I saw Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull

And I feel rather strange about the whole thing. It wasn't good but it wasn't horrible. But it was just... different from the other Indy movies. Different in a bad way.

The action sequences in the movie are incredibly forced and contrived, which is the crux of the problem. In the other Indy movies, the big headliner action sequences were by-products of the main goal of the movie. Indy HAD to go along with it... or else. He was forced into action and needed luck and improvisation to make it out alive.

In Crystal Skull, it seems that everyone wants to create a big Akshun Seekwence(tm) just because they can. The scene that highlights this the most is the idiotic Jungle Highway High-Speed Chase. For some unexplained reason, we find the Russians (who look and feel exactly like Germans whenever they are not talking) want to fly through the jungle in trucks and cars at 70mph.

They have a big machine, that is briefly displayed and never explained, that chops the jungle down ahead of the convoy. Strangely, Indy destroys this machine and THEN the high speed chase begins. If there are long stretches of open highway in the jungle, why did they need the machine in the first place?

Indy (and his entourage) capture a truck (in exactly the same way he did it in Raiders), move up the convoy, and try to reclaim the Crystal Skull. The thing is... THEY DO THIS. They get the Skull, yet they continue to drive along side the Nazis Russians for another 5 minutes to facilitate a ridiculous sword fight scene spanning two side by side cars. I thought, for a moment, that I was watching the worst scene of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

At multiple times during the chase, Team Indy(tm) could have simply stepped on the brakes.

And THEN... don't get me started... comes the infamous monkey scene. I simply can't believe that an entire team of production people got together and said, "Yeah, this will be awesome! Let's put it in the movie!". It's so stupid that I hate even recalling it. The Mutt character gets separated from the high speed chase convoy and ends up stuck in some vines with some monkeys. Apparently he bonds with them in 10 seconds and they all become Magikal Frendz(tm). Mutt then proceeds to Tarzan Swing (yes, that's right) through the jungle (because everyone knows that jungles have a network of vines just primed for someone to Tarzan swing on them) to catch up to the convoy. You read that correctly. But that's not even the worst part.

He actually times his swinging to land back onto his car of choice. His Magikal Monkee Frendz(tm) FOLLOW him out of the jungle in order to attack the bad guys... and ONLY the bad guys. And of course, "no monkeys or other small animals fabricated in CGI were harmed during the making of this movie". You will understand what that means when you see the film.

As outrageous as this seems, a couple of the other scenes in this movie are even m0rE eXtREmE Do0d! The waterfall scene comes to mind. Absolutely ridiculous and stupid. So unbelievable that it makes you feel like an idiot for having to watch it. And you have to watch it three times! We all KNOW they are not going to die at the bottom of the falls like they should... so why do we have to watch them fall 3 times? It's not even funny.

Another scene that has this quality... the Nuke the Fridge scene. Sigh...

And then there are the Native Temple Protektors(tm) who have nothing better to do than lie in wait inside the walls of ancient temples waiting for infidels to come Tomb Raiding. I can imagine them going to work in the morning, punching into a time clock. "Hey Frank, what are you up to today?" "Same old same old. I'm going to brick myself up in a tiny hole in the old temple and wait for an Adventurer to come walking by so I can jump out and be all spooky."

Yes, this happens. Team Indy enter tombs where real people burst from bricked up hiding spaces, evoking the aliens emerging from the hive in the movie Aliens. The difference being, in Aliens IT MAKES SENSE! In Indy, it's just stupid. You know they included this for one and only one reason... it's supposed to be Kewl and eXtREmE!

The sad fact is that Indy 4 didn't NEED any of that extreme-ness. It just needed to be a neat tomb raiding movie. That's the stuff that people want to see.

Oh, and I just realized that I completely forgot about the snake and the quicksand scene. UGH!