Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

"Spectacular fun!  Claudia Puig, USA Today
"A slick, fun film that has by no means sacrificed the fast action beats of the first three.  Damon Wise, Empire
"Entertaining, inventive and old-fashioned in the best way.  Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
"Once again, the Indiana Jones series is the rare franchise that treasures knowledge and embraces the unknown.  Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun
"The movie moves. It has action sequences that are so enormous that they won't just wow audiences, but rock them back in their seats...  Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
"...a story and style very much in keeping with what has made the series so perennially popular.  Todd McCarthy, Variety
"...grand old-school fun - a rollicking class reunion that stands as the second best entry in the venerable series.  Ty Burr, Boston Globe

Editor's Note Harrison Ford dusts off his infamous brown fedora for another Indiana Jones film, which is once again made by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. The year is 1957, and Indy is on the run from a team of Russian spies led by a rapier-wielding Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). The Russians want Indy to help them locate an ancient artifact that they believe can be used as the ultimate military weapon. Indy manages a narrow escape, and tries to return to his life as a professor of archaeology, but he soon bumps into a '50s greaser named Mutt (Shia LeBeouf). Mutt's mother as well as one of Indy's longtime friends have been captured somewhere in Peru. Mutt and Indy hop a plane, where they manage to track down both Mutt's mother, Marian (Karen Allen), and Professor Oxley (John Hurt), but they also find themselves surrounded by the same scheming Russians. The Russians have found the artifact they were seeking, but Indy now knows its secret and dangerous powers. With the help of Mutt, Marian, and Oxley, he races to return it to its rightful resting place. While a bit more grizzled than the last time we saw him cracking his whip, Ford still manages to bring the right mix of humor and swagger to Indy. Longtime fans are sure to love the many inside jokes and nods to the previous films, as well as the reappearance of some favorite old characters. While CRYSTAL SKULL has the same exotic locales and wild chases of the earlier movies, it definitely sets itself apart with its heavy use of CGI. The visuals are indeed impressive, but some might feel something is lost when Indy can outrun an atomic bomb just as easily as he can a swarm of carnivorous ants. This modern-day Indy is easy entertainment with some fun surprises, but it will likely divide diehard fans right down the middle.

	Ray Winstone
	Karen Allen
	John Hurt
	Harrison Ford
	Cate Blanchett
	Shia LaBeouf
	Jim Broadbent
	Guy Hendrix Dyas - Production Designer
	Jeff Nathanson - Story
	Kathleen Kennedy - Executive Producer
	David Koepp - Screenwriter
	Industrial Light and Magic - Special Effects
	George Lucas - Story
	George Lucas - Executive Producer
	Januzs Kaminsky - Director of Photography
	Frank Marshall - Producer
	John Williams - Composer
	Michael Kahn - Editor
	Steven Spielberg - Director

USA Today
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "[H]is witty banter is still decidedly intact....The excitement picks back up and, overall, it's pleasantly nostalgic to see Harrison Ford as Jones again....The stunts and special effects are spectacular..." 05/19/2008

Los Angeles Times
"Entertaining on its own right....Spielberg clearly got enormous pleasure employing a lifetime's worth of skill and turning out wave after wave of smartly done stunts and effects set pieces." 05/19/2008

Entertainment Weekly
"At its best, it's a satisfying shuffle of the deck of famous Spielbergian moments....The first 20 minutes, especially, are a blast of old-timey pleasure..." 05/30/3008

Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "Indy is older, but Spielberg hasn't diluted the integrity of the character....[An] adrenalising movie....Cast-wise, it's impeccable 08/01/2008 p.56

Premiere
"In the action-packed opening 45 minutes, Spielberg and Lucas have recaptured the magic of the INDIANA JONES franchise with its signature blend of mysticism, adventure, red-blooded action, and slapstick." 05/22/2008

Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "Back in the hat to stop Soviets mining the mind-control powers of the titular quartz cranium, Harrison Ford still rocks the bullwhip....Lean and keen, he hasn't been this engaging -- and engaged -- for years." 12/01/2008 p.134

ReelViews 6 of 10
The biggest challenges faced by Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull have less to do with entertaining an audience than competing with the ghosts of movies past and expanding the mythology of a character who has been out of the limelight for two decades. Perhaps it is too much to hope that this new movie, coming so long after its predecessors, might recapture the magic that infused Raiders of the Lost Ark and sporadically sputtered to the surface in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The latest effort is the most lifeless of the series, and feels more like an overplotted, confused reunion than a legitimate action/adventure outing. It would be a failure even without the impressive pedigree - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull simply isn't a very good motion picture...George Lucas knows a thing of two about disappointing fans when resurrecting long-dormant franchises, but what he does here is a far worse crime than he perpetrated with Star Wars. In that saga, there was still a story to tell. The episodic nature of this trilogy meant no follow-up was needed. And, if this is the best the filmmakers could come up with, the wisest course would have been to leave movie-goers with their memories. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." Say it aloud. The very title causes the pulse to quicken, if you, like me, are a lover of pulp fiction. What I want is goofy action--lots of it...The Indiana Jones movies were directed by Steven Spielberg and written by George Lucas and a small army of screenwriters, but they exist in a universe of their own. Hell, they created it. All you can do is compare one to the other three. And even then, what will it get you? If you eat four pounds of sausage, how do you choose which pound tasted the best? Well, the first one, of course, and then there's a steady drop-off of interest. That's why no Indy adventure can match "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981). But if "Crystal Skull" (or "Temple of Doom" from 1984 or "Last Crusade" from, 1989) had come first in the series, who knows how much fresher it might have seemed? True, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" stands alone as an action masterpiece, but after that the series is compelled to be, in the words of Indiana himself, "same old same old." Yes, but that's what I want it to be...I can say that if you liked the other Indiana Jones movies, you will like this one, and that if you did not, there is no talking to you. And I can also say that a critic trying to place it into a hierarchy with the others would probably keep a straight face while recommending the second pound of sausage. - Roger Ebert