says they had guns. He then tells Mac to put down his hands because he’s embarrassing them. Mac bets him $500 they get out of this. Once Dovchenko shows up though, Mac lowers it to $100 bet. Dovchenko asks Jones if he knows the building they are about to enter, but Jones tells him to drop dead and gets hit because of it. Uncaring, Jones tells him to drop dead again but adds “comrade” to the end. Just as he’s about to punch Jones, Col. Dr. Irina Spalko (Blanchett) stops him and asks where they found Jones. Apparently, he was in Mexico digging in some type of area. Dovchenko has the items wrapped in a bag and he dumps them on the ground. Spalko walks through the artifacts treated like junk and goes over to Jones and Mac. Jones correctly guesses she’s from East Ukraine. She introduces herself and offers to shake his hand, but Jones laughs it off. Spalko details how she’s received the Order of Lenin three times and a medal as Hero of Socialist Labor. She says she got them for knowing things before anyone else. Whatever she doesn’t know, she works to find out.

She touches Jones’s head and indicates that she wants to know what’s inside. She holds her hand out in front of his face, and it looks like she’s trying to use the Force to get into his head. Once again, Jones laughs this off, and Spalko admits he’s a hard man to read.

She’s not worried however, as she promises to get the answers from him the old-fashioned way. With this, they blow open the doors to the warehouse of Area 51, as that is where they are all at. Spalko is aware that the United States hides all their secrets there and wants Jones to confirm what it is, but he says it’s a military warehouse and he’s never been there before in his life. Even so, Spalko spouts the exact dimensions of a box inside that they are looking for. The box contains mummified remains. Jones doesn’t see why she would think he would have any idea what box she’s talking about, but Spalko reminds him of an event 10 years ago. Jones was a part of the team that examined it. Jones realizes what she’s talking about and tries to explain things, but Spalko pulls out her sword and demands that he help them find it. With this, Jones reluctantly leads her group. He asks for a compass, but no one has it. He asks for Dovchenko’s bullets, but they all laugh this off. Jones tells Spalko that the contents of the box are highly magnetized. He needs gunpowder. She allows it, and Dovchenko pours a bunch of gunpowder into Jones’s hand. Jones climbs up a mountain of boxes while Spalko warns Jones to not mess around. She wants to know the point of what he’s doing, so he explains that the metal in the gunpowder should point the way if the contents of the box are still magnetized. He tosses it into the air, and it flies like wind into a particular direction. Seeing this, the rest of the soldiers are pouring out more gunpowder for Jones to use and they follow him. He leads them on foot and tosses more into the air. It leads them down a certain row of boxes. Jones asks for shotgun shells and pliers from the soldiers. Next, he climbs up another mountain of boxes, uses the pliers to open the shells, and lets the innards loose down the mountain. It all falls down and is pulled directly by the magnetism of one particular box, which Spalko sees. She has the soldiers remove all the boxes around it, so they can pull out the right one.

As Jones stands on top of the mountain of boxes with two soldiers pointing guns at him, the others open the box, and a steel tomb is pulled out. All of the lights from the ceiling start tilting in the tomb’s direction because of its magnetism, along with all the metal objects on the ground. Jones is able to climb down as they open the box. It’s from Roswell, New Mexico. Spalko takes the glass cover off, uses a knife to cut open the layer covering the remains, and a decrepit hand is visible to everyone. Waiting at just the right moment for the soldier to look back at what’s going on instead of paying attention to Jones, Jones punches the soldier, hits him with his own gun, takes his whip from the guy, uses the whip to snatch another gun to swing it to Mac, and the two hold out their machine guns on the Soviet troops. Jones tells them to put the guns down or Spalko is dead. They do for a moment but then bring their guns back up. Mac points his gun at Jones too, as he’s a double agent! Jones asks why, and Mac tells him that he’s a capitalist and the Soviets pay. Jones can’t believe it after all the years they spent spying on the Reds. He thought they were friends. Unfortunately, Mac implies that he’s had some gambling debts and he’s not going home empty handed. They tell Jones to drop the gun, so he does but the gun goes off and shoots a soldier in the foot. Mac jumps out of the way and bumps Dovechenko, and everyone else runs out of the way too because of the shot. Jones uses this distraction to run out of there. He gets on top of the mountain of boxes and runs atop the warehouse while being shot at it. He sees Spalko driving away, so he uses his whip to latch onto a light and swings for her car. It’s not enough space and he swings backwards into the truck behind him, busting the windshield (“Damn, I thought that was closer”). He takes the two guys out in the truck, rams it directly into the back of Spalko’s car, gets out of the truck, jumps into her car, throws her out, and crashes through the wall.

Funnily enough, the warehouse box containing the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark is busted open.

Jones drives around the warehouse and Boris and Mac are in a car coming straight for him in a head-on collision. Mac tells Boris to not get clever because he doesn’t know Jones, but Boris drives faster. Jones stands up and grabs a light hanging down and is able to swing himself up to a structure above the boxes while the two cars crash directly into each other. Dovechenko runs after Jones when he gets back down and tackles him into a separate testing area. They fall onto a glass platform, break through, and hit the ground of another separate room. They land on some grate hanging in the middle of the room, and Jones kicks him off. Jones uses a chain to swing off it, and he kicks Dovechenko through a glass window and into a control box of sorts. Accidentally, it begins a 30 second timer. It begins a launching sequence for a rocket with a platform attached to the back of it. In the meantime, Dovechenko is able to hang Jones with the chain and punch him like he’s a human heavy bag. Jones is able to choke him with a head scissors while in the air and then he kicks him down. As the other soldiers catch up, both men drop onto the platform. The blasters from the rocket incinerate the troops, though Mac gets out of the way in time. Then, the rocket takes off with Jones and Dovechenko sitting on the platform. At the same time, Mac sits with Spalko in her car, and she tells him that he did well. Jones and Dovechenko finally stop at the end of the track they are on and are nearly delirious because of the speed they were going at. Dovechenko even passed out on Jones’s shoulder. Jones pushes him to the ground, grabs his hat, and then falls off. The Soviet troops drive near, so Jones runs away in time to hide behind a hill. Dovechenko is collected, and they drive away. Jones spends the night walking through the mountains and sees a nearby town in the distance by sunrise. Once he gets there, a Soviet car is there driving around the neighborhood looking for him. Jones sees the car, jumps a fence, and goes into someone’s backdoor.

