Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is approached by Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) with information that an old colleague of years past Professor Oxley (John Hurt) has been captured by the Russians while on the search for the Golden City of Akator. Indy and Mutt (yes Mutt) run off to save him and Mutt’s mother from whoever or whatever has them in the Amazon jungle.

This movie is the first disappointment of the summer for me. The movie isn’t horrible but it just didn’t do it for me.

SPOILERS WARNING: I do not know how to do this review explaining my problems without spoiling some things, so if you haven’t seen the movie, or don’t want to have it spoiled, just skip down to the bottom and read my rating….

First, let’s start with what I liked. I loved Cate Blanchett, she was awesome as The Soviet Dr. Irina Spalko. Shia was fun and great in the movie as Mutt (LMAO at the name). I loved that they brought back Karen Allen as Marion, Indiana’s love interest, again. I liked that Neil Flynn (Smith) makes a cameo in the movie, made me smile (he plays “Janitor” in “Scrubs”).

The first forty minutes of the movie is great. I love the opening sequence, especially when you get to see Indy about to get blown by a nuclear weapons test, AWESOME. And when Mutt comes into the movie, and we get to see the chase sequence with Indy riding bitch on Mutt’s bike through the school. That is great.

After that the movie becomes a film of moments more than a solid movie. Now we’re on our main story line and searching around for Ox and all. For some reason I did not like Indy against the Red Army as much as I did against the Nazis in the previous films.

I definitely did not like the use of CGI. Now I love the use in CGI in movies, but there are many old films I love watching and the effects are definitely dated and obviously fake, but when you watch a lot of the movies you really don’t care and even love the realistic values of the movie. Since they didn’t have the aid of CGI back then and they had to do as much as possible with real props, sets, and actors/stuntmen and it is just amazing. The old Indiana Jones movies are definitely movies that I don’t want updated (and don’t get any ideas Mr. Lucas, I saw what you did with the old Star Wars movies).With all the CGI it took away from the adventurous booby traps and all somewhat for me. It had to take larger/wider shots so you couldn’t see Indy’s face and then you get to see this elaborate sequence of a CG trap. And I’m sure if they made this movie right after Indy 3 back in early 90s and did it the old-fashioned way it would’ve rocked my socks off.

Shia’s character was great. Loved that he was this annoying dumbass greaser who got angry at every question or favour you asked him. I thought the fight sequence between him and Cate Blanchett was great fun. What I did not like however was the whole Monkeys thing. Now I understand Indy movies have always had this “in the moment” kind of feel. Indy never plans how to do something, he goes one way and when something happens he just wings it. But, Shia gets lofted into the jungle vines and then after looking at monkeys decides to swing his way like Tarzan’s offspring across the jungle back to Indy and all. Just really dumb and unbelievable to me.

My biggest problem with the movie now is the Crystal Skull itself. Why did we have to get into aliens??? Now I understand exactly how it fits into the period, to deal with Area 51 and all. But I just never liked it. The way I’ve viewed the previous Indy movies are that they take this historic fact mostly religious and without any explanation Speilberg begins to mystify it and allows its legend to be true (eg. Lightening killing everyone at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” when the open the Ark, and Dr. Henry Jones (Sean Connery) is healed when he drinks from the Holy Grail in “The Last Crusade”). Now here you get this legend that you can return this crystal skull and the power of the city is yours, the power to control everyone via your mind. How do we do this? ALIENS!!! Call Sigourney Weaver and ask her to bitch smack me if you wanna win the war then.

END OF SPOILERS

So that’s basically my problems in a shell. Overall even though the movie has it’s problems it still is a good family movie and will definitely be enjoyable to newcomers to the series and casual viewers.

This is my fourth favourite movie of the summer thus far, and my fourth favourite Indiana Jones installment.

IMDB says 7.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 79%

I say 6.5/10