Movie Review!

Last night was the last hurrah before my son left for vacation with his father. We chose to see the new Indiana Jones movie, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was a nice finish to a great adventure series.

I admit, I already knew alot of key story components but that didn't make the adventure any less fun. It made it all the more intriguing how they were going to bring out these new story lines.

There's been alot of flack passed for Cate Blanchett's turn on a Russian accent. My view is that she did an excellent job (and looked the part so well). You completely forgot who she was, which is the hallmark of a good actor or actress. Never once did she falter from her characterization (or her accent, with which many other noted actors have not fared so well).

John Hurt had the best performance. He also probably had the most fun of all the characters in the role of "Ox". As always, he provided a stunning play on a very intriguing role as a former colleague gone mad from trying to communicate with the crystal skull. I'm sure he enjoyed watching it at the premiere almost as much as performing it during filming.

Then there's the bugs. For the love of all that is holy, why in the WORLD do so many movies have to have creepy, nasty, big crawly bugs??? I had enough of them in the Mummy movies (of which they are also coming out with a third this year). I guess the Indy movies must have their obligatory bug scene, but sheesh! I spent the rest of the evening scratching imaginary itches from the heebie-jeebies.

My favorite scene was where Indy crashes the college library. That's all I'm going to tell you. Absolutely hilarious!

The only criticisms I had were the completely unneeded "Mac" character and that they didn't use Karen Allen to the fullest extent. Come on - the scenes in which they let her and Harrison Ford just go at each other were the best. We needed more of that from them. I'm not going to tell you exactly what they were fighting about, just to avoid spilling any beans for those who have not seen it. But those were the most fun moments of tension in the whole movie, very reminiscent of the original.

The ending is completely implausible but a totally expected ending to the premise and tone set in the opening moments of the movie. They did a really neat job finalizing that scene though. Very cool!

Then the very end wraps up the series with a neat little bow. And maybe a lead-in to a new generation?

We'll just have to wait and see.