Strangely enough, the water doesn’t work. He looks to ask the family inside for a phone, but he finds mannequins made to look like a family. They are sitting on the couch watching Howdy Doody. Confused, Jones goes outside to see that the entire neighborhood is filled with mannequins in the place of real people. It’s a model town. These are used for atomic bomb tests. Jones hears the sirens (“Oh, that can’t be good”). An automated voice says they are one minute to zero time, to put on goggles or turn away, and to not remove goggles or the face will burst until 10 seconds after the first light (“Oh, that can’t be good at all”). The Soviet car hears the news and drives out of there. Jones even tries to flag them down just so he can get captured, but they drive right past him because there’s no time. Jones runs back into the house, looks around the kitchen, and finds the lead-lined fridge. He takes everything out of it during the final ten seconds of the time limit and shuts it just as the atomic bomb incinerates the town. During the explosion, the fridge is launched out of the city and even beats out the Soviet car, which is also incinerated. As the smoke clears and the mushroom cloud is visible in the distance, Jones gets out of the fridge relatively okay. Following this, Jones is taken to be interrogated by the FBI after they get guys in hazmat suits to cleanse him from radiation. Jones tells the agents he had no idea Mac was a spy. Mac was in MI6 when Jones was in OSS. They did 20-30 missions together in Europe and the Pacific. Agent Taylor (Joel Stoffer) tells Jones to not wave his war record in their face because they all served, prompting Jones to ask what side he was on. Agent Smith (Neil Flynn) tells Jones about the gravity of the situation. He tells Jones that he technically aided and abetted KGB agents who broke into a top-secret military installation in the middle of the US. Jones bypasses this and asks what was in the steel box they took. Taylor wants Jones to tell them since he’s seen it before.

Jones realizes they are talking about the Air Force fiasco from 1947.

Jones tells them both how he was tossed into a bus with blacked out windows and 20 people he wasn’t allowed to speak to. He was hauled out in the middle of the night and the middle of nowhere on some urgent recovery project. All he was shown was pieces of wreckage and an intensely magnetic shroud covering mutilated remains, though no one there was given the full picture. After all this, they were threatened with treason if they ever talked about it. With this, he again asks the agents what was in the box. General Bob Ross (Alan Dale) shows up to greet Jones and vouches for him, so the agents relax. Jones asks him how the KGB got on American soil and who Spalko is. Taylor asks him to describe her. When he does in a general sense and added that she carried a rapier sword, they correctly pinpoint it to be Spalko and show Jones the file. Ross says Spalko was “Stalin’s fair-haired girl”. She was Josef Stalin’s favorite scientist who focused on psychic research. She’s leading teams from the Kremlin all over the world, scooping up artifacts she thinks might have paranormal military applications. Smith cuts off Ross because he’s revealing too much, but Ross tells Smith to back off. He argues that not everyone in the Army is a communist and Indiana Jones certainly isn’t one. Jones sarcastically asks what he’s being accused of other than surviving a nuclear blast. Smith admits that it’s nothing yet, but his association with Mac makes all his activities suspicious, including those during the war. Ross can’t believe it and brings up how many medals Jones has won. They don’t care and Smith even asks if he deserves them. They tell Jones that he is an FBI person of interest. Later, Jones is teaching his class at the university and Dean Charlie Stanforth (Jim Broadbent) interrupts his lecture to speak to him in private. He tells Jones that he’s being placed on an indefinite leave of absence. There’s been a lot of pressure coming from the Board of Regents, especially since the FBI showed up that morning and ransacked his office and searched through all of his files.

Jones questions why Charlie didn’t stop them since they have no right, but he said they had search warrants. Jones can see his students start to listen to their conversation through the closed door, so Jones walks with Charlie down the hall. He’s not firing Jones, but there’s no way around it the indefinite leave of absence. The board has agreed to continue to pay his full salary for a period of time, but Jones doesn’t want their money. Charlie tells him to not be foolish because he went through a lot to get him this deal. Jones isn’t having it and questions what he had to go through in a sarcastic manner, so Charlie reveals that he resigned. After this, Charlie is at Jones’s house while Jones packs his suitcase. He plans on taking a train to New York and an overnight to London. He might end up teaching in Leipzig, adding that Heinrich owes him a favor. He tells Charlie that he will wire him when he gets settled to get the rest of his stuff. Charlie begins to talk about how he barely recognizes their country anymore due to all the communist hysteria. Jones asks how Deirdre took the news. Charlie says it was a combination of pride and panic. Jones sits down at his desk and mentions how it’s been a brutal couple of years, revealing that his father Henry Jones Sr. and Marcus Brody have passed away. Charlie replies, “We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away”. Following this, Jones heads onto a train. Unbeknownst to him, two agents are following him and jump on. Then, greaser Mutt Williams (LaBeouf) drives his motorcycle through the train station looking for Jones. Riding alongside the train because he sees Jones sitting by an open window, he asks if Jones is a friend of archaeologist Dr. Harold Oxley (Hurt). Jones confirms, so Mutt reveals “they” are going to kill him. Next, Jones and Mutt sit together at a diner, and Mutt shows him a picture of himself and Ox when he was a younger. Jones admits he hasn’t talked to Ox in 20 years.

The two joke about how Ox was a boring guy, and Mutt introduces himself. Jones questions what kind of a name is “Mutt”, and he immediately gets offended and says it’s the name he chose. Jones smirks and tells him to take it easy. Moving on, Mutt details how his dad died in the war, so Ox helped raise him. Jones brings up how he said someone is going to kill him, so Mutt reveals what he knows. Six months ago, Mutt’s mom gets a letter from Ox who was down in Peru. There, he found a crystal skull like the one Mitchell-Hedges found. As the waitress comes by to serve the table next to them, Mutt grabs a beer off her tray, but Jones puts it back. Moving on, Jones says him and Ox were obsessed with that skull in college, so he questions how Mutt would know about it. Mutt says it’s all Ox would talk about. He questions if it’s an idol, but Jones says it’s a Mesoamerican deity carving. Apparently, there are a number of crystal skulls in the world. Jones saw one in a British museum. He says it has interesting craftsmanship, but that’s pretty much it. Even so, Mutt tells him that Ox found it this time, and he was off to a place called Akator with it. Jones asks him to confirm that’s what he said, and Mutt is sure of it. Seeing this all as far-fetched, Jones details how Akator is a mythical lost city in the Amazon. The Conquistadores called it El Dorado. Supposedly, the Ugha tribe were chosen by the gods 7,000 years ago to build a giant city out of solid gold. It had aqueducts and paved roads and technology that wouldn’t be seen again for 5,000 years. Francisco de Orellana disappeared into the Amazon looking for it in 1546. Jones reveals that he almost died of typhus looking for it himself. He doesn’t think it exists. Mutt questions why Ox would want to take the skull there, so Jones brings up how the legend says that a crystal skull was stolen from Akator in the 15th or 16th century. It is said that whoever returns the skull to the city temple will be given control over its power. Mutt asks what the power is, but Jones laughs and passes it off as “just a story”.

Yeah, we’ll see about that.

