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seriousficWe start off with the old-school Paramount logo dissolving into a groundhog mound. It’s quickly driven through by a group of American teenagers in a roadster. How… respectful. They’re playing that one “rock” song that always plays when time-travelers show up in the fifties and acting like such completely stereotypical teenagers that if this were the seventies, Jason and Freddy would be pretty much obliged to show up and start killing people. And we get our first dreadful hint that this takes place in THE FIFTIES. It’s the Cliff’s Notes version of verisimilitude, with lots of references that probably took thirty seconds to find on Google. “Quick, what’s a song that was popular in the 1950s and utterly familiar to today’s audiences as well?”
Which wouldn’t be so bad, but this goes on throughout the credit sequence. If you thought the musical opening to Temple of Doom was out of place…
Having utterly failed to generate any tension or atmosphere, the military convoy the teens were wigging at arrives at an Army base. That’s right, the fourth Indiana Jones movie opens in exotic… New Mexico. The convoy turns out to be a false flag operation, which kills the guards and breaks into the warehouse… the same one from the end of Raiders. Any good will this bit of continuity might have generated is obliterated by a winking sight gag about the Ark of the Covenant, another one of the weirdly crass disrespects paid to the original movies. It’s like someone telling a kinda funny joke, then ruining it by explaining the punchline and laughing obnoxiously.
The fake US soldiers turn out to be real Russian soldiers, who bring out Indiana Jones and his new sidekick for bad girl Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett).
SPALKO: Ah, the famous Indiana Jones. And who is this man with you?
INDY: IDK, my BFF Mac?
MAC: Yes, I’m Indy’s best pal, his confidante, his buddy, his blood brother, his hetero life mate.
INDY: I freaking love you, man!
MAC: I freaking love you too!
Spalko interrupts the bro-mance. She is, in addition to a dirty Commie, a psychic, thus earning the first of my “oh, bru-ther” moments. She tries to read Indy’s mind.
SPALKO: You save often… so, you like Konami games!
However, Indy’s mind is too strong. Spalko being a telepath never comes up again. The Commies, Indy, and his faithful companion Mac go inside the warehouse, where Indy is forced to help them find a crate that’s intensely magnetic. It’s an alien corpse from Area 51, because Lucas had the “genius” idea that since the earlier Indiana Jones films were based on the pulp serials of the forties, a latter-day one should be based on the sci-fi films of the fifties. Presumably, a decade from now Indiana Jones V will be able Indy getting high and riding motorcycles with Henry Fonda and Dennis Hopper.
Using his innate Indyness, Indy manages to trick the Commies and hold Spalko hostage.
INDY: I think we should call this a day.
MAC: And I think we should call it… your grave!
INDY: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.
Indy manages a daring escape that involves the would-be Pat Roach Russian, Dovchenko (played by Igor Jijikine, which would probably be a better name for an evil henchman), a rocket sled, and CGI groundhogs. Yes, despite promises that there would be as little CGI as possible, for some reason they had to use special effects to realize the exotic nature of groundhogs. Mac survives mainly through luck, not his familiarity with Indy, which makes you wonder why the script made him Indy’s friends to begin with.
After getting away, Indiana wanders off the set of the Indiana Jones movie and onto a completely unrelated movie about a nuclear explosion. He’s old, he gets lost. The town he in is one of those fake towns built to provide stock footage for films about nuclear war, but Indy manages to survive the ATOMIC BOMB by hiding in a lead-lined refrigerator.
Suspension of disbelief, already reeling from the psychic, blacks out.
The nuke throws the refrigerator hundreds of feet through the air before it lands. The sixty-year-old man inside survives without even a bruise. A quick scrub-down and he’s all better, in time for an interrogation by sinister FBI agents. Because there was a big Red Scare in THE FIFTIES! Since Mac was a traitor, Indy is also suspected of being a traitor. In a good touch (see, I can be nice?), it turns out Indy is a decorated war hero, having been a secret agent during World War II. It makes sense for the character and it adds to the idea of him having had a “storied life” between movies. Nice while it lasted.
Oh, and one of the FBII agents is played by the Janitor from Scrubs. For a moment, I wondered if this was part of an elaborate prank to be pulled on J.D. No such luck.
Indy goes back to the college he works at, where he’s unceremoniously hassled by the Man. This plot point is actually interesting, although it may just play to my “villain in the hero’s safe zone” kink. Sadly, it gets dropped so Spielberg can remake Close Encounters.
