Steven Spielberg and George Lucas made the really, really great ones, like Blade Runner 2049), it was wildly controversial among fans of the original films.
The addition of aliens and fridge-nuking to the Indy lore didn’t do the movie any favors, while the visible aging of Harrison Ford made it impossible to completely recapture the spirit of the originals. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a perfect movie, but it’s also not a total disaster.
Right: Shifting To The Cold War
After making Schindler’s List, Spielberg vowed to never satirize Nazis again, so the villains in the fourth Indiana Jones movie were always going to be different, but the team picked a great alternative.
Shifting to the Cold War era offered up a totally new aesthetic following the WWII-era original trilogy, as well as ing for Harrison Ford’s real-life aging, and the Soviets made an intriguing new force of antagonism.
Wrong: Aliens
Right off the bat, aliens didn’t belong in an Indiana Jones movie. This is hardly a hot take, since it’s been said a million times, but it is true. Shifting to the Cold War era was a smart move, and U.F.O. conspiracies were a huge part of the climate at that time, but it was a real stretch.
The earlier Indy movies had plenty of supernatural elements, but aliens aren’t supernatural. If alien life arrived on Earth, it could be explained by science — the powers of God channeling through the Ark of the Covenant couldn’t. Indy and sci-fi don’t mix.
Right: All-Star Cast
While the casting of a Transformers-era Shia LaBeouf as Indiana Jones’ son in an attempt to hand over the reins of the franchise to a new star was a major oversight, the casting of the ing characters in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was spot-on.
Cate Blanchett had as much fun playing the mustache-twirling villainy of Irina Spalko that she’d later have as Hela in Thor: Ragnarok, while John Hurt and Jim Broadbent are perfectly cast in their delightfully eccentric roles.
Wrong: Ridiculous CGI Set Pieces
The set pieces in the original Indiana Jones trilogy it’s just perfect.
All that went out the window when Kingdom of the Crystal Skull brought a toxic combination of Harrison Ford being too old to throw punches and CGI technology approaching its peak. This led to mind-numbingly ridiculous CGI set pieces like Shia LaBeouf swinging around the jungle with his digital monkey friends.
Right: Harrison Ford’s Enthusiasm
It’s hard to get Harrison Ford enthused about much anymore. He bluntly tells fans who ask him Star Wars questions that he doesn’t care and he phones in most of his performances. However, working with Spielberg and Lucas on another Indiana Jones movie coaxed out his long-dormant enthusiasm on the set of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Far from the crushing disappointment of seeing Bruce Willis phone in a performance as John McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard, it was a delight to see Ford return to the role of Dr. Jones. He even committed to the physical side of the part as much as he could.
Wrong: Predictable Plot
The original three Indiana Jones movies had unpredictable plots with shocking twists every few minutes. Rather than being generic blockbusters, they recaptured the spirit of the old adventure serials they were inspired by, telling the stories in digestible chunks with plenty of sharp, surprising turns along the way.
But in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the filmmakers just go through the motions; every plot point can be seen coming from a mile away. If it wasn’t for the action, the movie wouldn’t be exciting at all.
Right: John Williams’ Score
As always, John Williams composed an awesome musical score for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Just as he did with the Star Wars sequel trilogy, he beautifully recaptured the spirit of the original movies in his new music.
Williams recorded a new version of “The Raiders March,” commonly known as the Indiana Jones theme, for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and it sounds crisper than ever.
Wrong: Casting Shia LaBeouf As Indy’s Son
For some reason, around the mid-2000s, Steven Spielberg saw the light of the next great movie star glinting in Shia LaBeouf’s eye and decided to shove him down moviegoers’ throats. After giving him the lead role in the Transformers franchise, which he exec-produced in its early days, Spielberg cast LaBeouf as the son of Indiana Jones in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The idea was for Indy to the torch to his son to carry on the franchise, but LaBeouf was horribly miscast in the role.
Right: Bringing Back Marion Ravenwood
Breaking the tradition of giving Indy a new love interest in each movie, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull brought back the great Karen Allen to reprise her role as Marion Ravenwood from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
It was also a wise move not to make her a damsel in distress like she was in Raiders. In Crystal Skull, Marion actually gets in on the action and plays a key role in each set piece.
Wrong: Nuking The Fridge
A scene in which Indy escapes from a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator made it to the final draft of the script, got approved by both Spielberg and Lucas, went through storyboarding, previsualization, shooting, editing, VFX, and a bunch of screenings, and in all that time, no one said, “Hang on, let’s take this part out, it’s really silly.”
Even if a fridge actually would protect Indy from a nuclear explosion, that doesn’t for the 1,000-foot trip into the sky he takes after the blast. Hurtling to the earth from that height in a fridge would’ve killed him if the atomic bomb didn’t. This agonizing scene led to “nuking the fridge” being coined as a “jumping the shark” alternative reference to franchise fatigue.
