I will say this without hesitation or reservation: Temple of Doom is my favorite Indiana Jones movie. Take a look at Indy, when there he is, fortune and glory in his hands, freedom down the next passage, but what does he do? He goes ass-kicking among the Thuggee to save a bunch of slave children in a most altruistic — and unneccessary — gesture and nowhere in any of the series’ films does Indiana Jones look as badass as when the mine cart’s lights illuminate him just before he introduces that Thuggee guard to Indy Left and Indy Right.

I also don’t get the complete worship people show to Last Crusade: in plot, much closer to Raiders, and it’s hard to declare that the film doesn’t have its moments, but it also turns Marcus Brody (in Raiders, an adventurous go-getter) into a clueless fool, and Sallah, who in Raiders was a full-fledged sidekick, into a whining tour guide overly concerned with camels.

When you talk to people about the original Star Wars Trilogy, or the Indiana Jones films, you’ll notice this: Empire is the most popular Star Wars flick because it is so dark in tone. Temple, on the other hand, is so unpopular because it is so dark. I guess I’m just unique: Empire is not my favorite of the Star Wars films.

And from this point on, you’ll want to be wary of any spoilers for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which I saw for the second time today.

The truth of the matter is, I was disappointed by this film. I expected better. The film seems … off … almost like it’s a frankenstein of assorted films stuck together. From what I’d understood of the previous Indy flicks, the plots have essentially been structured around action segments. Here, it’s almost like they worked out the action segments, then forgot what the plot was, or scattered the pieces and didn’t put them back together in quite the same way they’d originally had it.

The film works best when Indy’s in his getup: the hat, the whip, the jacket. The years really drop off him, especially compared to the scenes set in the college where he’s wearing his bowtie and really looking his years. There are some nice moments between him and Mutt, and Marion, but, especially with Marion, some of the interaction seems very forced. Actually, it reminds me of that Futurama episode where the heads of the Star Trek cast have to put on a fan-fic script written by that energy creature. There is one moment between them that struck me as really genuine and had both actors back to their Raiders interaction, and that’s the moment when they’re discussing their lives since they parted and which ends when Indy says: “None of them were you, honey.”

As far as the plot goes … I’m not opposed to Indiana Jones & The Saucer People From The Space Between Spaces (although that was, for me anyway, a cringe moment) … but that doesn’t mean I like how the story was played out. Especially in the last twenty minutes or so of the film, Jones becomes less of an active participant, and more of an audience member: he just stands back and lets shit happen. I guess to a certain extent he does that often: he didn’t lower the bazooka because Belloq made a persuasive argument, he lowered it because Belloq said he would open the Ark, and Indy knew that’d be his undoing; he didn’t stop Donovan from drinking from the wrong Grail because, again, he knew it’d have unpleasant consequences. And how did he know this stuff? Right: because, in addition to being kick-ass with a whip, he’s also got at least one doctorate — as motherfuckers go, this one’s pretty intelligent, and he knows this stuff because he reads and deduces. In this case, however, apparently communing with the Skull was enough to figure out that he didn’t want to be the one recieving the “power” of these aliens. He must’ve been thrilled when Spalko showed up: “Sweet, I get to watch her head blow up!” One wonders what he would’ve done if she hadn’t shown up, and also, why he trusted Mac again, and then again, why he tried to save the guy’s life. Dr. Jones must be getting soft in his old age. Remember in Temple when he slugs that cocktail waitress right in the jaw? Betcha Old Jones would never do that! (Seriously, what’s with Spalko’s monkey surviving being thrown off the cliff? Guess he’s trying to make ammends for the monkey surprise dish).

At the end of the film, when the doors to the chapel blow open, and the fedora rolls to Mutt’s feet, I really had my fingers crossed that Short Round would walk in, slug him, and say, “You call him Dr. Jones, greaser!” Short Round was far cooler as a sidekick and had a lot more spunk. I felt a bit of regret that while Indy’s actions for the past nineteen years were mentioned — at least briefly — and the fate of many past characters brought up (Brody, Henry Jones Sr., his past conquests), no mention was made of Mr. Round. This, though, is a relatively minor complaint.

I also want to add that I really disliked the extensive use of CGI. I wish more of an effort had been made to capture the cinematographic feel of the original films: matte paintings, minitures, and real honest to god stunts. While I know that wouldn’t always be the easy way, here’s a question: how would you have done that mushroom cloud if you’d made this film in 1991 instead of 2007, Mr. Spielberg? I’m sure you could’ve come up with something, so why not go completely old school for this film? Also: I really really really detested the Tarzan scene: although, I probably wouldn’t have quite as much if they’d actually, y’know, done it. There’s an immediacy about the way the original films were filmed that seems to be missing from this return to the series.

Second showing through, I also have many questions: like, okay, what’s the deal with the guys guarding the temple and the cemetary? Are they alive? Are they dead? I ask because they just sort of get spit out of the walls. Do they just hide up there forever and ever?

This review sounds overly negative, I know. The film has its moments: it references the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, captures the paranoia of 1950s America, but for all that, features way too little of the whip. I’d put this on the bottom of the Indy film series: nowhere as good as Temple, not quite on the level of Last Crusade.