GroshLink

Last Friday I had a night out with some guys from our fellowship group (go Disciples!).  We went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Although the film has had a strong showing in the box office, I am disappointed in the reopening of the series, after such beautiful closure in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (was it really 19 years ago?).

Why, because instead of another classic, I found a parody of Indy's own cliche with the necessity of a total suspension of disbelief from action-to-action frame mixed with an alien spirituality.  A few standouts include

1. Indy's atomic blast survival in a refrigerator tossed across the dessert
2. Irina Spalko's (Cate Blanchett) exploration of pyschic warfare on behalf of the former U.S.S.R. ... watch out Spock!
3. Plummeting over 3 falls in an amphibious vehicle with a money craving triple agent who has been leaving trackers all along their route (when he hasn't been shadowing Indy or clearly in the enemy's camp) and somehow enables the Soviet team to find them quickly on foot
4. The revelation of a here-to-fore unknown swashbuckling son Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). Remember Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)? More family adventures in the future, at least with Mutt, but possibly even Marion (if she doesn't suddenly disappear again)?  FYI:  Theresa pointed out to me the Newsweek article Harrison Ford—Who Needs Him?  It's been almost two decades since the last 'Indiana Jones' film. But I've been waiting even longer for Karen Allen. ...
5. The climatic take-off of an alien Amazonian civilization after the restoration of the Crystal Skull.   BTW, the aliens have an interest not only in gold but also in collecting pieces from high culture around the world ... a get-rich-scheme and an archeologist's dream wrapped up all in one to be lost in a pile of rubble and falling water! 

I feel out of breath and I've only begun to scratch the surface of this Area 51 film!  Let's get the whole Jones family and their producers back to the university to make a real Indiana Jones film which I can somehow for the most part inhabit.  I truly wish the explorations of the young, wide-eyed, maturing Young Indiana Jones would have worked out 2 decades ago.  That offered a much better alternative, but I guess it doesn't sell like what we have on our current silver screen. 

Drop me a comment as I'm waiting to be encouraged, but at present I find it the worst Indiana Jones film ever (although one of my friends places it above Temple of Doom) and I wouldn't submit to consumerism in order to have the other Indiana Jones film archived or watch it again with my girls when they're older.  Even so, it's true that I had to see it; I enjoyed the nod, nod, wink, wink to the Indiana Jones myth/story; AND I loved the time chatting with the guys afterward! 

PS. Click here for the Christianity Today Review.