Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

We've waited 18 years for it - and it's here! With so much hype, so much speculation leading up to the release of this movie it is amazing that it lives up to it all! Harrison Ford is wonderful. His quiet, understated hero character lives on. Thankfully there are some jokes and mentions of his age. If they had just glazed the years without mention it would have been quite disappointing.

From the first scene you know you're in Spielberg land. It is just awesome to watch the framing of the scenes - when Harrison Ford first shows up for example, we see The Hat hit the ground and then by shadow we see Indiana pick it up and put it on. Thus giving us that trademark profile, age or no age. That is directorial poetry.

Shia LaBeouf has a major part as 'Mutt', a sort of tough kid (sort of). I was skeptical about his ability to pull that off but he does remarkably well. There are a few surprises and a few old friends show up from the past, with a bit of information about what they've all been up to. Those details are thrown in during the very brief interludes between chase scenes.

I like a good chase/action scene as much as the next guy, and I hate to say one disparaging word about this movie, but I have to say at some point the action just blurs together and my brain checks out. During the jungle chases it did just that. I believe there really is too much of a good thing. By contrast, Ironman had action and great action/chase/fight scenes, but the build up was there, the plot was there, the tense scenes were there. Then the action was the payoff. It wasn't the only thing going on.

There is a great deal of buzz right now about the Soviets being all offended over the plot. Frankly the plot was thin and I don't think one person who bought a ticket to this movie cared a hoot about the plot. That's not what we went for.

You have to laugh that the Soviets are claiming the plot was not historically accurate - do they know it is a movie? Fiction?

Kate Blanchett kept a straight face through this. It was not my favorite role for her by a long shot. It was so nice to see Karen Allen back on the big screen. We still see her on the small screen every Christmas when we have our yearly viewing of "Scrooged" with Bill Murray. She's a good actress.

All in all what a fun day at the movies - we give it a 4. Lots of good popcorn, too!