Since the actor who played Marcus Brody died, Jim Broadbent is given a break from being sucked into any role requiring a British character actor to play the new dean. Through his efforts, Indy won’t be fired, but will only get a “we think you might have raped a woman” NBA-style suspension. He achieved this by sacrificing himself in resignation. Character we’ve known for thirty seconds, no!
Oh, and it turns out that Henry Jones Sr. is dead, even though he drank from the fucking Holy Grail in the last (and better) movie. Really, what’s the point to that? Can’t he be in Florida, fly-fishing and not being able to figure out how to poke a chad out of a punch card? I can only assume that he regenerated and sooner or later Indy is going to run into a funny, David Tennant-shaped man (still Scottish LOL) claiming to be his father. At least it’ll solve his “daddy didn’t hug me enough” problems.
So Indy gets on a train to go to London. Uhhh… but before he can leave, Shia LeBeowulf shows up!
MUTT: If adventure has a name, it must be Mutt Williams.
INDY: Yeah, no.
They go to a malt shop, filled with greasers (the motorcycle kind, not the racist kind) and preppies. There’s a classic rock song playing on the jukebox. Luckily, Mutt has a motorcycle, because outside there’s a shark just waiting to be jumped…
MUTT: Blah blah blah crystals skulls, blah blah blah Ox.
INDY: Blah blah blah exposition-cakes.
MUTT: Blah blah blah Da Vinci Code.
INDY: Blah blah blah fucked your mother.
MUTT: Blah blah wait what? My mother Marion?
INDY: As in Marion Ravenwood, as played by Karen Allen from the opening credits?
MUTT: You never know, it might be some entirely different Marion. (winks)
INDY: Yeah, right.
MUTT: And we’re in no way related. (winks)
INDY: Have you got something in your eye?
But some KGB agents show up to take Indy in. They cleverly let Marion Maybe-Ravenwood escape so she could send a letter to Indy, full of clues to be deciphered.
INDY: Wait, so the plot has me being the only one who can help the bad guys TWICE? And why go through all this trouble if you’re just going to kidnap me? Why don’t you keep following me while I decipher the letter? Or kidnap me and make me decipher the letter?
KGB AGENT: In Soviet Russia, questioning plot is punishable by death!
MUTT: How are we gonna get out of this one, dad… I mean, Indy?
INDY: Relax, I watched West Side Story before coming here… oh my God, they killed Riff!
GREASER: When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way…
Indy and Mutt escape as a rumble starts. They quickly climb onto Mutt’s bike and escape in a thrilling action scene. Really, it’s good. Not too much CGI, some good stuntwork… unfortunately, it’s over way too soon, before it has a chance to develop any of the lunatic over-the-top charm that we love about Indiana Jones. Also, the Ruskies are defeated by crashing into a statue of Marcus Brody. In another of those weirdly disrespectful moments, the statue’s head comes off and falls into one of the KGB guy’s lap.
MUTT: So, is that supposed to make us not like the Russians or feel proud that Marcus “stopped” them or…
INDY: Plot has to keep going.
They go to the last place the KGB would look for them… Indiana’s house. There, Indy examines the letter.
INDY: Hmm, it says blah blah, but in the Incan dialect blah blah means blah blah.
MUTT: That’s the kind of clue an Encyclopedia Brown mystery would have.
They travel to Peru, where the Nazca lines are. Because God forbid a single bit of pseudo science not get brought into the story. There, they trace Ox (an old friend of Indy’s, who we deeply care about because we’ve never seen him before) to an insane asylum where he stayed long enough to leave some exposition.
MUTT: Return… return… what does it mean?
INDY: Maybe… the people watching should return this to the video store and rent one of the first three movies?
MUTT: We’re not out on video yet.
INDY: Yeah, but honestly, how long will it take?
They trace Ox’s path to a burial temple, where some Incan ninjas are hanging out. Indy manages to defeat them, but conspicuously doesn’t use his gun.
INDY: Guns are bad, but killing people with blowdarts is A-OK!
MUTT: Wait, how did elderly Professor Oxley get past those guys?
INDY: He probably thought to use a gun.
Inside, scorpions crawl onto Mutt in the first of many moments of peril for Mutt’s crotch. They go through several LucasArts puzzles to find the treasure of Big Whoop… uhh, I mean the Crystal Skull.
INDY: Only alien technology, or a modern prop department, could’ve created this.
They leave the tomb, only to find…
SPALKO: MOOSE AND SQUIRREL!
The dynamic que-o is captured and forced to help the Ruskies for the umpteenth time. They’re taken down the Amazon River, although bizarrely there are none of the riverboats or water that you would expect from setting a scene on the Amazon River. It might as well have been set in an Amazon.com warehouse.