Anyway, Mutt says that his mom thought Ox was crazy after seeing the letter. So, she went down there to find him, only to find out that Ox had already been kidnapped. Now, they got his mom too. Ox said he hid that skull someplace. If his mom doesn’t come up with it, they’re going to kill them both. She said that Jones would help him. Confused, Jones asks what her name is. Mutt says it’s “Mary Williams”, but this doesn’t ring a bell because Jones has known a lot of Marys over the years. Mutt stands up from the table and threatens Jones for talking about his mom like that, but a calm Jones tells him that he doesn’t have to prove how tough he is all the time and to sit down. Once he does, Mutt says that his mom said if anyone can find the skull, it’s Jones. He thinks Jones is like a grave robber, but Jones explains that he’s a tenured professor of archaeology. Realizing Jones is a teacher, Mutt replies sarcastically that this is going to be a big help. Getting past this, he tells Jones that his mom called him two weeks ago from South America. She said she escaped, but they were after her. She got a letter from Ox and mailed it to Mutt to give to Jones. He said the line went dead and he didn’t understand what the letter said because it was written all in a different language he thinks is gibberish. As Jones examines it, he gets Mutt to take notice of the two agents in the diner watching them. He’s not sure who they are, but they might be FBI. Just then, they come over to Jones and Mutt’s table. They tell Jones to come quietly in a Russian accent, so Jones realizes they are KGB. They tell Jones to bring the letter with him, but Jones denies having a letter. They know Mutt and call him out for giving Jones the letter, but Mutt denies it too. They threaten them, so Mutt pulls out a knife. Unfortunately, they pull out their guns. They get up from the table and walk ahead of the agents. Jones tells Mutt to hit the college kid standing there. Mutt does and the kid falls into the agents. The kid’s girlfriend punches Mutt and another guy hits him, which makes Mutt fall into a group of greasers.

This turns into a massive brawl inside the diner, which allows for Jones and Mutt to get out of there. Jones realizes that Mutt’s mom didn’t escape. They let her go, so she could mail the letter, Mutt would bring it to Jones, and Jones could translate it. They don’t have time to discuss it further though because the agents spot them. Jones gets on the back of Mutt’s motorcycle, and Mutt drives them off. The agents follow in their car and catch up quick. At one point, their motorcycle is on the street in-between a bus and the KGB car. Jones punches the one agent but is pulled off the motorcycle and into the backseat. While inside, Jones kicks the driver straight in the face. He punches the other guy and jumps out of the window to get back onto Mutt’s motorcycle. He almost falls off, but Mutt hits the break for a second which allows Jones to safely get on. Mutt takes a detour, drives right through a gate, and through a courtyard. The KGB car continues to follow, but they have to stop because the small bridge Mutt drives through doesn’t have enough room for a car. Mutt leads them into an anti-communist rally and knocks over a sign above them. It falls and blinds the KGB car momentarily, and they crash directly into a statue on campus of Marcus Brody. The head of the statue falls off, crashes through the windshield, and lands directly in the driver’s lap. Mutt laughs, but an annoyed Jones just looks at him. Another KGB car chases after them, so Mutt drives into the student library to escape them. Naturally, all the students freak out, and Mutt crashes below a bunch of desks. Jones and Mutt get up, and a student asks Jones about Hargrove’s normative culture model. Jones tells him to forget Hargrove and to read Vere Gordon Childe on diffusionism because he spent most of his life in the field. As he gets back on the motorcycle with Mutt and they drive off while everyone watches, Jones gives him good advice. If he wants to be a good archaeologist, he has to get out of the library.

Sometime after, Jones is looking through some research materials and is showing Mutt a picture of Francisco de Orellana, the conquistador who got lost looking for the crystal skull. Looking at Ox’s letter, Jones realizes it’s in Koihoma. It’s an extinct Latin-American language with a Pre-Columbian syllabic base. Seeing the diagonal stresses on the ideograms on the letter, he knows for sure it’s Koihoma. He doesn’t speak it though. It hasn’t been heard aloud in 3,000 years. Jones might be able to read a bit of it if he walks it through Mayan first. Mutt comments how Jones wasn’t too bad in a fight for being old and guesses if he’s 80. Jones ignores him because he realizes the letter is a riddle, as it’s something Ox would do. It states, “Follow the lines in the earth only gods can read, which lead to Orellana’s cradle guarded by the living dead”. Jones knows Ox is talking about the Nazca Lines. These are geoglyphs, giant ancient drawings carved into the desert floor in Peru. Pulling out a book he has of them, he details how they don’t look like anything from the ground. From the sky however, “only the gods can read them because only gods live up there”. He is deducing Ox is telling them that the skull is in Nazca, Peru. With this, the two fly out. During the flight, Mutt is messing with his motorcycle that he brought along with, and Jones just puts his fedora over his eyes to sleep. Once the plane flies to Cusco, the geoglyphs are seen from above. As Mutt plays with his knife, Jones speaks with some locals in town. They did see Ox. He was in town a couple of months ago raving like a madman. The police locked him up in the sanatorium, so he leads Mutt in the direction of the place. Mutt notes how he didn’t understand a word the locals were saying even though he took Spanish. Jones explains that it was Quechua, a local Incan dialect. Mutt asks how he learned that one, and Jones tries to pass it off as a long story. However, Mutt encourages it because he has the time. So, Jones admits he rode with Pancho Villa, and a couple of his guys spoke it. Mutt can’t believe it.

Jones then admits that he was technically kidnapped. It was the fight against Victoriano Huerta. As he says it, he spits on the ground. It happened when he was about the same age as Mutt. Mutt brings up his parents, but Jones says that it worked out since things were tense at home. Mutt admits that him and his mom aren’t on the best of terms either. Jones replies, “Treat her right, kid. You only get one and sometimes not for that long”. Mutt thinks it’s her fault for getting mad he quit school. In fact, he quit tons of them like fancy prep schools that teach how to debate, play chess, and fence. He points out how he’s great with a blade too, but he thought it was all a waste of time. He never finished. He just thinks the skills taught were useless and they were being taught with the wrong books. Mutt loves reading too. Him and Ox used to read all the time. It’s just that he can pick what he reads now. Jones asks what he does for money, so he says he fixes motorcycles. He questions if he’s going to do it for the rest of his life, and Mutt gets offended and asks if he has a problem with it. Jones doesn’t, as long as if it’s what he loves doing, he tells him not to let anyone tell him different. They get to the sanatorium and are let in by a nun. Unbeknownst to the both of them, Mac is there following them. In the sanatorium, Jones translates for the nun to Mutt, saying Ox isn’t there and she doesn’t know where he’s at. Some men with guns took him away. She relays to them that Ox was obsessed, deranged, and drew pictures all over the walls of his cell. As they walk by the cells, the inmates are wailing and reaching out at them. When they turn a corner, Jones tells Mutt that the riddle in Ox’s letter doesn’t make sense (“Follow the lines that only the gods can read that lead to Orellana’s cradle”). Jones relates cradle to birth, but he knows Orellana was born in Spain, not Peru. He just came to Peru for the gold. Then, he disappeared along with six others, and their bodies were never found. They are brought into Ox’s cell, and they see all the mad drawings on the wall. Mutt gets emotional because he sees this as Ox losing his mind.

