Indiana Jones

I know I'm not one to review movie's on my blog, but this is a special occasion. We're talking about Indiana Jones who is back from the 80's almost twenty years later. I have to admit, I'm actually a pretty big Indy fan. I even like to watch Temple of Doom now and then.

WARNING: Spoilers Below

Before I bash it, I must say it was good to see Indiana on the big screen. There were a lot of things I did like about this movie. I loved how they played into Harrison Ford's age. I think they nailed the 50's quite well. Story wise they worked in the warehouse scene that has the ark in it, and over all there was a lot of classic Indy action. For Indy fans, they'll love the references to the first and third movie.

I have a couple of minor complaints. I was under the impression we'd get to see Sallah again. Granted the movie never went to his part of the world, but he is a great character. I also think, but didn't expect it, this movie would have been a great for an adult Short Round appearance. Indy always has friends he runs into along the way anyway, why not have one we already know a little bit of his background?

Of course, my major complaint is the plot device. Lucas, Spielberg, and Ford have been reviewing scripts surrounding the crystal skull for almost 20 years and when it's all said and done aliens is the best they could come up with? Really? I'm sorry Inter-dimensional being that go to "the space between." Yeah yeah I get it, Ford didn't want to be in another Lucas movie with aliens so they played with names, but they look like aliens and act like aliens so they are freakin' aliens as far as I'm concerned.

The first three movies stuck to major world religions. Raiders was all about Judaism, Temple of Doom was about Hinduism (granted in kind of a dark degrading way), and Crusade was obviously Christianity. In all of those movies Indy doesn't believe the mythology behind the artifact, but through the course of the movie he learns there is something more to it and the audience comes to understand things on a greater scale (like maybe no single religion is right but there is something mystic about them all).

Last I checked we still have four major world religions the Indy series hasn't touched. How about we use those before we jump to aliens? Regardless of my complaints I would still recommend seeing this movie in the theater. Most likely this will be the last Indy movie, so if you want to see Jones on the big screen again (or for some of us the first time) this could be your only chance.