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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Paramount Pictures

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull reviews


5.0

based on 40 reviews
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based on 776 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for adventure violence and scary images

Starring Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, Karen Allen, John Hurt, and Jim Broadbent

The newest Indiana Jones adventure begins in the desert Southwest in 1957 – the height of the Cold War. Indy and his sidekick Mac have barely escaped a close scrape with nefarious Soviet agents on a remote airfield. Now, Professor Jones has returned home to Marshall College – only to find things have gone from bad to worse. His close friend and dean of the college explains that Indy's recent activities have made him the object of suspicion, and that the government has put pressure on the university to fire him. On his way out of town, Indiana meets rebellious young Mutt, who carries both a grudge and a proposition for the adventurous archaeologist: If he'll help Mutt on a mission with deeply personal stakes, Indy could very well make one of the most spectacular archaeological finds in history – the Crystal Skull of Akator, a legendary object of fascination, superstition and fear. But as Indy and Mutt set out for the most remote corners of Peru, they quickly realize the Soviet agents are also hot on the trail of the Crystal Skull. Indy and Mutt must find a way to evade the ruthless Soviets, follow an impenetrable trail of mystery, grapple with enemies and friends of questionable motives, and, above all, stop the powerful Crystal Skull from falling into the deadliest of hands. (Paramount Pictures)

GENRE(S):	Action \| Adventure
WRITTEN BY:	Philip Kaufman (characters) George Lucas (characters & story) Jeff Nathanson (story) David Koepp
DIRECTED BY:	Steven Spielberg
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 14, 2008 Theatrical: May 22, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	123 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA
LANGUAGE(S):	English \| German \| Hebrew \| Nyaneka

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's crammed full of the dash, filmmaking flair, swashbuckling magic, impossible stunts and tongue-in-cheek humor that made the series such a phenomenon of its time, and -- for those versed in its traditions -- almost every frame is enjoyable on some level.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It miraculously pulled off the effect of feeling like a surprise: The picture both fulfilled some vague, unexpressed hopes I didn't know I had and also left me with the sense that I'd just seen something I wasn't quite prepared for -- the kind of contradiction that great showmanship can bridge.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I can say that if you liked the other Indiana Jones movies, you will like this one, and that if you did not, there is no talking to you.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Despite the merry duo of Ford and Connery, The Last Crusade offered a familiar pursuit of the Holy Grail. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull makes a better move: It goes back to the future. Once again, the Indiana Jones series is the rare franchise that treasures knowledge and embraces the unknown.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Entertaining, inventive and old-fashioned in the best way.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Nineteen years after their last adventure, director Steven Spielberg and star Harrison Ford have no trouble getting back in the groove with a story and style very much in keeping with what has made the series so perennially popular.

Empire Damon Wise

A slick, fun film that has by no means sacrificed the fast action beats of the first three.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Though the film stars a relaxed and capable Harrison Ford as everyone's favorite intrepid archaeologist and boasts supporting players ranging from Cate Blanchett as a superb villainess to Shia LaBeouf as the inevitable youngster, the real heroes of this film are director Steven Spielberg and the veritable army of superb technicians who turn the film's numerous stunts and special effects into trains that insist on running on time.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Ford's Indy, who doesn't quite hang up his fedora at film's end, is still the only cinematic smartass-cum-bullwhipping scholar of antiquities I'd want by my side when push comes to shove comes to Nazis ("I hate these guys"), Russkies, or, for that matter, Al Quaeda. Go get 'em, Indy, and cue the John Williams while you''e at it.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

The movie's pretty good, occasionally very good. But I also kind of hope they don't make another one.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Both the good and bad remind us that the most special thing about "Skull" is the man wearing the fedora and the rakish grin. He has never worn out his welcome, and this valedictory – it can be nothing else – is a fitting one.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The movie moves. It has action sequences that are so enormous that they won't just wow audiences, but rock them back in their seats and make them laugh at the audacity of it all.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The overall effect is either exhilarating or exhausting, depending on your emotional investment in the franchise, but credit where credit is due: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas set out to make one for the fans and delivered.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Often thrilling, sometimes charming, occasionally clunky family entertainment that perhaps wisely doesn't attempt to scale the heights of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Merely grand old-school fun - a rollicking class reunion that stands as the second best entry in the venerable series.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Crystal Skull is a fun ride, but if we have to wait 19 years for the next one, that's OK by me.

Time Richard Corliss

There are scenes in the new movie that seem like stretching exercises at a retirement home; there are garrulous stretches, and even the title seems a few words too long. But once it gets going, Crystal Skull delivers smart, robust, familiar entertainment.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

It's enough to make you forgive a great deal of this film's dumbness and appreciate it as meaningless, goodhearted and mostly non-obnoxious entertainment.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The character and plot contrivances are dumber than ever, but this is basically vaudeville, not narrative, and the thrills keep coming.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

I can't deny it: I had a shit-eating grin on my face for most of the ensuing two hours. I also can't deny that many of the criticisms about to be leveled at Spielberg and Lucas over "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" are well-deserved, but it's still good to see Indiana Jones, and Marion, back in action one last time.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It's romantic manliness at its purest, almost but not quite schmaltz, ideally calculated to please true believers and ironic snorters at once.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The biggest problem with Crystal Skull is one that's lately plagued Spielberg in otherwise excellent films like "Munich" and "War Of The Worlds": He fails to stick the landing. And for an entertainment with nothing much on its mind, that hurts.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Harrison Ford? Terrific -- and re-energized.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Even with the ponderous dialogue, it's hard not to have fun on this adventure, and it's good to see that Indy, though slightly weary, still has the goods.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Audiences looking for emotional resonance in Indy 4 are doomed to the temple of disappointment. Spielberg and Lucas aren't upping their creative game -- they're taking care of business.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

The script was kept under unusually tight wraps during filming, but the biggest surprise in the picture is how talky the whole enterprise is. Particularly deadly is a long stretch in mid-film where the heroes walk through caves, talk about what they're seeing, get captured and talk with their captors, escape and talk some more.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

While the production values are top-notch, and the action artfully choreographed, in the end - and quite well before the end - a sense of tedium sets in.

