Re: HTF Blu-Ray Review: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
All the preposterous stunts are valid points (and they are true to an extent with the previous movies, too), but I think these criticisms miss the main point. The main problem with this movie wasn't ridiculous stunts, it was a plot that violated some very basic rules of story-telling.
For one thing, Indy's motivation was unclear, ambiguous, which drives a wedge between character and audience. In all the previous Indy films, he really wanted the "McGuffin," for reasons that went straight to the heart of his character: his love and respect for archeology, as an enterprise which revealed and celebrated not only cultures of the past, but reminded us what we treasure about cultures and people around us today (hence his struggle against Nazis, and his quest to get the stones back to the starving tribe). These items *meant* something, and gave his quest a focus and gravitas. Who can forget the quiet sense of awe as he depicted the Staff of Ra on the chalkboard, explaining the importance of the Ark? This low-key explanation cemented his authenticity as a passionate scholar, which made his "ridiculous" super-humans struggles seem justified, even when those struggles changed their focus from a treasure to rescuing people he loved.
And that personal motivation translates directly into audience interest. But in Crystal Skull, Indy undermines that connection by
Warning Spoiler! Click to showrepeatedly stating that he doesn't believe in the stories, and doesn't care about the skull. His motivation for going on this adventure is that some guy and girl have gone missing--characters we don't care about, and Jones doesn't seem to care much about them either. In fact, one of the characters could have given him very powerful motivation to go find her, but they purposely keep her identity hidden for a cheap surprise reveal (which isn't a surprise because we all knew going into this that she was in the movie). But the filmmakers skip over this chance for increasing the stakes via giving Jones a powerful personal motivation, in favor of the cheap surprise reveal that's not a surprise.
It wouldn't matter how realistic the stunts were, or how great an adventure story it could have been, it wouldn't be a compelling Indiana Jones story when you treat the main character as a mere vehicle for action pieces.
But the problems go beyond the main character to other crucial areas of the plot. There were so many lost chances for suspense and tension.
The central conflict of the movie--the struggle between the "good guys" and the "bad guys"--was entirely superfluous.
Warning Spoiler! Click to showIndy was *willingly* doing what the bad guys wanted him to do! if the good guys and the bad guys wanted the same thing, why were they fighting over the skull?!? The evil Russian woman apparently wanted to return it just like Jones did! All their fighting and conflict was completely pointless. Someone should have said, "Hey, you know what? If we stopped all these car chases and sword fights, we could just take the skull together, since we both want the same thing." It didn't matter if *Jones* returned the skull, or if *she* did. Nothing catastrophic happened after the villains got their way! When there is no difference between success and failure, how can it possibly matter?
Coupled with a weak villain, and the fact that Indy had nothing to do in the last 30 minutes, of the movie, there's no way you can make a compelling story out of these core narrative failures. You could Mythbust each and every stunt, prove them to be plausible, and in the end you'd still have a story that makes no sense, and a character who indifferently floats from scene to scene until he ultimately just stands around. That's not a story, folks.
![Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [Blu-ray]](http://static.hometheaterforum.com/imgrepo/thumbs/f/f4/B001E75QGG-51qtKmtIPgL.jpg/60x60px-LS-B001E75QGG-51qtKmtIPgL.jpg)
