Well, I finally got to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Not impressed, I have to say. There are many reasons for this. I've never been a Karen Allen fan (I liked Kate Capshaw better). And they messed with Roswell and the Crystal Skull something awful. Sonny Whitelaw wrote a thesis recently, on the right way to mess with mythology and make it plausible. It's called The Attraction of Sloppy Nonsense - Resolving Cognitivie Estrangement in Stargate Through the Technologising of Mythology. Spielberg should have read it.

There are some movies that are simply going to do well, regardless of what the reviews say. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is one of them, so read on, as you will, bearing in mind it makes little difference, in the general scheme of things, what reviewers think of it.

First up, the good. Indy is back, and Harrison Ford hasn’t aged too badly, all things considered, even if some of the stunts he performs would be a stretch for a man half his age. He hasn’t lost the smirk, still manages to make that damned hat look cool, and he’s still managing to get himself into scrapes that require miraculous feats of derring-do in order to escape. The film is funny in places, and the stunts are great. And there are bugs (ants, actually) and snakes. I mean, what’s Indy without a snake to panic over?

Spielberg hasn’t tried to pretend Indy is still a young man, leaving that feat to Mutt Williams (played by the can-do-no-wrong Shia Le Beouf), who enlists Indy’s help to rescue his mother (Karen Allen returning as Marion Ravenwood) and an old colleague, Professor Oxley (John Hurt), from the evil clutches of Soviet scientist, Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett with a dreadful haircut and a rather wobbly accent). This task is complicated more than once by the greedy 'Mac' George McHale (Ray Winstone), Indy’s sometime friend and former colleague.

Turns out, in the intervening years between Indy's last adventure and now, he’s become something of a war hero and a spy for the OSS. Which brings us to the bad. There’s an awful lot of exposition dialogue going on, particularly in the early part of the film, where Mutt is as much a reason for Indy to explain things, as he is an active participant in the action. Although I like Le Beouf, I’m not sure I buy him as the Fonz, which seemed to be what he was aiming for.

Although the formula is there (great stunts performed while trying to find/save/recover/steal fabulous mythological objects), the mixing of the Roswell incident along with the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull didn’t ring true with me. In fairness, this is probably because I’ve had reason to research them in some detail in the past couple of years, and have a level of knowledge about both that is far beyond your average audience, who needs a map to show that the Amazon is in South America. But here’s the thing — if you’re going to mess with the facts, you need to stick as closely as possible to them, to make the rest of the story plausible. This story doesn’t do that, which annoyed me, although, to be honest, I doubt this oversight had the slightest impact on the majority of the audience who wouldn’t know one crystal skull from another, and think Roswell is the name of a TV show.

So, is the movie fun? Of course it is. The acting is good, the direction is flawless, the stunts are absurdly implausible and there’s a ridiculously happy ending, but for me, it lacked something. It was almost as if they were trying too hard. I’m not sure what, and I’ll be the first to admit it may have a great deal with the inaccuracies about Roswell and the crystal skulls, but for me, at least, it felt a little contrived.

I am finding it hard to think of a film that Lucas has had a hand in that was as good as Star Wars a new hope. Would you say this movie lacked soul?

That's how I felt with the last three Starwars movies.

I have to agree with you - there was something in this film that didn't work for me - and since I knew nothing about the skulls ahead of time and know only marginally more about Roswell, that wasn't my problem. It just lacked something - maybe the fact that none of the danger seemed all that real and the dialogue wasn't really fun either.

I'm surprised you gave it three stars. Everyone I've heard talk about has hated it and found it a real disappointment (ranging from high school students to random adults who have seen and loved all the others).

When I saw it, I turned off the brain and just went along for the ride. I liked it, as did my two children, but my husband thinks it lacked something. It did. The snappy dialogue was missing, though I did like the 'now that I know you're my son you will go back to school' subplot. As you say, Shia can do no wrong, and I expect to see that young man winning an Oscar. I quite liked him as the Fonz, though I think he was doing more of 'A Rebel without a Cause'. :) Harrison Ford looked too old to be so spry, and he isn't aging as well as Mr Connery.

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