We pick up with Indy strapped to a dentist’s chair.
MAC: Is it safe?
INDY: Why help the Russians, Mac? Could I really have misjudged your character so badly that someone I’d trusted would sell me out for money?
MAC: No. I did it to fight plaque and the gum disease known as gingivitis.
INDY: Enough with the dentist’s chair jokes.
MAC: I’m sorry, but seriously, why did we lug this thing into the jungle? Is dental hygiene that much of a priority?
SPALKO: You’re British. You wouldn’t understand.
INDY: You’re an Academy Award-winning actress. Isn’t it time your villain do something menacing?
SPALKO: Well, we’ve already made you sit in the comfy chair, so now you’ll be forced to look at… THE CRYSTAL SKULL!
INDY: No! NO! ANYTHING BUT THAT!
SPALKO: …you’re going to be watching the actual crystal skull, not this movie.
INDY: Oh, okay then.
Indy looks at the crystal skull. Slowly, his eyes glaze over. His smile is wiped from his face. His expression slackens. He becomes utterly bored and passive. It’s as if he’s being directed by George Lucas.
SPALKO: He’s had enough! Block the skull’s awesome alien power!
A burlap sack is placed over the crystal skull.
SPALKO: Now that you have gazed upon the crystal skull, you can talk to Oxley, who was driven mad from gazing upon the crystal skull, and from him you can find the way to even more crystal skulls.
INDY: Logically, wouldn’t I know what he knows and could just tell you outright?
SPALKO: …SILENCE!
Spalko threatens Mutt with the sword she’s carrying around for some reason.
SPALKO: Talk, or I kill him.
INDY: No. Please. Don’t do that. Please. What would this franchise be if he didn’t step into my shoes? Please. Don’t kill him. Listen to how sincere I am.
SPALKO: It’s clear your nostalgia does not extend to Even Stevens. Perhaps a dearer childhood memory…
MARION: Get your lousy hands off me!
INDY: Karen Allen! You’re still alive?
MARION: I’ve had a damn good career without you! I was in Starman! And I’ll have you know that since you left me, I shacked up with a new man and had a son whose age would guarantee that he was born shortly after you left, thought that should in no way be seen as suspicious. Also, my new husband died tragically, thus clearing the way for a romantic relationship between the two of us.
INDY: Well, good to know I won’t be stalking a happily married woman for this movie’s “romance.”
SUPERMAN: Fuck you.
SPALKO: Talk or she dies!
Suddenly, THE GHOST OF HENRY JONES SENIOR appears.
HENRY: Don’t do it, junior, she’s a Nazi!
INDY: Marion’s a Nazi!?
HENRY: Huh, who’s Marion?
INDY: That was random. Alright, Spalko, I’ll do it.
Indy discovers that Oxley is autowriting, just so every pseudoscience can get a shout-out. If this were an episode of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Uri Gellar would’ve shown up by now. Indy (who is probably the reincarnation of King Arthur or something, wut) decodes the autowriting to find the way to the… bum ba bum… Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls.
Mutt picks then to enact his brilliant escape plan, which consists of punching the guard, then running, and setting the tent they went through on fire.
SPALKO: Curses! We’ll never catch them now!
DOVCHENKO: Couldn’t we just go around the burning tent?
SPALKO: And walk over the Ground of Middling Discomfort? SILENCE!
Team Indy runs for it, but Indy and Marion step into a pit of quicksand.
INDY: Wow, you’d think an experienced adventurer like myself would be on the lookout for this.
MARION: Given the sequence where Mutt is able to traverse an entire jungle on vines, you’d think he’d be able to find a better rope than a snake.
INDY: S-s-s-s-snake!?
MARION: By the way, Mutt’s your kid. I know this may come as a shock to you…
INDY: No, I guessed it when Shia LeBeethoven was cast, just like the rest of the audience.
Oxley returns with help, just like Indy asked him to. Surprisingly, the absent-minded professor found help with the only humans for miles… i.e., the Russians.
Soon, the Jones Family is imprisoned in the back of a truck with Dovchenko.
MUTT: Are we there yet?
INDY: No.
MUTT: Are we there yet?
INDY: No.
MUTT: Are we there yet?
INDY: We have to get to the lost city!
MARION: Isn’t that where the Russians are taking us?
INDY: And return the Crystal Skull.
MARION: Isn’t that what the Russians want to do?
INDY: And lead a glorious social uprising!
MARION: Isn’t that… never mind.
They knock out Dovchenko, although surprisingly Marion isn’t able to get even one kick in, then bust loose. An action sequence stops up, though it quickly degenerates into a bunch of over-the-top CGI involving Mutt and Spalko dueling on top of two speeding cars.
