Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Fucked Up Ideas

Cover via Amazon

Indiana Jones, the icon. Since The Raiders of the Lost Ark, it had equal number of fans as Star Wars, maybe because both franchises star Harrison Ford, or maybe because both of them are awesome. George Lucas again shown us how to make a film – and it was not Howard the Duck. Of course, I watched all three of them, and, of course, I thought that it's too bad they won't make another one. That was until 2008, when they announced Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull.
Thus, when the news reached me, I obviously went to the cinema and…

ONE SCREENING LATER

If I was to sum this up in two words, I'd be like "fucking aliens". Yeah. But don't take my word on that, let's see the how close to rectum this cranium is. The opening is a minor detail, but just as the three previous films transitioned Paramount logo into a mountain, in this film, they transition it into a fucking prairie dog hill.

At least they used the old logo.

See? That's how you know a film's going to suck. As in, uh-oh, Paramount gone CGI groundhogs, here come the trouble! And that's just the beginning. Does it get any better? After five minutes, yes. Before, some rich kids race with Russians on the Nevada desert. Russians in US uniforms. Then, Indy and Mac (I guess they ran short on Marcus Brody) are pulled out of a trunk before the Area 51 warehouse. We meet a soldier who enjoys punching the shit out of main characters and Cate Blanchett as a Ukrainian psychic weirdo, Irina Spalko.

I see your soul...

We find out that Russians are searching for some mummy of an alien whose skeleton is highly magnetic and made of crystal. Do I see a Where's the Logic moment here? (For those who treat science as that thing people invented to scare others with, just like mathematics, crystal can't be magnetic.) So when they find the alien, we see first of the battles, in which Indy runs away from Russians, into the night – how does the time pass in this film again? – when Indy and the protagonist puncher accidentally activate an experimental jet train, which knocks the Russian unconscious and allows Indy to escape. We see the prairie dogs again – what, are they some sort of running gag here? – and then, after wandering the whole night in Area 51, he runs into a small village – which turns out to be a nuclear blast test site. After Russians left him there, he locks himself in a lead lined refrigerator and survives the CGI nuke – again accompanied with the prairie dog. Also CGI. After a talk with the FBI douches,

And other people from the military, he goes back to teaching at his university – OR DOES HE? Of course not. The FBI made the dean resign in order to let Indy keep the job – under a condition of indefinite leave. Wow. Obnoxious douche bag is obnoxious. Then Indy has a wine-powered talk with the Dean, reminiscing his father (remember him from James Bond The Last Crusade?) and Marcus Brody (yeah, this moron too.) He says he wants to go to Leipzig, and the next day, when he sets off in a train, some greaser^{(=young douche who rides a motorcycle and always carries a comb in a switchblade)} catches him and tells him that someone wants to have some Harold Oxley dead. Oh, Must be the Russians. Cut to the Exposition Café on Stereotype Street, where it is revealed that kid's name is Mutt (You mean a mixed-breed dog? You're close). In a brief conversation with interruptions like "you gotta problem with it?" or "shut up! It's my mother we're talkin' 'bout, OK?", we find out that Oxley was interested in the Crystal Skull. No, no, not the (fake) Hedges skull – the alien one. So, the plot is that half a year ago, Mutt's mother received a letter from him, with a riddle in dead language included. So wait, was Oxley a freak? Someone who thought that the best encryption available to him is to write a letter in an extinct language? Never mind, let's get back to the, um, Exposition Café. Oxley is in Peru, found the Crystal Skull (well, he could always go to the British Museu— "The real one"—Oh fuck you. ^{The skull in British Museum is not real.}). Anyway, he sort of gone off with it to Akator (you mean El Dorado?) – we're also introduced to Francisco de Orlleana, the dead man. He'll play a role later. As a dead man. Speaking of death, Indiana says he almost died of typhus looking for the damn city. We then are introduced to a legend that whoever returns the skull to Akator, gains control over its powers. Again, crystal has no special powers. Except when used in lasers. But, as it turns out, it's a Where's the Logic moment, and I just love Mutt's reaction. Such a retarded face.

Fucktard.

