Nelson Galaxy

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I have recently seen the summer blockbuster that is ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’. I was a little annoyed that it was shown on Screen 2 at Mile End Genesis Cinema, this was due to ‘Sex and the City’ being released on a Wednesday. When are films ever released on a Wednesday?

What did I think of the new Indiana Jones? It was OK. I had heard lots of reviews saying the movie was a disappointment. The film is just a fairly average b-movie action adventure. I did not have high hopes so I enjoyed two hours of silly popcorn action and nonsense plotting.

If I were a massive fan of the series and had gone to see the movie with the weight of nearly two decades of expectation then I would have been massively disappointed.

The leads are all fine; Ford seems to be enjoying himself, it was good to see Karen Allen again, Cate Blanchett makes an entertaining villain, John Hurt, Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent and Alan Dale are all underused and Shia LaBeouf had no charisma and stupid hair. The script by David Koepp is silly, but the score, cinematography and stunts are spectacular and the majority of non-CGI effects are stunning.

It has inter-dimensional aliens, bad Russians, 50s Americana, nuclear testing, double crosses, cliff-side chases, man devouring ants, boats over waterfalls, sword fighting, a spaceship, a coffee shop brawl, Denholm Elliott’s severed head in a man’s lap, a glimpse of the Ark of the Covenant, a big snake and monkeys.

It is much better than the reboot Lucas attempted with Star Wars and the glut of appalling adventure films from last year, such as Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean. But it is all so ordinary. The film opens with the Paramount logo morphing into a heap of soil that crumbles to reveal a prairie rodent, not into some majestic, forbidding mountain. This sums the film up.

What should have been an astounding comeback for Indiana Jones is just average and trite. Mark Kermode summed it up by saying it was, “Remarkably unremarkable.”