MUTT: Now this is pod racing!
The nadir occurs when Mutt swings from vine to vine to somehow catch up to the chase and leads an army of CGI monkeys against the Russians. Spalko is such a lame duck villain that she can’t even kill one of the monkeys, which manages to survive being thrown off the cliff. I guarantee you, after watching this scene you will start to appreciate the Nazi monkey death from Raiders in a whole new way.
They crash-land in a field of army ants (or whatever), where the action picks up a bit. Indy gets in an okay ‘Pat Roach” fight with Dovchenko, which ends with one of the gristlier fates for a villain as the ants swarm into his open mouth. Also, the Crystal Skull can repel army ants in addition to slicing and dicing and rejuvenating your razor.
Then Marion manages to save the day by driving her hijacked jeep onto a tree, which bends just enough to deposit them safely in the river (they happen to have hijacked an aquatic jeep… yeah) before ricocheting back up to kill some Russians.
INDY: Good going, Marion, there was no way we could’ve survived that drop otherwise!
They quickly go over three more drops of vastly larger height.
MAC: We survived! Go team! Indy, woo-woo-woo-woo!
INDY: You’re part of the team again? Okay, I trust you implicitly once more.
Mac drops a CONSPICUOUS TRACKING DEVICE.
They enter a skull-shaped temple where there are OFFENSIVE NATIVE AMERICAN (South America is still American) STEREOTYPES lying in ambush. An army of them, in fact.
INDY: How are we ever going to get out of this one! Quick, Oxley, use the deus ex machina generator!
Oxley pulls out the Crystal Skull, which makes all the pointless cannibals or whatev even more pointless. They solve another Tomb Raider puzzle that fortuitously involves breaking shit, then enter a temple full of gold and shit. Mac starts grabbing some.
MAC: Oh, don’t find my greed at all suspicious.
INDY: Thanks, we won’t.
In fact, Mac’s entire character and storyline is ripped off from Benny from The Mummy, which was an Indiana Jones rip-off to begin with. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs, all around. Maybe next Indy will team-up with “Lana Craft” to raid tombs.
They enter a chamber full of crystal skeletons, where all the crystal skulls are already assembled despite them supposedly being scattered across the world. But before Indy can return the Crystal Skull, Spalko shows up and… does it for him.
MAC: Surprise! I was working for them all along in order to get my hands on these treasures!
INDY: The treasure we’d be far more likely to let you have?
MAC: Yes.
SPALKO: So, Doctor Jones, you have utterly failed! Now I will put the Crystal Skull back and gain ultimate power, like I talked about earlier!
However, the aliens are the pussy “nice” ones from fucking E.T. or whatever, so they vaporize Spalko instead.
INDY: So, wait, there was no way for Spalko’s evil plot to succeed no matter what any of us did? I could’ve just done everything they said, or stayed home, and the end result would’ve been the same?
MUTT: But then I wouldn’t have been able to swing from the trees with my legion of loyal monkeys.
INDY: …FUCK!!!!!
Team Indy runs for it, but Mac, in a completely original plot development, gets waylaid by all the treasure he’s taking and dies. But he’s okay with it, so that’s good.
They escape, watch a pretty PS2 cutscene of a flying fucking saucer in an Indiana Jones movie.
INDY: The Spaniards thought that the city was made of gold. But the Incan word for gold also meant treasure. The real treasure was knowledge… … Stay in school!
MUTT: Wait, but Spalko wanted knowledge and she got vaporized.
INDY: Yes, there are some things man was not meant to know.
MUTT: But you just said…
INDY: Knowledge is power.
MUTT: But…
INDY: Power corrupts.
MUTT: You…
INDY: When in Rome…
OXLEY: I’m not crazy anymore! Finally, I can act!
He explains that the “aliens” are really just beings from another dimension, which is a lot less cheesier. If you’re an idiot. Also, Indy calls Mutt “junior”, because the wrap-up to all of Indiana Jones’s adventures should be him becoming a crotchety old man.
Then we cut to Indy and Marion getting married. It’s actually an okay scene, since the only real loose end to tie up after Last Crusade was Indy and Marion getting together. And c’mon, it was never going to be Willie Scott. Oh, and Indiana Jones is a dean now, having wrapped up that whole “suspected Commie” thing off-screen. The writing is tighter than Paris Hilton’s twat on this thing.
In the best bit of the surprisingly limp denouncement, Mutt tries to put on the hat and Indy is all “DENIED!” and goes off to bone his mom. Deal with that, Shia LeBehemoth.