After Jones comforts him with an arm on the shoulder, he points to the drawing of a strange skull on the wall and tells Mutt this isn’t the Mitchell-Hedges skull. He points to the elongated cranium and the same word written around it in different languages over and over again. Mutt realizes it sounds like “return” and assumes it would be returning somewhere, but Jones adds that it might be returning something specific. It may have been the skull that has to be “returned”. Jones steps out, grabs a broom, and gives it to Mutt to sweep the dirt off the ground so Jones can look at the drawings on the ground from above them. Looking at the letter and back at the ground, Jones realizes that Ox didn’t mean Orellana’s birthplace. Cradle has another meaning in Mayan. Literally, it means “resting place”, as in final resting place. Ox meant Orellana’s grave. The drawing scratched into the floor is the cemetery where he’s buried. Mutt reminds Jones that he said Orellana vanished and nobody found his grave. Smiling, Jones tells him that it looks like Ox did. That night, they find the cemetery. There is a sign that says, “Grave robbers will be shot”, and Jones hands Mutt a shovel and says that it’s a good thing they aren’t grave robbers. Though he’s not exactly sure what he’s looking for just yet as they enter the cemetery, Jones says it’s possible they are looking for an antechamber off one of the barrows. Unbeknownst to Jones and Mutt, a group inhabiting the place are lurking. After Mutt uses a ladder to get to a lower level and it breaks on him, Jones helps him up. Just then, the group of people with masks and such attack both of them. They start shooting poison darts at them, so Jones tells Mutt to stay where he is. Right when one of the men is about to shoot Mutt with a blow dart, Jones pops up on the other end of the stick and blows it back into his mouth to kill the guy. The other guy with the mask is about to take out Mutt, but Jones scares him off with his gun. Finally, Mutt looks at him and asks, “You’re a teacher?”. Smirking, Jones replies, “Part-time”. They get further into this cave area, and it looks to be a dead end. Jones still looks around and stops Mutt from nervously combing his hair so he can shine the lantern in his direction.

Jones sees air emanating from a skull, so he removes it from where it’s at on the wall. Behind it is a hole Jones reaches into, and he pulls a rope lever of sorts. It opens a door next to Mutt. Mutt freaks out and jumps back into a skeleton. A scorpion stings him and a bunch more start crawling on him, so he knocks them off in a panic. Once Mutt confirms how big the scorpion was, Jones tells him he will be fine because the bigger the scorpion, the less dangerous they are. They get deeper into this passageway and see more skeletons lined up against the wall. Each one has the elongated cranium depicted in Ox’s cell drawings. Mutt questions why their skulls are like that, and Jones reveals that Nazca Indians used to bind their infants’ heads with rope to elongate the skull to honor the gods. Mutt can’t believe this because he knows God’s head isn’t like that, but Jones replies that it depends on who your god is. Next, Jones crawls onto a platform that Mutt thinks is leading to another dead end. It turns to one side and closes off where Mutt is crouching. Once it stops, it reveals another passageway. Jones crawls back over to shift the weight to allow Mutt to crawl in with him, so they can get to the other side. They get into a room, and Jones is quick to tell Mutt to not touch anything. Jones notices two sets of fresh footprints, so someone has been there recently. Once Mutt notes how they are the same size so it could have been the same person twice, Jones is impressed. Jones looks around and sees all seven of Orellana’s men in mummified states. They found them! Borrowing a knife from Mutt, he cuts open one of the conquistador’s wrappings and sees him face-to-face. It looks like he died yesterday, as the wrappings preserved him that well. Seconds later, his skin disintegrates, prompting Jones to explain that the current air doesn’t agree with him since he’s been wrapped up for 500 years. Jones considers taking the dagger that was on him but puts it back. Mutt directs Jones’s attention to one of the wrappings already being open, so Jones uncovers it to see that it’s Orellana himself. He takes off Orellana’s mask to show his disintegrated face. Jones says they called him “The Gilded Man”, as his lust for gold was legendary. Moving on, Jones notes how someone has already been there and has left.

They also left all the gold and artifacts laying around. He picks up some coins as he says it, but coins escape his hand and go straight to Orellana due to a magnetism somewhere present on him. Jones picks up Orellana’s body and gives him to Mutt to hold. Behind it, Jones finds the eponymous crystal skull. He’s amazed and notes how there are no tool marks on it. It’s just a single piece of seamless quartz cut across the grain. He doesn’t think it would be possible with today’s technology, deeming that it would shatter. As Mutt’s knife magnetically sticks to the skull, Jones is confused because crystal isn’t magnetic. Mutt knows gold isn’t either, prompting even Indiana Jones to ask, “What is this thing?”. Mutt wonders if the Nazca Indians thought it was their god. Jones agrees, and they both think it’s the skull from Akator. Jones hypotheses that the Spaniards found the skull along with their other loot. When they were headed for their ships along the shore, it’s possible that either the Indians caught up with them or they squabbled amongst themselves over their prize and killed each other off. Then, the Indians wrapped them up and buried them. A couple hundred years later, Ox shows up and finds the skull, takes it to Akator, but he came back to return it there where he found it. Why? They don’t have an answer just yet. Once they get out of there and get back to the main part of the cemetery, Mac and the Soviet troops are there waiting for them. They capture Jones and Mutt and fly to a Soviet camp at IIha Aramaca, right in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. At night, the Soviet troops dance and drink around the campfire, and Mac goes in the tent to tell Jones he’s lucky he got him because Dovechenko wanted to kill him. He says it’s the third time he saved Jones’s life. Strapped to a chair, Jones jokes that he should unshackle him so he can give him a big hug. Reminding him of the past, Mac talks about how Jones had a Luger pointed at the base of his skull the first time they met, though Jones argues that he had the situation under control.

Mac says Jones owes him, but Jones asks what he owes them and questions how many names he gave to the Reds when the war ended. As he questions how many good men died because of him, Mac counters with Jones not looking at the big picture. Jones lets him know that he’s going to break his nose as soon as he’s let out of the chair. Mac says it has nothing to do with allegiances with countries. It has everything to do with money. He tells Jones to not worry about what the Russians will pay. It’s nothing compared to what’s at Akator, the city of gold the conquistadors were after. He’s trying to sell Jones on it, adding that they would be richer than Howard Hughes. Jones sternly replies that every nickel of it would be blood money. Mac pleads with Jones to be smart and do the right thing like their time in Berlin, and he stops once Spalko enters the tent. Once Mac leaves, Spalko notes how Jones can help and then quotes Oppenheimer after he created the atomic bomb (“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”). She asks if he recognizes the words, and Jones notes how Oppenheimer was quoting the Hindu bible. She replies that it was nuclear intimidation. However, this next level of weapon is theirs to have and Jones’s to fear. Perplexed, Jones asks what weapon they have. Spalko says it’s a mind weapon, a new frontier of psychic warfare that was Stalin’s dream. Jones laughs because he now realizes why Ox put the skull back. He knew they were looking for it. Spalko explains that the skull was no mere deity carving. She knows Jones knows this and adds that it wasn’t made by human friends. Jones can tell she’s implying aliens but doesn’t buy it. Spalko goes on about how the body they found in New Mexico was not the first. They already dissected two others from similar crash sites in the Soviet Union. Jones sarcastically comments, “Saucer men from Mars”, but Spalko tells him that the legends about Akator are all true. Early men could not have conceived it much less built it.

