I’m very disappointed to say that this movie sucked donkey snot. It was disjointed, boring, and just a sad, typical, mishmash of committee designed Hollywood fecal matter. You don’t connect with the characters, they just seem stuck in the movie, and are completely one dimensional. Even more so than usual. They completely wasted John Hurt, Kate Blanchett, and Karen Allen (who was great to see in the movie). Not to mention Harrison Ford. Some people think he was too old for this movie. I say, nay nay. This movie failed because of the writing and directing, not because of the acting or the actors age. This movie wasn’t written, it was designed. A committee sat around a conference table and brainstormed over Lattes and Frappuccinos and wrote ideas on a white board – we need an insect scene, a snake reference, a cave with skulls, a scene where they fly over the map, hey lets make Indy all warm and fuzzy and give him a happy family ending.

It’s like they have a database of movie cliche’s and some Mac application where they drag them around in little scene bubbles and connect them up and then print out the script. It’s call Microsoft Movie Cliche Database Professional Enterprise Edition 2008 and it blue screens my machine. Hell, it blue screens the internet.

Oi. The plot. The plot was ridiculous, confusing, and didn’t make sense. I knew we were in trouble from the first scene. The (non-sensical) rocket sled thingy. The refrigerator. Sigh. Though I will say there was a quick visual reference to the first movie that entertained me for about 0.25 seconds until I realized I’d rather be watching the first movie. (ooh, snap!) The ending was like they tacked on the ending from another unrelated movie. Seriously. And I think it was one of the “Mummy” movies. I think I saw Brendan Fraser dressed up as one of the rock throwing tribesmen. Instead of screaming tribal war screams, he was screaming “I hate mummies!”.

Take this plot criticism from someone who is fairly lienient about plot lines, especially if there is a sci-fi element. I will forgive a dumb plot if the rest of the movie holds together, which, in this case, it didn’t. This was like one of those paper towel commercials where they mop up something gelatinous with the leading brand and the brand they’re selling in a head to head wipe off. Off course the “leading” brand disintegrates on contact. And, indeed, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull disintegrated on contact.

There was even these references to Indy’s past during “the war” that I’m like, whu? Huh? Bwah? Did I miss something in the other movies? What in the name of all that’s ancient archeology are they talking about? Did I miss a movie? W!? T!? F!?

The movie really felt like a bunch of scenes chopped together without any transitions – the first movie just flowed and was so fun from start to finish. This was like riding a broken down roller coaster with rusty chipped wheels, missing rails, and creaking supports. It just bangs and jostles you around with no finesse or style. It gets you there, and may be a bit exciting at moments, but only because you think you’re going to fly off the tracks and impale your face on a Ring Toss spike.

This movie didn’t work. At all. It Failed. Epically.

I blame George Lucas. They should take away his movie making license. He really flew the star wars plane into the ground. And now this. George, go jump in a lake. A deep, deep, cold, remote lake. Maybe one with a legendary sea monster hiding in it. If you like I can email you some GPS coordinates. I can arrange a Helicopter pilot.

Oh, and readers, sorry about the Donkey snot comment.