Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader feels badly that he has not written a better review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (hereafter IJ&TKOTCS). Our friend Eric was kind enough to point this out in a comment to an earlier post. So here is an attempt to provide you with more of his thoughts on IJ&TKOTCS.

Your Maximum Leader, in his youth, spent many a rainy Saturday watching old movies WDCA Channel 20 out of Washington DC. These movies were, predominately, from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. They were mostly black and white and more often than not they were one of three genres. Horror, Science Fiction and “adventure.” These movies were the great “B” films of the age. They were matinee fare for his grandparents and parents. They were lazy TV for him.

These films were great, if you were about 11 years old. The dialogue was right on the 11 year old level. The stories were simple. The action was engaging. The women were vixens. It was all mightly good.

Of course, when your Maximum Leader watches these films now, he cringes. The dialogue is forced and campy. The jokes were stale in 1930. The “special effects” weren’t that special (although he does note that we’ve come a long way in that department). Thankfully… The women are still vixens.

So… Back to IJ&TKOTCS…

IJ&TKOTCS would fit perfectly into the mould of a 1954 Saturday matinee, except it would be in color. Frankly, as he said in his earlier post, years from now if an 11 year old is watching WDCA on a Saturday morning - he might see IJ&TKOTCS and be most pleased. (In fact your Maximum Leader’s 11 year old nephew thought IJ&TKOTCS was great.)

Your Maximum Leader grew very tired of all of the “old” jokes and cracks in IJ&TKOTCS. One couldn’t go through a few minutes without someone commenting on how old Indy was or Indy commenting on how old he was. It got tiresome. While the general quality of the script didn’t decend to the level of Star Wars II: The Attack of the Clones (perhaps the nadir of the Star Wars movies in terms of script), one could see the strong hand of Lucas in every word written. Your Maximum Leader has been told that George Lucas went to college (okay… film school), but if he were to go on just the body of work he’s produced since 1988 he would conclude that Lucas has in fact regressed to being 11 years old.

As for the plot… IJ&TKOTCS can be summarized by Indy meets the X-files and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Woo-hoo there are space aliens with crystaline skeletons (the skulls of which appear to be filled with mulitcolored, glowing saran wrap)! There are nasty Commies! It should be noted that the leader of the Commies carries a sword around with her. Way not to stand out there. Wearing a rapier with your socialist laborer’s jumpsuit in 1957. You know, your Maximum Leader thought wearing rapiers on the hip went out of style around 1657. He supposes there must have been advantages to being a communist in the 1950’s. Not only could you disavow Stalin, vacation in Cuba (after Castro), crush eastern europe at a whim, but you could also wear rapiers with impunity.

Does your Maximum Leader really need to go on here? Not really, but he will make a few more points… Only a complete, total, drooling idiot wouldn’t have picked up that “Mutt” Williams was Indy’s love-child with Marion. When Indy tells Mutt (before he knows that Mutt is in fact his son) that it is okay that Mutt not go to college but should do what makes him happy any thinking person would know that this is just setting up the whole “I don’t care what I said to you before - you’re going to college young man.” speech for a later scene. (And a really thinking person would know that the later scene would be punctuated by some crisis - oh… like sinking in quicksand.)

Your Maximum Leader was greatly saddened by the pathetic peripheral role into which Marion Ravenwood (Williams) was relegated. She essentially is a driver for a big chase scene. Other than that there isn’t much of a role for her. She hardly speaks. She is full of great potential - especially considering how great a character she had in the first film. But that potential is unrealized. Your Maximum Leader will again attribute this to the hand of Lucas. Is your Maximum Leader the only one who thinks that all women in Lucas roles are characatures of women in other movies?

All in all, your Maximum Leader went into IJ&TKOTCS thinking it was really going to be much worse than it actually was. Which is saying something. If the particular showing he caught had cost any more than the $6.50 it did he would have felt badly ripped off…

Well… There you have it… A longer review of IJ&TKOTCS.

Carry on.