It was a city of supreme beings with technologies and paranormal abilities.

Jones doesn’t believe it for a second, so Spalko uncovers the body from New Mexico of the alien creature. Unlike the others they found, its skeleton was pure crystal. She suggests it may have been a distant cousin that may have been sent to Akator. She doesn’t think there’s another explanation, but Jones says there always is. Spalko says the skull was stolen from Akator in the 15th century. Whoever returns it to the city temple will gain control over its powers, a line Jones finishes himself because he knows the legend. Trying to prove his point, he asks why they think Akator even existed, but Spalko tells him to ask Ox the question because they are certain he’s been there. Ox is found dancing around the campfire, and the soldiers grab him and bring him into the tent to talk to Jones. Ox is raving about nonsense, and Jones grabs him by the wrist to remind him who he is, how Ox is from Leeds, England, they went to school together in the University of Chicago, “… and you were never this interesting”. Ox barely acknowledges him and exits the tent, prompting Jones to ask what they have done to him. Mac says it’s the skull, and Spalko says he is the divining rod that will lead them to Akator. However, they need someone to interpret Ox for them due to his mind being weak. She notes Jones’s as being stronger, so she wants to test it. Pulling out the crystal skull, Spalko says the skull’s crystal stimulates an undeveloped part of the human brain which opens a psychic channel. Ox lost control of his mind by staring too long into its eyes. They believe Jones can get through to him after he’s done the same. Jones tells her to look at it, but she says that the skull doesn’t speak to everyone apparently. She questions if he’s scared and notes how he’s spent his life searching for answers. The possibilities the skull presents could be unfathomable. There might be hundreds of skulls at Akator. Whoever finds them will control the greatest natural force the world has ever known: power over the mind of man.

Jones tells her to be careful because she might get exactly what she wishes for. She replies that she usually does, which gets a smirk out of Jones. It doesn’t take long for Jones’s smile to leave his face as he stares into the eyes of the crystal skull though. Spalko can see it’s working and calls for Jones to imagine having the ability to peer across the world to know the enemy’s secrets, to place their thoughts in the minds of his leaders, make his teachers teach the true version of history, his soldiers attack on their command, and they will be everywhere at once, more powerful than a whisper. They will even invade dreams and think thoughts for you while you sleep. She tells Jones they will change all of him from the inside. They will turn Jones into one of them, and he won’t even know it’s happening. Jones comments “Return”. From outside the tent, Ox says the same thing. Finally, Mac says this is enough because they can’t get there if Jones dies. Spalko directs the troops to cover the skull to break the concentration, and Jones slumps in his chair. In a moment of normalness, Ox realizes Jones is there and comments to himself “Henry”. Mac checks on Jones and unshackles him. Immediately, Jones wakes up and punches him in the nose, breaking it. He made good on his promise. Nevertheless, Spalko directs him on the plan. He is to speak to Ox and lead them to Akator. Jones refuses, so she directs the troops to take him outside. Jones sees Mutt is okay, and Mutt is actually madder about them leaving his bike at the cemetery than anything. Spalko points her sword at Mutt’s throat. Mutt combs his hair and says he’s ready, telling Jones to not tell these guys a thing. Jones smiles at Spalko and adds, “You heard him”. Knowing she needs to be a bit more aggressive in forcing the situation, she has her troops bring out someone who can. It’s Marion (Allen). Jones can’t believe it but as giddy as ever seeing her. To his shock, she walks past him and hugs her son in Mutt.

With this, Indiana Jones is now stuck leading yet another expedition while dealing with his long-lost love. Unfortunately, there’s no love lost between them until a revelation is made. Nevertheless, it’s off to Akator, though what they find there is nothing they could have possibly imagined.

My Thoughts:

Following a hiatus that was much longer than expected and any of us wanted, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford all returned to the franchise together for the final time to give audiences the highly anticipated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Hugely successful but polarizing among its fanbase, the fourth film in the series is just as much of a funny, action-packed delight as the previous adventures of the title character. With incredible action that is among some of the best in the series, a new cast of colorful characters along for the ride, a fun subplot to develop the main cast and add to its humor, and an intriguing narrative that expands the imagination of the Indiana Jones universe into undiscovered country, the unnecessarily hated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is an excellent addition to the series and was well worth the wait.

Don’t let anyone tell you different.

For purists of the franchise, Crystal Skull is usually the dividing line for many. Audiences who grew up on Indiana Jones in the 1980s and rewatched those VHS tapes nonstop in the 90s have this idea of what the series should be and what it isn’t, according to them. It’s the classic case of a fandom thinking they know how to construct a story better than the minds that created it in the first place. Now, let it be known that this can be warranted in some cases. Fans having an undying passion for what was created previously and wanting the best for the future of the franchise they love isn’t something that should be insulted at every turn. It should be celebrated. We’re all fans of this stuff, which is why we consume so much media and discuss and analyze it virtually every day. Passionate viewers and superfans is what drives film and television, so this aspect of creation should never be ignored. Hearing what the people may have liked or disliked is a part of the game and should be taken into account, especially with franchises with such long and detailed histories. Nevertheless, an artist should never have to bend over fully to everyone’s demands because then it stops being art. It just turns into a commodity made purely for fan service, and that’s not what a storyteller does. Sometimes, a creative swing is needed. Such as the case with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. With the fourth movie in the series being 19 years removed from the film’s predecessor, they needed to make the movie different. The stakes needed to be raised even more than previous adventures to make this return the big deal that it was. The question of why it’s worth returning to this world needs to be answered. Furthermore, a creative change needed to be made to ensure the sequel avoided getting the label of an unneeded, cash-grab, retread of “same old, same old”, a death knell for legacy sequels. By the way, this doesn’t mean that the goal should be making an entirely different movie. Again, you still have to give the people what they want and satisfy the audiences who have waited this long to see their favorite hero’s return.

That’s a given. However, there needs to be a story worth telling after all these years. Otherwise, why revisit a trilogy that not only was as great and beloved as it was, but many deemed perfect?

