Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
I have a perhaps unfairly allergic reaction to movies that deal with the paranormal or pseudoscience, but for the most part I managed to put the aside for Indiana Jones’ return to the screen. From the movie’s opening action sequence (and it could almost be said that the movie is really one continuous action sequence), aliens establish their presence as this movie’s Ark of the Covenant. But Indiana Jones is about fun and a certain retro-style of adventure story-telling that Spielberg masters, so I was ready to go along for the ride. And it is one hell of a ride. So much so, in fact, that the outlandish over-the-top finale may not even be the most non-physical thing in the movie. Some of the sequences border on comical and are reminiscent of the movie within the movie of “Last Action Hero”. When our heroes plunge over Niagara-like waterfalls not once, but three times, and get nothing more than a little wet, the movie severs contact with reality and left me feeling less connected with the action. It is far more gripping to see people struggling in a plausible way. Nevertheless, it is fun, gimmicky, corny, and entertaining to the end, though by the time it got to the end it was so far removed from reality that my interest was fading.