Which wouldn’t be so bad, but this goes on throughout the credit sequence. If you thought the musical opening to Temple of Doom was out of place…
Having utterly failed to generate any tension or atmosphere, the military convoy the teens were wigging at arrives at an Army base. That’s right, the fourth Indiana Jones movie opens in exotic… New Mexico. The convoy turns out to be a false flag operation, which kills the guards and breaks into the warehouse… the same one from the end of Raiders. Any good will this bit of continuity might have generated is obliterated by a winking sight gag about the Ark of the Covenant, another one of the weirdly crass disrespects paid to the original movies. It’s like someone telling a kinda funny joke, then ruining it by explaining the punchline and laughing obnoxiously.
The fake US soldiers turn out to be real Russian soldiers, who bring out Indiana Jones and his new sidekick for bad girl Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett).
SPALKO: Ah, the famous Indiana Jones. And who is this man with you?
INDY: IDK, my BFF Mac?
MAC: Yes, I’m Indy’s best pal, his confidante, his buddy, his blood brother, his hetero life mate.
INDY: I freaking love you, man!
MAC: I freaking love you too!
Spalko interrupts the bro-mance. She is, in addition to a dirty Commie, a psychic, thus earning the first of my “oh, bru-ther” moments. She tries to read Indy’s mind.
SPALKO: You save often… so, you like Konami games!
However, Indy’s mind is too strong. Spalko being a telepath never comes up again. The Commies, Indy, and his faithful companion Mac go inside the warehouse, where Indy is forced to help them find a crate that’s intensely magnetic. It’s an alien corpse from Area 51, because Lucas had the “genius” idea that since the earlier Indiana Jones films were based on the pulp serials of the forties, a latter-day one should be based on the sci-fi films of the fifties. Presumably, a decade from now Indiana Jones V will be able Indy getting high and riding motorcycles with Henry Fonda and Dennis Hopper.
Using his innate Indyness, Indy manages to trick the Commies and hold Spalko hostage.
INDY: I think we should call this a day.
MAC: And I think we should call it… your grave!
INDY: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal.
Indy manages a daring escape that involves the would-be Pat Roach Russian, Dovchenko (played by Igor Jijikine, which would probably be a better name for an evil henchman), a rocket sled, and CGI groundhogs. Yes, despite promises that there would be as little CGI as possible, for some reason they had to use special effects to realize the exotic nature of groundhogs. Mac survives mainly through luck, not his familiarity with Indy, which makes you wonder why the script made him Indy’s friends to begin with.
After getting away, Indiana wanders off the set of the Indiana Jones movie and onto a completely unrelated movie about a nuclear explosion. He’s old, he gets lost. The town he in is one of those fake towns built to provide stock footage for films about nuclear war, but Indy manages to survive the ATOMIC BOMB by hiding in a lead-lined refrigerator.
Suspension of disbelief, already reeling from the psychic, blacks out.
The nuke throws the refrigerator hundreds of feet through the air before it lands. The sixty-year-old man inside survives without even a bruise. A quick scrub-down and he’s all better, in time for an interrogation by sinister FBI agents. Because there was a big Red Scare in THE FIFTIES! Since Mac was a traitor, Indy is also suspected of being a traitor. In a good touch (see, I can be nice?), it turns out Indy is a decorated war hero, having been a secret agent during World War II. It makes sense for the character and it adds to the idea of him having had a “storied life” between movies. Nice while it lasted.
Oh, and one of the FBII agents is played by the Janitor from Scrubs. For a moment, I wondered if this was part of an elaborate prank to be pulled on J.D. No such luck.
Indy goes back to the college he works at, where he’s unceremoniously hassled by the Man. This plot point is actually interesting, although it may just play to my “villain in the hero’s safe zone” kink. Sadly, it gets dropped so Spielberg can remake Close Encounters.
Since the actor who played Marcus Brody died, Jim Broadbent is given a break from being sucked into any role requiring a British character actor to play the new dean. Through his efforts, Indy won’t be fired, but will only get a “we think you might have raped a woman” NBA-style suspension. He achieved this by sacrificing himself in resignation. Character we’ve known for thirty seconds, no!
Oh, and it turns out that Henry Jones Sr. is dead, even though he drank from the fucking Holy Grail in the last (and better) movie. Really, what’s the point to that? Can’t he be in Florida, fly-fishing and not being able to figure out how to poke a chad out of a punch card? I can only assume that he regenerated and sooner or later Indy is going to run into a funny, David Tennant-shaped man (still Scottish LOL) claiming to be his father. At least it’ll solve his “daddy didn’t hug me enough” problems.