The Star Wars prequels were worth seeing because it told all the backstory to explain how and why the original trilogy turned out the way they did, and they did so in grand fashion. Regardless of the quality of those prequels, people went out to see them because there was a good reason to do them. Finally, we got to see how it all started. On the opposite end of things, the Toy Story franchise is one that didn’t succeed in this regard. The trilogy was as perfect an ending as one could possibly ask for, but they decided to make the lesser-than Toy Story 4 sequel that was just a doubling down of the third and was substantially less effective as a result. Now, we’re going into Toy Story 5, and there isn’t a reason for either’s existence. The fourth film wasn’t bad, but it was an unnecessary addition to a story already told and finished with no need of a revisitation. With Indiana Jones, they could have easily picked a regular MacGuffin for Jones to seek out and keep things the status quo. It still would have made a lot of money, but it would have been annoyingly safe. Critics would question why it was necessary to return to the series if they were going to just do the same thing all the other movies did. It’s why Steven Spielberg inserted the father/son storyline into the Last Crusade, as it gave them a more personal reason outside of the MacGuffin that was the Holy Grail. The on-the-surface treasure was the Cup of Christ, but the real treasure was Henry and Indy reconnecting. That was his way at making it different and raising the stakes with a twist. With a fourth film, they needed to find a unique spin. Sure, you could have picked a treasure or artifact like the Golden Fleece, the Fountain of Youth, something about Atlantis, or whatever else and then go about things the same way, but this may have brought them closer into the “retread” category.

Also, how much different would it be from Last Crusade if a good portion of the sequel’s story is centered around a father/son relationship as Jones finds out, with him and Mutt? Granted, this is still part of the “fresh” take on the narrative, as Jones finds out he has a family after all this time and has to deal with this revelation in the middle of the action, but there needed to be a stronger hook, something unforgettable and all-encompassing.

They needed another chink in the armor to make things interesting. Even though Steven Spielberg was resistant to the idea initially, George Lucas eventually made Spielberg acquiesce to the idea of bringing in aliens into the franchise, or as he would put it “interdimensional beings”. For some, this was a dealbreaker because Indiana Jones and the artifacts he chases are usually grounded with some kind of historical basis rather than full-on science fiction hysteria. Though admittedly a lot of it is speculative and theoretical, there is still a surprising amount of fact-based research that have been analyzed and discussed at length throughout history on the existence of aliens. It’s engrossing, and it’s why the History Channel plays Ancient Aliens almost as much as TruTV plays Impractical Jokers. The film isn’t just spewing elaborate nonsense. There are a lot of historical accounts and well-researched theories on the possibilities of alien existence throughout human history. They incorporated a lot of things into this screenplay based on it. It wasn’t just created out of thin air. Because of this, it’s really not that far-fetched for Indiana Jones to cross paths with such a topic at some point in his life. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jones was at his most skeptical regarding the fantastical. Being such an academic, one could even classify him as nonreligious to a degree in his younger years. However, through the first three movies, Jones was involved in-universe with some of the most insane moments in human history. Twice, he saw the power of God and a third depending on how the viewer classifies the Hindu god, Shiva. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the opening of the Ark of the Covenant melted faces, brought out spirits, incinerated all the Nazi soldiers that were there, a hole opened in the sky to clean everything up, and the Ark closed itself. In Temple of Doom, Jones saw a man get his heart ripped out of his chest after Mola Ram evoked the name of Kali Ma and the man still lived.

The Sankara Stones could set themselves on fire at will depending on who was holding them, and Jones himself was forced to drink blood out of a skull that put him in what was referred to as “the Black Sleep of the Kali Ma”, a trancelike state that made him a follower who slapped Short Round to the ground and nearly killed Willie. He could only be brought out of the trance by Short Round burning him with a torch. In the Last Crusade, Jones met a 700-year-old knight and saw what would happen if you chose the wrong Holy Grail, as Donovan melted into a skeleton and exploded. Once Jones found the actual Holy Grail because he was basically referred to as the “Chosen One”, making a leap of faith onto a camouflaged bridge that literally no one before him in 700 years saw, he used the Cup of Christ to heal his father Henry, seeing the wound completely melt off Henry’s body when he poured the water on it. Knowing where the bar was set following the trilogy, what Indiana Jones has done in his life, what he’s achieved, what he’s seen in his life up until this point that is only further evidenced in his early life in the ridiculous happenings of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (implying that his entire life has consisted of stuff like this), why are aliens such a hard sell for people? If anything, it’s the logical next step because it’s the only thing Jones hasn’t done. They’ve literally done it all with this franchise. It’s time to level up. The only way to raise the stakes to make sense of this long of a wait in a life-threatening mission like never before is the much talked about theory of aliens helping ancient South American cultures. Though it might be controversial to even suggest this to fans, they did a fantastic job in bringing this idea to life while rooting it in the Indiana Jones style and lore. It’s a phenomenal blend of genres, and it doesn’t take heed until the third act, just like all the previous movies did. It’s nowhere near as jarring as people make it out to be, as all of the climaxes of the Indiana Jones films find themselves mixing in fantasy elements by the end that are unexplainable as far as archeology goes. It’s what sets Indiana Jones apart from other treasure hunting movies. It’s because they take it a step further to try and do something cinematically unforgettable.

It’s been a staple of the series since Raiders. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull follows the mold but just takes another step further into the deep end. Again, it’s not over-the-top. All of the movies are like this. This is just them going for broke, and it’s why Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny follows this exact same mold by inserting time travel and it succeeds just as well. It’s the next logical leap for Indiana Jones. It’s the power of God, aliens, and time travel, evidently.

If you want to get into further details within canon, there are plenty more examples of Jones facing magical or inexplicable happenings. It’s commonplace. Fans just choose to ignore its many examples. You want to draw the line at “nuking the fridge”? Grow up. Jones has seen and done it all over his lifetime and is one of the most intelligent, experienced, well-cultured, well-travelled, luckiest heroes of all time and on plenty of occasions has given audiences a reason to believe he’s straight-up protected by God himself. If anyone could figure out a way to survive an atomic bomb by locking himself in a lead-lined fridge, it’s motherfucking Indiana Jones. On the other hand, there are two things that we can concede are unforgivable, even for Indiana Jones standards. Though it’s very minor, the CGI gophers were unfunny, noticeably fake, and were an all-around painstakingly stupid decision to use as a transition. More than anything else that happens over the course of the runtime, this was the moment that stood out as the most egregious decision of the movie. Did Spielberg just watch Caddyshack or something? Besides this moronic segue, Mutt Williams swinging from the trees with a bunch of monkeys was a close second. It wasn’t the act of Mutt doing his best Tarzan impression to swing right back into the chase sequence between Spalko’s car and Indiana Jones’s. This is part of the pulpy, serial adventure vibe that the Indiana Jones movies thrive in anyway. It would have been a cool moment by itself. The problem with it is that Mutt watches a thousand CGI monkeys do it while he wonders what to do. Then, we are led to believe that these monkeys decided to not just attack Mutt and be done with it, which is more than likely what they would actually do. Instead, they want the viewer to believe these monkeys either swung on the vines to teach him or Mutt learned out of necessity by watching the monkeys. Either way, it was dumb as all hell. It wasn’t a dealbreaker, but it was stupid and flat-out did not belong in the movie.

