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

Indy climbed into a lead refrigerator, and ended up surviving the nuclear bomb. Really? Is that possible? I am going to be really mad when I try to survive a nuclear bomb that way and it doesn’t work. Be prepared to get seriously haunted if it doesn’t work, Indy.

Harrison Ford returns to the big screen in the all too familiar role as Indiana Jones. After all these years, Ford is still one fine piece of then 64 year old beef. Way to stay in shape fella. This fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series is 19 years after the last one, but still just as good. I feel like it really stayed true to the original movies’ format, and the best part is that it’s got some of the classic action in it to keep the audience from getting bored.

At first, I was afraid, I was petrified. And then I got angry and stupefied. After three movies of Indiana Jones running around and getting into trouble with bad guys, you would think he would be prepared for anything, right? Wrong! Indy makes his big entrance by being thrown out of a trunk of a car because he’d been kidnapped. At first I was wondering why was this great adventurer in the trunk of the car, he’s better than that. And then I realized… he is a professor of archeology, not some trained killer. For a professor, he does a pretty good share of butt-stomping, all things considered, so I’ll let it slide this time Indie, but you should really be more prepared next time: take some self defense classes, arm yourself, or something.

You want to know who is one lucky SOB: Shia LaBeouf. First, he gets to co-star in a movie with the coolest autobot, Optimus Prime, and then he gets to co-star in this movie with the Harrison Ford aka Indiana friggin’ Jones. Well done. However, it is ~ 30 minutes before LaBeouf shows up in Indiana Jones, but then again, the movie isn’t called Mutt Williams and the Quest for the Perfect Hairdo. Both Indy and Mutt (LaBeouf) get their own share of the action. Now, there is some of the action that looks obviously fake, but it’s a movie. Of course it’s fake, so I can overlook that. It’s still pretty kick ass when the action is happening. There are some down moments to focus on the plot. I would have liked to have seen a little more action but overall it’s a snazzy movie, a fine addition to the Indiana Jones series.

One last note, you can call me a girl but I don’t care. I could not crawl around in those little tight places with all the webs and creepy crawly things. I would freak out. I mean I could fight zombies, monsters, investigate scary noises, etc, but that is my weakness…my only one of course.

Time until the real action starts: ~ 15 minutes

Big bad baddies: Soviet agents

Best Line: Indie and Mutt are talking in a diner. Some guys walk up behind Mutt and ask them to step outside. Mutt brings out his wee little 4 inch knife like he is a big baddie about to mess some people up. Indie says, “Kid, I think you just brought a knife… to a gun fight.”

Best Kill: There were not a lot of kills in this movie, just a lot of beating up and dying by other circumstances. However, there was one kill that creeped me out so much I almost couldn’t watch it. If you’ve seen this movie, you know what I’m talking about. Indy is fighting with a Soviet baddie while they are being surrounded by big, huge, gigantic, ENORMOUS ants. Thousands of them. Indy kicks the Soviet baddy into the ants and they swarm him. They start going into his mouth and every orifice on his body. Then they carry him off to the queen ant in the ant hill. Very disturbing (shudder).

Best Explosion: Indie finds himself in this weird little fake town, with mannequins staged everywhere. Then he realizes that this is a test site for nuclear weapons and one is about to be dropped on the faux city. That explosion was awesome. Of course it incinerated the whole town and then some. I have to say that that is the biggest mushroom cloud I’ve ever seen. I do have one beef with that whole scene, though. Indy climbed into a lead refrigerator, and ended up surviving the nuclear bomb. Really? Is that possible? I am going to be really mad when I try to survive a nuclear bomb that way and it doesn’t work. Be prepared to get seriously haunted if it doesn’t work, Indy.

Rating: 3 Crystal Skulls, out of 5