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

I was excited by the prospect of seeing another Indiana Jones movie when I first heard that the fourth installment was finally coming out, but when I saw the trailer I started to think that maybe it had just been to long. The great thing about the Indiana Jones saga however is that it is a history of all the 20th Century, though from a decidedly macho-American, Saturday morning serial point of view. I was a big fan of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, both the ambitious early 90's televison series and the ‘young adult’ novels which I devoured in Middle School (they had this great rhythmic structure where every other chapter ended with a cliff hanger) .Crystal Skull provided me with all that I would want in an Indiana Jones adventure, all of the right buttons were pushed: A well executed period setting, action sequences, Karen Allen, uniformed foreign villains, ancient treasures, bobby traps, magic type things, smart alacky remarks and the much hated snakes (plus the hat). It was great, both as an independent story and an homage which brought that childlike quality all back, though it also probably helped some that I hadn’t seen anything Indiana Jones in about a decade or more. I just loved it, I wonder why so many of my friends have been holding back on their praise, the movie was everything it could possibly hope to be. Five out of Five.

Nit I Noticed: During the first of the ‘Red Line on a Map’ travel sequences the ‘thin red line’ passes the nation of Belize. This labeling is incorrect as in 1957 that region was known as British Honduras, it would not change its name until gaining independence in 1981.