People can say all they want about Shia LaBeouf’s real-life exploits, but the actor is insanely talented. Just look at how he tries to not break down seeing Ox in his crazed state. LaBeouf does just as well of a job here as he does the action hero parts of the complicated Mutt Williams. Recruiting the young actor to be a part of the series at the time while he was hot off of Transformers wasn’t a choice out of the blue. At the time, it was a respectable decision to tease the future of Hollywood by giving him the Harrison Ford rub. Taking the 1950s time period into account, LaBeouf is highly engaging as a greaser who is constantly combing his hair, working on his bikes, and has a bit of an ego problem that either puts him into violent situations or has him threatening to start one. It’s a fun character that we haven’t seen on the big screen in a major way for a long time, which is why it was such a breath of fresh air. Acknowledging Ford’s age by having the character age to coincide with this and aligning it all with a late 1950s setting was the best decision they could have made. It was yet another example of the sequel’s series of fresh ideas to do something new with this fourth film. Along with the music and the communist hysteria making academics like Jones and Dean Charlie Stanforth worried about the future of the country were great details to bring attention to how the world has changed since the last time we see our beloved hero, along with reminding people who lived through the time period how the 1950s were and how they were portrayed on film, especially with younger crowds. It’s yet another reason as to why Mutt Williams is as entertaining as he is with 50s lingo, and his personality and style coming straight from Marlon Brando in The Wild One (“What are you looking at daddy-o? She’s getting away!”). It’s a time in American history that should be explored more on the big screen, but it hasn’t in ages. In 2008 and even now, it’s a breath of fresh air.

By the way, the decision to go with Mutt as Indy’s son instead of maintaining The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles‘ story of Jones having a daughter somewhere down the line was the right way to go. This was a much needed retcon that provided substantial entertainment value for this sequel.

Along with the greaser character being created to align with the timeframe, Spielberg was absolutely correct in that due to the time period where the movie takes place, it only makes sense to acknowledge the Cold War and to make the Russians the bad guys of this film. The Nazi shtick was getting tired anyway. There is no new ground broken with making the Nazis AGAIN the main antagonists. It would be “Retread City” all over again if they went back to it. If this was truly going to be a fresh-faced sequel, bold decisions like this had to be made. Setting the story in 1957 allowed for such key change, and it paid off immensely, as was giving Jones a female villain for a change in the great Cate Blanchett to play the obsessive Spalko. Now, we’re not saying the Russian villain is setting the world on fire, as audiences have seen this in plenty of action movies over the years. However, doing it in the Indiana Jones franchise specifically is why it’s special. It adds to the “Communist scare” of the time period that had American culture and history in a stranglehold. From what has been documented about the era, it was a great depiction of it, albeit in a cinematic, pulpy way. At the same time, the same could be said about the alien factor itself, as “saucer men from Mars” were all the rage during this timeframe. The science fiction B-movies flooded drive-ins all over the country, and people have been speculating about the ins and outs of Area 51 ever since the infamous “Roswell incident” in 1947 where there were reported alien sightings of a “flying disk”. This lone moment in history has inspired an entire subculture and has led to generations of people questioning the validity and/or whereabouts of alien life forms. If you have ever been to Roswell, New Mexico, their entire local economy is based on that report alone. George Lucas’s idea behind Crystal Skull was to maintain the Indiana Jones style for the most part and still pay homage to the adventure serials of the 1920s and 1930s Hollywood, but its new story was updating it to reflect those famous, imaginative sci-fi B-movies of the time period and the growing, real-life obsession people began to have with aliens as it all happened when the movie takes place.

It allows Jones to have an entirely new environment to play in while expanding the scope of the franchise to make anything seem possible. At the same time, Jones is able to do what he does best in the middle of it all, which only further adds to his legend. That’s why it works.

For us longtime fans of the franchise, it goes without saying how great it is to see Karen Allen back in the fold. Hell, she even stole the show in her small role in Dial of Destiny. That smile is just something else. In Crystal Skull, she doesn’t miss a beat. Watching her pick up right where Marion and Jones left off with their arguing and then subsequent flirting was an absolute joy to see again. You literally get goosebumps seeing Jones’s shocked smile when Marion is revealed to be the hostage at the camp. Usually, a “long lost son” arc is a lazy trope, but tying Mutt’s existence into Jones and Marion’s on-again/off-again relationship that has been going on since the 1930s was a great decision. Fans of the franchise know that Jones’s true love will always be Marion, so bringing her back and actually making her a crucial part of the narrative since Mutt is their child was a great way to get the most beloved character of the series outside of the protagonist to return. It also creates another avenue for humor. Just as Mutt was beginning to like Jones’s style after seeing him in action and Jones was encouraging Mutt to do what he wants in life, the reveal of them being father and son makes them both change their tunes with each other instantly. Mutt’s attitude comes back and Jones finds himself comically demanding Mutt go back to school after previously telling him to do what he likes (“That was before I was your father!”). It’s funny, and Ford and LaBeouf have excellent onscreen chemistry. A great encapsulation of where the estranged family is at was the hilarious scene in the truck where Mutt realizes his dad wasn’t actually a British RAF pilot and that was just his stepfather. Once Marion mentions his stepdad as Colin Williams, Jones comically chimes in, as he’s the one who introduced the two. Marion throws it right back on his face to make sure everyone knows Jones isn’t innocent in all of this, as it’s revealed that he broke it off a week before the wedding. What’s great about these exchanges is that Karen Allen finds a way to be feisty, amusing, and argumentative without being shrillish and annoying like how Temple of Doom‘s Willie was.

That’s the fine line that Kate Capshaw never found out that Karen Allen had naturally. Allen just has a spark about her as Marion that is untouchable, and this scene is one of the many that further validates this claim. Nevertheless, Jones and Marion go back and forth just like the old days, and viewers get a gleam in their eye reminiscing about their younger days, as Jones says it wouldn’t have worked. Since they have the time to argue, Marion basically lays it out there with how mad she still is over the situation because Jones didn’t know if they wouldn’t have worked or not, questioning why he never talked to her about it. As intelligent as he has proven to be over all these years, it’s funny to hear that even Indiana Jones never had an argument he won with his significant other, a line that had everyone laughing in the theater back in the day. Jones’s difficulty with his personal life is given further traction not only with these revelations and his inability to speak with Marion at a deeper level, but her retort of Jones vanishing after breaking off the wedding when he yells that he had a right to know about Mutt’s existence is very telling in Jones’s overall character arc. At first, the only real inclination viewers had about Jones’s personal life struggles was how his father and him became estranged by the time of the events in the Last Crusade. Even if they made up, the years passed by and Jones never reached out to the others who were important in his life like Marion. He did write to her, but Marion brings up how it was an entire year later. By then, Mutt was born and she was married. Mind you, she is someone Jones was a week away from marrying himself! It’s actually why his evolution into a lonely, disheveled, broken-down soul in his later years that audiences saw in Dial of Destiny is actually a better arc than people gave it credit for. The team behind the final film’s screenplay clearly did their homework, as the signs were always there for what Jones would become in his later years. The earliest signs of this Jones are seen between the third and fourth movies, but his avoidance of Marion until the fourth ropes Raiders of the Lost Ark in this argument too.