…but the moment is interrupted by who else – the KGB douches. So Indy instructs Mutt to punch some random guy, and that triggers a fight between the greasers and the other subculture. And you think skinhead vs. emo was bad. Then, we have a beautiful chase scene, which ends in a library – and a fucktard who didn't notice that Dr. Indiana Jones was on a fucking motorbike, but jumped right to the question about some random archaeology shit. God, is this film full of fucktards?

More fucktards.

We then cut to the scene when they decipher the letter from Harold Oxley.

No, it's not a riddle, it's an Owner's Manual for Stargate. The skull is like our Warning sign.

It turns out that they have to go to Nazca Plains (remember those geoglpyhs people believed were left there by Aliens? Well, that's the same thing). At least they've recreated the classic journey animation… But I bet it's CGI. Well, at least they tried to make it look old.

Note it's a trial version.

They land in the psychiatric asylum ran by some nuns, and find Oxley's room covered in cravings of the skull and one word in many languages. There they find that they need to find Orlleana's grave, which is in Nazca Plains. So they go there, fight a bunch of natives dressed as zombies, and take the skull from there, BTW discovering Orlleana & crew dry-cocooned and mummified. And then what, did they tell anyone about it? No? Then Where's the Logic?
Apparently, they won't rejoice too long, because they were found by who else, but the KGB douches with Mac in the front row.

One more thing – they exit the tombs when new day breaks. How do you measure time in this film again?

So the Russians take Jones somewhere with them, and make him stare into the skull – which apparently makes him hallucinate about Oxley and that he must return the skull to Akator. I wonder, what's the scientific explanation for this? That soul-staring chick had one… Oh, yeah. "Ze skull's krystal ztimulates undeveloped parts of human brain". Sexy accent, but it do you know anything about FUCKING SCIENCE? I mean, it's not that it's impossible, because why it only works with eyes and not the skinhead end? Where's the Logic you bitch!

I see your soul...

Ugrh. That was… scary. But what's more scary is that he actually gets to meet his would-be wife – yeah, the one from Raiders for the Lost Ark. Shit.

So then we have a scene when Indiana falls into a quicksand, or dry sand, or whatever the fuck he fell in, then stupid Assley Oxley gets the commies instead of help, then they sort of decipher what Oxley meant in the poem, they go to a river, have a chase&fight scene – cool, find the entrance to the Kingdom of the Crystal School Skull, fight more natives, Mac of course plants radio beacons behind them so Spalko can find them, commies shoot the natives, Jones and Spalko get to the chamber with crystal skeletons, they de-behead one of them, so an entity reincarnates, Spalko wants to download all the internets of all times, but it backfires – or rather, fries her brain through her eyes. You know, for kids!

Look, they're all happy!

Oxley returns to normal, and they escape by a fucking water fountain. A flying saucer rises up, disappears, leaving huge fucking rocks floating in the air – is it a side effect of interdimensional jump or just a CGI show off? Where's the Logic again? Because I don't see it. Everybody is laughing while the most profound discovery of all time is being consumed by a newly forming lake – oh fuck. A revelation to Oxley: Mutt is actually Indy's son (Henry Jones III), of which we learn in the quicksand scene. And then we cut to the wedding. Doors open. Wind blows the fedora to Mutt's feet – but this asshole Indiana Jones takes it from his hands. Call that a family heritage? I don't.

Wrap-up

So basically, this film is OK, but it's that kind of film you say "FUCKING ALIENS" when watching. Just like Stargate and the pyramids thing. I didn't really get the prairie dog running gag, and the Indiana Jones has a son subplot is just funny ("Don't let anybody tell you how to live your life" changes to "I've got a news for you, you're going back to school") – but it's that kind of film that could've been better somehow. My rating: 4 out of 5.
I'm lamp-ARR-ski, ranting on the filmreel of horribleness.
P.S. I should really stop using MS Word for that... Fuckfuckfuckfuck!

Acknowledgements:
Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull is a property of Paramount Pictures and/or Lucasfilm, Ltd.
All of the pictures (except the one with happy children) come from this flickr set of mine.
The happy children picture comes from the user millzero (original is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/millzero/1100613258/) and was licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Non Commercial. Thank you, millzero.

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