The ridiculousness of this line pretty much sums up our feelings for Steven Spielberg’s 2008 film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It’s nonsensical, silly, and surreal sci-fi mumbo jumbo that amounts to nothing. That being said, the long-awaited return to Indiana Jones and his adventures still manages to take viewers on a wild ride, even if it steers off course most of the time. Join us — Pete Wright and Andy Nelson — this week as we finish off Indiana Jones with what most people consider the worst of the series.
Indiana Jones managed to make killer ants look silly
We talk about the addition to the cinematic lexicon that Spielberg created with nuking the fridge, something on par with jumping the shark, and how that really reflects the rest of the film quite well. We discuss how Spielberg and his cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, had to return to an older style of filmmaking used in the previous films and how that helped and hindered this film. We chat about the challenges of making a sequel 19 years after the last entry, what struggles they had because of it, why they took so long to get around to making it, and what works in it. We laugh about the odd overuse of animals in this film and what Spielberg may be trying to say in the film. We relate this entry to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and how they’re both father/son stories, yet how this one fails where “Crusade” succeeded. And we come to terms with the fact that, as much as we (mostly) don’t like this movie, it really does fit stylistically with everything going on in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Crusade as far as style and humor, and how Raiders of the Lost Ark is the film that really stands out as the entry that doesn’t quite fit.
It was a struggle to watch but, oddly, not as much as it was the last time and, even if it’s not everything we wanted it to be to finish our Indiana Jones series, it’s still a lot of fun to talk about. Listen in!
Film Sundries
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- Watch this film: iTunes • Amazon
- Script Transcript
- Original theatrical trailer
- Original poster artwork
- Flickchart
- Letterboxd
- Nuke the Fridge in the Urban Dictionary
New Words