So Indy gets on a train to go to London. Uhhh… but before he can leave, Shia LeBeowulf shows up!
MUTT: If adventure has a name, it must be Mutt Williams.
INDY: Yeah, no.
They go to a malt shop, filled with greasers (the motorcycle kind, not the racist kind) and preppies. There’s a classic rock song playing on the jukebox. Luckily, Mutt has a motorcycle, because outside there’s a shark just waiting to be jumped…
MUTT: Blah blah blah crystals skulls, blah blah blah Ox.
INDY: Blah blah blah exposition-cakes.
MUTT: Blah blah blah Da Vinci Code.
INDY: Blah blah blah fucked your mother.
MUTT: Blah blah wait what? My mother Marion?
INDY: As in Marion Ravenwood, as played by Karen Allen from the opening credits?
MUTT: You never know, it might be some entirely different Marion. (winks)
INDY: Yeah, right.
MUTT: And we’re in no way related. (winks)
INDY: Have you got something in your eye?
But some KGB agents show up to take Indy in. They cleverly let Marion Maybe-Ravenwood escape so she could send a letter to Indy, full of clues to be deciphered.
INDY: Wait, so the plot has me being the only one who can help the bad guys TWICE? And why go through all this trouble if you’re just going to kidnap me? Why don’t you keep following me while I decipher the letter? Or kidnap me and make me decipher the letter?
KGB AGENT: In Soviet Russia, questioning plot is punishable by death!
MUTT: How are we gonna get out of this one, dad… I mean, Indy?
INDY: Relax, I watched West Side Story before coming here… oh my God, they killed Riff!
GREASER: When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way…
Indy and Mutt escape as a rumble starts. They quickly climb onto Mutt’s bike and escape in a thrilling action scene. Really, it’s good. Not too much CGI, some good stuntwork… unfortunately, it’s over way too soon, before it has a chance to develop any of the lunatic over-the-top charm that we love about Indiana Jones. Also, the Ruskies are defeated by crashing into a statue of Marcus Brody. In another of those weirdly disrespectful moments, the statue’s head comes off and falls into one of the KGB guy’s lap.
MUTT: So, is that supposed to make us not like the Russians or feel proud that Marcus “stopped” them or…
INDY: Plot has to keep going.
They go to the last place the KGB would look for them… Indiana’s house. There, Indy examines the letter.
INDY: Hmm, it says blah blah, but in the Incan dialect blah blah means blah blah.
MUTT: That’s the kind of clue an Encyclopedia Brown mystery would have.
They travel to Peru, where the Nazca lines are. Because God forbid a single bit of pseudo science not get brought into the story. There, they trace Ox (an old friend of Indy’s, who we deeply care about because we’ve never seen him before) to an insane asylum where he stayed long enough to leave some exposition.
MUTT: Return… return… what does it mean?
INDY: Maybe… the people watching should return this to the video store and rent one of the first three movies?
MUTT: We’re not out on video yet.
INDY: Yeah, but honestly, how long will it take?
They trace Ox’s path to a burial temple, where some Incan ninjas are hanging out. Indy manages to defeat them, but conspicuously doesn’t use his gun.
INDY: Guns are bad, but killing people with blowdarts is A-OK!
MUTT: Wait, how did elderly Professor Oxley get past those guys?
INDY: He probably thought to use a gun.
Inside, scorpions crawl onto Mutt in the first of many moments of peril for Mutt’s crotch. They go through several LucasArts puzzles to find the treasure of Big Whoop… uhh, I mean the Crystal Skull.
INDY: Only alien technology, or a modern prop department, could’ve created this.
They leave the tomb, only to find…
SPALKO: MOOSE AND SQUIRREL!
The dynamic que-o is captured and forced to help the Ruskies for the umpteenth time. They’re taken down the Amazon River, although bizarrely there are none of the riverboats or water that you would expect from setting a scene on the Amazon River. It might as well have been set in an Amazon.com warehouse.
We pick up with Indy strapped to a dentist’s chair.
MAC: Is it safe?
INDY: Why help the Russians, Mac? Could I really have misjudged your character so badly that someone I’d trusted would sell me out for money?
MAC: No. I did it to fight plaque and the gum disease known as gingivitis.
INDY: Enough with the dentist’s chair jokes.
MAC: I’m sorry, but seriously, why did we lug this thing into the jungle? Is dental hygiene that much of a priority?
SPALKO: You’re British. You wouldn’t understand.
INDY: You’re an Academy Award-winning actress. Isn’t it time your villain do something menacing?
