Herees Indie, back with his ubiquitous hat and whip (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (DVD))

Member Name: mickeyhunt

Product:	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (DVD)
Date:	16/08/09 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A good old fashioned adventure, reminiscent of Saturday morning pictures,

Disadvantages: The ending

This is a fim that I have been waiting for for over twenty years. When I finally got to see it, I was like a 16 year old again. I sat in the cinema as the opening credits rolled and was practically jumping up and down with excitement. The feeling of nostalgia that washed over me almost made me cry. The iconic introduction of Indie in shadow and then just the hand retreiving his battered hat was just perfect, as familliar as the hiss and buzz of a lightsabre or the apperance of Bruce Willis in a torn vest and bloodied feet. The shadow and hat epitomised Indiana Jones and I felt the bubble of excitement burst inside me as I giggled in glee (my husband's muttered " are you ok" did sober me a bit and remind me that I was now 44 not 16).

From this point on the film's action canters along at typical breakneck speed. I particularly loved the motorbike scene and loved the bit where Indie goes through the car and back onto the bike, so reminicent of Raiders. The film does not give you time to get bored or lost. The plot is not too difficult, baddie communists seek magical skulls to rule the world, but this is not a problem, as what we want from Indiana Jones is a hair raising ride at breakneck speed with some baddie/goodie action thrown in.
This film does exactly what is says on the tin. We want Indie's one liners and his whip. We want his illogical fear of snakes in desperate situations. We get this in spades. This is a film for the Indie fan as it is so full of reminders of the magnificent 3 (Raiders, Temple and Crusade).

The baddies are good, Cate Blanchett is brilliant as Irina and I just loved Ray Winstone who kept turning from good guy to bad guy to good guy so often he must have been dizzy. Suprisingly Jim Robinson from Neigbours even turned up ( Alan Dale seems to be in everything these days from Ugly Betty to Torchwood.)

It was sad that Denhom Elliot was dead and so unable to reprise his role as Marcus Brody, although Jim Boadbent was an excellent addition as Dean Stanforth. I think that it would have been perfect if Daddy Jones had made an appearence, although it might have ended up too cliched. However the reappearence of Marion, who I think was his true love, was spot on. I never did buy his involvement with the others, espcially the Nazi strumpet.

I found myself still fancying Harrison Ford even though he is old enough to be my dad. He still has the old magic even at 66 and he can still use a whip.

Now the only problem that I had with the film is the end, not the epilogue I loved that, but the end of the adventure. I will not spoil it, but will only comment that when Mr S and Mr L were trying to write the end, they must have exhausted themselves writing the rest of the story and had to come up with something in a hurry so they adaped a scene from The Life of Brian ( if you have watched the film you will remember the sequence with the high tower and Brian and the .....) or perhaps they had a bit of footage going spare from Close Encounters. It did not spoil the film for me as I was fairly philosophical about this, after all if the ending had been brilliant then this would have been an exceptional film and that would have been very difficult to achieve with such a gap between the first 3 and this one. I loved it for what it was and can forgive the ending just because Indie is back.

Watch it and enjoy and suspend belief at the end, then enjoy the epilogue. I can't wait for the next film and hope it won't be another 20 years, as I will be too old to enjoy it and Harrison Ford will probably be dead.

Summary: This is good Indie (not classic) but good, worth watching and adding to the collection,