Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) (Wrapped and Ready Edition; Sensormatic)

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Dec 11, 2008

Indy IV A Sad Ending For The Indiana Jones Franchise

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Oct 22, 2008

Pros: Seeing Indy as an older character was about the only believeable part of this movie. Giving consumers the choice between a single disc, double disc and yet another new box set is actually a good thing this time. Those who didn't like the movie can simply get the singe disc edition, and save some money.

Cons: The overblown CG and absolutely horrible jokes took away so much from this movie. Now, fans are being ripped off again with a brand new four-disc box set that contains the movies, but no special features. Fans who already have one of the original box sets have no reason to buy the new box set.

Indiana Jones IV has been one of the most touted movies to hit theaters in possibly the last decade. Fans have waited anxiously for this movie. But early reviews from critics did not exactly sing its praises. And now that it has hit DVD, it is not much better. Listening to the full length interview with director Steven Spielberg only serves to make the pain in watching it worse. Speilberg makes it clear that he was wary of making this movie from day one. And having partner George Lucas run roughshod over it with all of his sci-fi and CG effects made him that much more wary.

Sadly, the critics were right about this movie. This is by no means the best of the Indiana Jones franchise. The script itself was poor thanks to writer David Koepp. Long-time fans of the Indy franchise know that Jones started out fighting the Nazis, and searching for religious artifacts. That was because of Hitler's fascination, and dabbling in, the occult. Anyone who knows about WWII history, knows that Hitler actually did dabble in the occult. So it made the movies more real. There was something that was simply believeable about the first trio of Indiana Jones movies. But this newest installment had almost no link whatsoever to the originals.

The only mentions of the original trio of movies came in the warehouse that held all of the artifacts that Indy found in his past adventures. There was that, and of course the reference to his father, Henry Sr. (Sean Connery) and his father's friend, Marcus.

Given, this movie was supposed to take years later after his adventure with Marcus and his dad in The Last Crusade. But unlike that movie, and its duo of predecessors, this movie simply lacked a certain level of believeability. That is likely due to the massive influence of special effects guru, George Lucas. There was plenty of action. But much of the action was done either on green screen, or through general CG animation. It took away that enjoyment that the original three movies brought audiences so long ago. In short, the amount of special effects and CG made it come across as a really bad modern day b-rate sci-fi movie. And that is not what Indiana Jones is known for. Hopefully this movie won't create that image of the Indiana Jones franchise.

The way that the movie ended (the ending won't be given away here for those who have not yet seen it) hinted that the Indy franchise is done. If so, it is a sad ending. It has shown that the franchise has ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.