SPALKO: Well, we’ve already made you sit in the comfy chair, so now you’ll be forced to look at… THE CRYSTAL SKULL!
INDY: No! NO! ANYTHING BUT THAT!
SPALKO: …you’re going to be watching the actual crystal skull, not this movie.
INDY: Oh, okay then.
Indy looks at the crystal skull. Slowly, his eyes glaze over. His smile is wiped from his face. His expression slackens. He becomes utterly bored and passive. It’s as if he’s being directed by George Lucas.
SPALKO: He’s had enough! Block the skull’s awesome alien power!
A burlap sack is placed over the crystal skull.
SPALKO: Now that you have gazed upon the crystal skull, you can talk to Oxley, who was driven mad from gazing upon the crystal skull, and from him you can find the way to even more crystal skulls.
INDY: Logically, wouldn’t I know what he knows and could just tell you outright?
SPALKO: …SILENCE!
Spalko threatens Mutt with the sword she’s carrying around for some reason.
SPALKO: Talk, or I kill him.
INDY: No. Please. Don’t do that. Please. What would this franchise be if he didn’t step into my shoes? Please. Don’t kill him. Listen to how sincere I am.
SPALKO: It’s clear your nostalgia does not extend to Even Stevens. Perhaps a dearer childhood memory…
MARION: Get your lousy hands off me!
INDY: Karen Allen! You’re still alive?
MARION: I’ve had a damn good career without you! I was in Starman! And I’ll have you know that since you left me, I shacked up with a new man and had a son whose age would guarantee that he was born shortly after you left, thought that should in no way be seen as suspicious. Also, my new husband died tragically, thus clearing the way for a romantic relationship between the two of us.
INDY: Well, good to know I won’t be stalking a happily married woman for this movie’s “romance.”
SUPERMAN: Fuck you.
SPALKO: Talk or she dies!
Suddenly, THE GHOST OF HENRY JONES SENIOR appears.
HENRY: Don’t do it, junior, she’s a Nazi!
INDY: Marion’s a Nazi!?
HENRY: Huh, who’s Marion?
INDY: That was random. Alright, Spalko, I’ll do it.
Indy discovers that Oxley is autowriting, just so every pseudoscience can get a shout-out. If this were an episode of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Uri Gellar would’ve shown up by now. Indy (who is probably the reincarnation of King Arthur or something, wut) decodes the autowriting to find the way to the… bum ba bum… Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls.
Mutt picks then to enact his brilliant escape plan, which consists of punching the guard, then running, and setting the tent they went through on fire.
SPALKO: Curses! We’ll never catch them now!
DOVCHENKO: Couldn’t we just go around the burning tent?
SPALKO: And walk over the Ground of Middling Discomfort? SILENCE!
Team Indy runs for it, but Indy and Marion step into a pit of quicksand.
INDY: Wow, you’d think an experienced adventurer like myself would be on the lookout for this.
MARION: Given the sequence where Mutt is able to traverse an entire jungle on vines, you’d think he’d be able to find a better rope than a snake.
INDY: S-s-s-s-snake!?
MARION: By the way, Mutt’s your kid. I know this may come as a shock to you…
INDY: No, I guessed it when Shia LeBeethoven was cast, just like the rest of the audience.
Oxley returns with help, just like Indy asked him to. Surprisingly, the absent-minded professor found help with the only humans for miles… i.e., the Russians.
Soon, the Jones Family is imprisoned in the back of a truck with Dovchenko.
MUTT: Are we there yet?
INDY: No.
MUTT: Are we there yet?
INDY: No.
MUTT: Are we there yet?
INDY: We have to get to the lost city!
MARION: Isn’t that where the Russians are taking us?
INDY: And return the Crystal Skull.
MARION: Isn’t that what the Russians want to do?
INDY: And lead a glorious social uprising!
MARION: Isn’t that… never mind.
They knock out Dovchenko, although surprisingly Marion isn’t able to get even one kick in, then bust loose. An action sequence stops up, though it quickly degenerates into a bunch of over-the-top CGI involving Mutt and Spalko dueling on top of two speeding cars.
MUTT: Now this is pod racing!
The nadir occurs when Mutt swings from vine to vine to somehow catch up to the chase and leads an army of CGI monkeys against the Russians. Spalko is such a lame duck villain that she can’t even kill one of the monkeys, which manages to survive being thrown off the cliff. I guarantee you, after watching this scene you will start to appreciate the Nazi monkey death from Raiders in a whole new way.
