by Jacob Robertson

Created on: June 10, 2008

I have seen some crazy (Expletive Deleted) in my time but Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the the Crystal Skull is by far the most recent. Not to say that it wasn't without merit. (Spoiler Alert) Anything that could combine angry communists, giant ants, and aliens from alternate dimensions can't be all bad.

I hope you've seen it because I'm going to spoil it completely for you if you haven't.

Ok. So Indiana Jones gets into it with some cranky communists who want to brainwash the ENTIRE United States with psychic powers gleaned from one crystal skull? Asinine? Yes. Reason enough to run around Area 51, blowing up crap and declaring love for one's motherland? Yes.

And in the tumultuous disarray that are the action sequences where Indiana Jones is visibly shaking and slouching his way through what my mother said were, "remarkably fit," action sequences and my sister in law said were, "alarmingly shaky," I got the impression that Harrison Ford was out to prove something. In fact this something the whole cast and crew tried desperately to ignore. He was proving that watching someone older than my parents getting beaten relentlessly and in turn beating people senseless can be somewhat disquieting.

I'm not saying it wasn't fun. Just the fact that he survives unscathed enough to smirk at talk show hosts is enough reason to go check this film out. There are many other reasons as well. This whole film is as much a curio because somebody thought this was a good idea in the first place as it was that a lot of the strange atmosphere of "anything can happen," actually works for the film. I mean once Indy jettisons himself from a nuclear explosion in a lead lined refrigerator the term, "jumping the shark," kind of pales in comparison.

In fact there are moments when the characters seem to be jumping multiple sharks whom then in turn get eaten by giant ants only to be burned to a crisp by fire balls exploding hypnotically from Indiana Jones' sphincter. And why not? It feels like the whole script was set about in such a way to illustrate the term, "hyperbole." Or to those of you who don't have a dictionary handy.

"hyperbole |hprbl|
noun
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally."

They took the substance of the first three films, slathered it with back story and character development, and quite literally blended it together to create something resembling the film equivalent of a narcotic diluted potpourri that was set on fire. I was amazed at all of the buttons

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