STUDIO: Paramount
RELEASE DATE: October 14, 2008
STARRING: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, and Jim Broadbent
WRITTEN BY: David Koepp
DIRECTED BY: Steven Spielberg
FEATURES: Pre-Production Featurette
Indiana Jones Timelines
Trailers
The Return Of A Legend Featurette
Production Diary: Making Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
Warrior Makeup
The Crystal Skulls
Iconic Props
Adventures In Post Production
The Effects Of Indy
Closing: Team Indy
Pre-Visualization Sequences
Galleries
Production Photographs
Portraits
Behind The Scenes Photographs

The passionate hatred directed at Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull is shocking to me. I've written hundreds of reviews and my Crystal Skull piece is easily in my top ten as far as pieces that I've had to defend against people who vehemently disagree. People hate movies every weekend and people disagree with critics every day, but there's something about the divide between critics and the public on Crystal Skull that gets people fired up. Three out of four critics liked Crystal Skull and yet I've seen people nearly come to actual fist-fighting over how much they hate the movie. Even an actor I interviewed went off about how little he thought of Indy IV (off the record, of course). And in case you missed South Park this week, it featured repeated instances of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas literally raping Indiana Jones. What has provoked such fiery opinions? With complete crap like The Love Guru and The Mummy 3 being ignored with a shrug, why do people go bonkers when I tell them that I liked Crystal Skull? Honestly, I think it's a byproduct of another famous sequel - The Phantom Menace.

Walk into a Wi-Fi cafe and say "Star Wars prequels", but make sure you duck quickly because something may be thrown at your head. George Lucas engendered such bad will with The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, that people, critics and fans, were ready to go to town on a fourth Indiana Jones movie. I call it "knives sharpened" reviews. Some people, even some well known critics, go into certain movies ready to hate them. Half of the anti-Transformers reviews read like they were written before the author even saw the film. Transformers is loud? Really? Harrison Ford looks old in Crystal Skull? You don't say. The negative response to Crystal Skull has a little bit of that sensation of obvious, predetermined criticism. People almost smile when they talk about how much they hate it, as if NOT disliking something that George Lucas has done in the last twenty years is an unpopular bandwagon they don't want to be on. It's a trendy, backlash thing to do. Hated the prequels. Have to hate Indy. The fact that Crystal Skull is a superior film to any of the Star Wars prequels doesn't matter.

Of course, there's more to it than that. Compared to the first three movies, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull does not hold up. But I think that was too high a bar to set. I never expected it to hold up to three of the favorite movies of my childhood. Maybe that's why I didn't hate Crystal Skull. I never expected it to be "Raiders Redux" in the same way I don't expect The Rolling Stones to make another Let It Bleed. Those days are gone. But the Stones can still rock and the team behind Crystal Skull can still put together an action movie to rival any other. Yes, the CGI monkeys are ridiculous. I firmly believe that Spielberg should have avoided CGI altogether and made a refreshing throwback to practical effects, but there are sequences in Crystal Skull that are simply stunning in their execution. The chase through the woods that climaxes with the killer ants is one of the most purely entertaining action scenes of the year. And I know I'm getting too "meta" on the film, but I love the idea that Crystal Skull ties together the filmography of Spielberg, introducing his fascination with outer space to his most legendary hero.

And, despite the film's detractors, Spielberg never really loses sight of what made the first three movies work. The repartee, the foreign baddies, the expertly staged action set-pieces - they're all there, they've just changed a little bit with the times. Horses have been replaced by motorcycles and whips have been replaced by switchblades. I wish there was a little more joy in Ford's performance and LaBeouf seems a little lost, especially at first, but when they get to the jungle and the film settles in, I was completely with it. Is it possible that Crystal Skull could live up to the pedestal set by the first three movies considering that two decades have passed since The Last Crusade? Clearly, it's not. I firmly believe that there is NO movie that Spielberg & Lucas could have delivered that would have satisfied legions of fans still angry about the Star Wars prequels. But is it a bad action movie? Hell no. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may not live up to the legend of the first three movies, but it is one of the best action/adventure movies of the year. Spielberg and his team simply know how to do this kind of thing better than most of the filmmakers inspired by them who are trying to do it today. I'd take a Crystal Skull caliber movie every summer for another twenty years over many of the movies inspired by the man with the whip.

Reg Seeton has already expertly detailed the special features available in the extensive two-disc version of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and they are nearly identical on the Blu-Ray version, except they are all in HD. Featurettes in HD may not sound like a big deal to the casual viewer, but it does make the Blu-Ray experience of a title more immersive when you're not jumping back and forth between SD and HD pictures. Anyway, if you want detailed information on the special features for Crystal Skull, head over to Reg's review.

So, with nearly identical special features (the Blu-Ray's first disc does come with a Timeline for Indiana Jones that the standard apparently does not, but that's the sole difference that I can see), the distinction between the two versions is going to be solely technical. How's the picture and audio on Crystal Skull? It's a mega-profitable, Steven Spielberg movie. How do you think it is? Seriously, it would have shocked me if Crystal Skull wasn't one of the best looking and sounding Blu-Rays in my collection, especially after the game-changers that Paramount has released recently with Iron Man and The Godfather. I've had some issues with Paramount's handling of standard definition video and audio, so it surprises me to say that they may be leading the way on Blu-Ray. This thing is a stunner with no visual or auditory flaws to be found. The picture is crystal clear and color-mixed perfectly in 1080p high definition and the sound is one of the best I've heard in English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD Audio. It's funny that Crystal Skull is the first Indy or Star Wars movie released on Blu-Ray. It gets one's hopes up about how good those eventual releases will look and sound. Until then, Crystal Skull will have to do. Maybe with a presentation this impressive, the fans who dismissed or even went as far as to revile it in theaters will give it another chance on Blu-Ray. Trust me. Indiana Jones gave you so much as a kid. Can't you give him another chance on Blu-Ray?