They crash-land in a field of army ants (or whatever), where the action picks up a bit. Indy gets in an okay ‘Pat Roach” fight with Dovchenko, which ends with one of the gristlier fates for a villain as the ants swarm into his open mouth. Also, the Crystal Skull can repel army ants in addition to slicing and dicing and rejuvenating your razor.
Then Marion manages to save the day by driving her hijacked jeep onto a tree, which bends just enough to deposit them safely in the river (they happen to have hijacked an aquatic jeep… yeah) before ricocheting back up to kill some Russians.
INDY: Good going, Marion, there was no way we could’ve survived that drop otherwise!
They quickly go over three more drops of vastly larger height.
MAC: We survived! Go team! Indy, woo-woo-woo-woo!
INDY: You’re part of the team again? Okay, I trust you implicitly once more.
Mac drops a CONSPICUOUS TRACKING DEVICE.
They enter a skull-shaped temple where there are OFFENSIVE NATIVE AMERICAN (South America is still American) STEREOTYPES lying in ambush. An army of them, in fact.
INDY: How are we ever going to get out of this one! Quick, Oxley, use the deus ex machina generator!
Oxley pulls out the Crystal Skull, which makes all the pointless cannibals or whatev even more pointless. They solve another Tomb Raider puzzle that fortuitously involves breaking shit, then enter a temple full of gold and shit. Mac starts grabbing some.
MAC: Oh, don’t find my greed at all suspicious.
INDY: Thanks, we won’t.
In fact, Mac’s entire character and storyline is ripped off from Benny from The Mummy, which was an Indiana Jones rip-off to begin with. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs, all around. Maybe next Indy will team-up with “Lana Craft” to raid tombs.
They enter a chamber full of crystal skeletons, where all the crystal skulls are already assembled despite them supposedly being scattered across the world. But before Indy can return the Crystal Skull, Spalko shows up and… does it for him.
MAC: Surprise! I was working for them all along in order to get my hands on these treasures!
INDY: The treasure we’d be far more likely to let you have?
MAC: Yes.
SPALKO: So, Doctor Jones, you have utterly failed! Now I will put the Crystal Skull back and gain ultimate power, like I talked about earlier!
However, the aliens are the pussy “nice” ones from fucking E.T. or whatever, so they vaporize Spalko instead.
INDY: So, wait, there was no way for Spalko’s evil plot to succeed no matter what any of us did? I could’ve just done everything they said, or stayed home, and the end result would’ve been the same?
MUTT: But then I wouldn’t have been able to swing from the trees with my legion of loyal monkeys.
INDY: …FUCK!!!!!
Team Indy runs for it, but Mac, in a completely original plot development, gets waylaid by all the treasure he’s taking and dies. But he’s okay with it, so that’s good.
They escape, watch a pretty PS2 cutscene of a flying fucking saucer in an Indiana Jones movie.
INDY: The Spaniards thought that the city was made of gold. But the Incan word for gold also meant treasure. The real treasure was knowledge… … Stay in school!
MUTT: Wait, but Spalko wanted knowledge and she got vaporized.
INDY: Yes, there are some things man was not meant to know.
MUTT: But you just said…
INDY: Knowledge is power.
MUTT: But…
INDY: Power corrupts.
MUTT: You…
INDY: When in Rome…
OXLEY: I’m not crazy anymore! Finally, I can act!
He explains that the “aliens” are really just beings from another dimension, which is a lot less cheesier. If you’re an idiot. Also, Indy calls Mutt “junior”, because the wrap-up to all of Indiana Jones’s adventures should be him becoming a crotchety old man.
Then we cut to Indy and Marion getting married. It’s actually an okay scene, since the only real loose end to tie up after Last Crusade was Indy and Marion getting together. And c’mon, it was never going to be Willie Scott. Oh, and Indiana Jones is a dean now, having wrapped up that whole “suspected Commie” thing off-screen. The writing is tighter than Paris Hilton’s twat on this thing.
In the best bit of the surprisingly limp denouncement, Mutt tries to put on the hat and Indy is all “DENIED!” and goes off to bone his mom. Deal with that, Shia LeBehemoth.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 08:12 pm (UTC)Allow me.
Cate Blanchett=hot.
Women with Russian accents=hot.
Dominating women=hot.
Cate Blanchett as a domination Russian woman=hot3.
Glad I could help.
Or maybe the monkeys are JUST THAT AWESOME.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 10:10 pm (UTC)A friend of mine has already named that one.
Indiana Jones and the Summer of Love!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-01 01:56 am (UTC)Can I depend on you for a synopsis of any other summer schlockbusters I'm tempted to see?
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 10:59 am (UTC)or possibly just Benny/Mac.