Dial of Destiny is Jones reverting back to his old habits that happened in the interim period between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Just when we thought Jones finally came full circle with how Crystal Skull ended, enough trauma and tragedy led to Jones reverting to his old ways of avoiding the issue rather than talking it out with the love of his life or the people who matter to him most. Regardless, all of this leads to the main point that Indiana Jones does in fact understand by the end of the franchise as a whole, which the viewers first see here. As he’s about to break them out of captivity in that truck, Jones mentions how he’s had a few women over the years, but they all had the same problem. Still wanting to fight, Marion challenges him and asks what it was. In the coolest, most “Harrison Ford” way possible, Jones comments, “They weren’t you, honey”. Seeing her smile and giggle like she’s a kid again, hearing Jones admit his love for her in his own way puts a smile on our face too. You can’t help it. It’s one of those moments where you realize that no matter how bad life can be, love will always persist and overcome. Despite all the faults of their relationship, Jones and Marion will always be intertwined because they belong together. In a way, we all knew that. The characters sort of did too, but it takes them technically 21 years to recognize it. Even so, love overcame regardless of how long it took. That’s the story that just that line by Jones, and Marion’s beaming expression afterwards, tells worldwide audiences. There really is such a beauty in simplicity sometimes. A monologue from Jones or Marion wouldn’t have had a quarter of the effect that this small exchange had. For the record, Marion not returning until the fourth movie was the right way to go too, as much as audiences love her. It actually made Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that much better. They could have hypothetically rewritten Temple of Doom and Last Crusade to include her, but I liked the way the series turned out. Plus, Jones being an American James Bond of sorts who has a reputation with women is a crucial and underrated component to his character and backstory.

If he was just with Marion from start to finish, this wouldn’t be Indiana Jones anymore. It would be Nick and Nora Charles from The Thin Man.

Though it would ruin the big moment where Marion is revealed to be the hostage midway through the movie to Indy’s shock, it would have been cool to see Marion have a more substantial role earlier in the narrative or have at least one scene to show her acting without Ford onscreen. Marion having an emotional moment with Mutt or talking shit to Spalko while she’s tied up would have made a world of a difference. If they did the latter, they could have done the callback to Raiders where Jones snuck in her tent to find that she was still alive. In Crystal Skull, had he snuck in there only to see Marion tied up in the same manner after all these years, and they both lock eyes and subtly acknowledge the craziness of the moment, that would have been an-all time scene. Additionally, Marion showing her toughness against Spalko and refusing to be intimidated by her like she was with Rene Belloq or the Nazis would have been classically Marion. Granted, there is only so much time on film, but they could have saved some crucial seconds had those CGI gophers and monkeys been removed. We needed more “Marion” moments like her purposely driving off the waterfall only for them to run into two more accidentally (“Yes, dear”). On a more positive note, every single action sequence was perfectly executed. This includes the dialogue in-between, to the chases, the awesome sword fight between Mutt and Spalko on the top of the jeeps where LaBeouf sets the tone with an action hero intensity in his eyes, the flawless extended jungle sequence where Jones starts things off by finally getting to use that rocket launcher after only threatening it in Raiders, the outstanding opening sequence in Area 51 that started the movie out red hot, and the aforementioned atomic bomb sequence. The terror on Jones’s face trying to think of what to do is the most anxious and confused he’s ever looked. It actually seems like he’s questioning if this is how it ends after everything he’s been through. In addition, there’s also the Siafu ants sequence representing the other awful staple of the franchise in that they love insect scenes.

At least we are able to get past it because of that badass fight scene of Jones taking on Dovchenko one more time. That final combination he throws is arguably Jones at his best. With the amusing aspects of the film in mind, the “dry sand pit” sequence was worth the price of admission alone. Remember, it’s not quicksand. Jones makes that abundantly clear. You only have to worry if there’s a void collapse within the dry sand pit. You, see? He teaches the viewer just as well as he entertains. That’s the beauty of this franchise! Besides this, Ray Winstone’s Mac flip flopping was hilarious and his constant referring to our hero as “Jonesy” in his British accent is something that has stayed in my head rent-free since the movie came out (“So, what are you? A triple agent?”). This is another thing that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull does surprisingly well too. Despite both being one-off roles, Winstone’s Mac and John Hurt’s Harold Oxley are more entertaining and interesting than Sallah and Marcus Brody ever were. In fact, you don’t miss Sallah or Brody’s presence whatsoever in the narrative. That’s how good the new cast is in making this film stand on its own two legs as well as it does. On a side note, what a great move in hindsight it was to not let Shia LaBeouf’s Mutt take the signature fedora in the wedding scene. With everything that’s happened since in the actor’s personal life, a screenplay decision of having him take on the mantle could have killed the franchise. Thankfully, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford knew that there’s only one Indiana Jones.

A third act for the ages, the Apocalypto setup in the lost city of gold, to the puzzle-like way they get into the underground, to the bonkers idea that the ancient aliens were archaeologists themselves that collected artifacts from every era of early history, and the ultimate reveal of the hive-minded “13” and what follows after is genuinely frightening, but it’s also positively riveting in every sense of the word. It’s the same shock and awe felt at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the goosebumps finish of Temple of Doom, and the teary-eyed realization of Last Crusade. That finish of Spalko being infatuated with the possibilities of what this could mean for humanity if she could learn what they know and demanding to know it all is absolutely bone-chilling in its presentation (“I’ve got a bad feeling about this”). Furthermore, that shot of a small Indiana Jones at the bottom left of the screen watching as a pyramid falls apart, a flying saucer emerges before it goes off into a different dimension or “space between spaces”, and leaving behind it a beautiful sunset and waterfall in its dust is a visual like no other, and a great way to show what the franchise has become over the last 30 years in the span of 10 or so seconds while depicting metaphorically what it has meant to audiences around the world.

What a magnificent moment in time…

And to do all this crazy shit to get to the definitive point that knowledge is the real treasure? It may sound corny to some, but after seeing the full vision all the way through, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is genius in its own twisted, bizarre, humorous, and highly entertaining way. I think Indiana Jones is right. Somewhere, Henry Sr. is laughing (“This is intolerable!”).

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is an outstanding sequel. Despite the nearly twenty-year layover from its predecessor, the fourth film delivers in its action, romance, drama, cinematic thrills, humor, story, and something that audiences see less and less of on the big screen these days, the highly sought after “movie magic”. It may lead to a climax hard for old fans to grasp but seeing Indiana Jones lead this adventure proved that not only did Harrison Ford still have it, but this franchise was still just as good as it was back in the 1980s.