Slate Dana Stevens

Even the most enthusiastic future Indy scholar would have to concede that the movie's habit of quoting from venerable Hollywood antiquities sometimes has the unfortunate effect of reminding the viewer that those movies were better.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Things could be worse. At the end of the day, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is nothing if not consistent -- taking care of business solidly, professionally and without a lick of the genuine wonderment or inspiration that you can find in surplus in Jon Favreau's Spielberg-influenced "Iron Man."

Newsweek Jennie Yabroff

Like Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard," Indy is still big; it's just that, in the new world of movie franchises, The Crystal Skull feels smaller.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

There's plenty of frantic energy here, lots of noise and money too, but what's absent is any sense of rediscovery, the kind that's necessary whenever a filmmaker dusts off an old formula or a genre standard.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Director Steven Spielberg seems intent on celebrating his entire early career here. Whatever the story there is, a vague journey to return a spectacular archeological find to its rightful home -- an unusual goal of the old grave-robber, you must admit -- gets swamped in a sea of stunts and CGI that are relentless as the scenes and character relationships are charmless.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Does not know when to quit. Nor does it extract much fun from a cockamamie story provided by George Lucas.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Simply isn't a very good motion picture.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

All of it amounts to a been-there-done-that-better recapitulation of Mr. Spielberg's career.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Conducting another symphony in action, Spielberg seems a bit bored – always competent but never inspired – and who can really blame him? He tries to fire his interest by swiping a few tropes from the fifties pop bin, not-so-sly allusions to teen-trash movies and those McCarthy-era horror flicks. After that, there's really nowhere to go but inwards, which is when Spielberg starts looting Spielberg.

Premiere Gregory Christie

It's clear the creators wanted to bring our hero back but were uncertain where to put him. Sadly, Indiana Jones is not relevant amidst the atomic blasts and disillusionment of the Soviet era, and he's not even recognizable in the pixilated universe of recent cinema. To quote the great Dr. Jones, "It belongs in a museum!"

New York Magazine David Edelstein

No mainstream filmmaker since Orson Welles can touch Steven Spielberg when it comes to camera movement and composition--or, more precisely, to composition that gets more vivid as the camera moves...It's the work of a man with film storytelling in his blood. What a bummer when the story he has to tell is a cosmic nothing.

The New Yorker David Denby

Crystal Skull isn't bad--there are a few dazzling sequences, and a couple of good performances--but the unprecedented blend of comedy and action that made the movies so much more fun than any other adventure series is mostly gone.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

It's hard to tell whether Spielberg and Lucas are trying too hard or trying at all--the thing's such a mess, such an unmitigated disaster, that damned is the scholar stuck with the unfortunate task of deciphering this cynical, clinical gibberish in decades to come.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 776 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Levente S gave it a7:
Aside from some forced interactions between the occasionally poorly-written character and a painfully cheesy ending, The Crystal Skull is completely competent and adequate member of the Indiana Jones series. The plot is a bit insane, but that's what the series is all about, putting human ingenuity against ancient freaky magic. It's not nearly as bad as that awful middle-child Temple of Doom.

Russell J gave it a1:
This is dire. Saw it at the pictures and it was like having my childlike self ripped apart. The equivalent of finding Santa on xmas morning wanking onto your mince pies you left him. The story was shit. There was no suspense or mystery. The action was laughable and full of cgi. The acting was atrocious even Harrison Ford couldn't pull it off he's too old for the role. To be fair it maintained itself with a certain sense of disbelief all the way to the Amazon scenes and the film just gave up. So many bad scenes in a row. Mutt swinging from vine to vine like Tarzan. The giant (cgi) ants. Three waterfalls. Kill me now. The worst is left to the end of the movie. Spielberg do you really think we'll buy this shit with the aliens as lightheated fun. Raiders worked because it was mythological but aliens shouldn't be in this type of movie. Especially in a close encounters style. Oh Indy I still like you in the trilogy without jowls.

Sam gave it a4:
This movie was a dissapointment but it wasn't a complete failure. I found myself enjoying the first half of the movie but the 2nd half was awful. The CGI looked incredibly out of place and some of the later scenes were just stupid. The old Indie movies had scenes that were unbelieveable to be sure but at least they were fun and enjoyable to watch. The scene with Mutt swinging through the trees with the monkeys was incredibly lame. The acting was decent but it couldn't save the movie from its awful plot.

Keenan S gave it a4:
This film was such a disappointment, I will probably not be able to watch the old trilogy again for years after what this film left me with. It was one of the biggest disappointments ever and was a huge letdown. This film was ridiculous for all the wrong reasons and failed miserably. Why George Lucas? Do you insist on ruining every classic franchise you helped create? Bad CGI, bad acting, bad music, bad action scenes, this film screwed up in all the areas Indy should be succeeding in. Don't ever watch it.

A L gave it a1:
One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Unbelievably bad. Startlingly implausible at every turn, Wildly illogical and improbable occurrences in almost every scene. Embarrassing dialog throughout, as if it were written by a child. And this is the first ILM film (assuming they did the FX) I've seen with anything other than impressive and innovative visual effects... in fact, they were shockingly substandard. The CGI on this film looked about like the quality of what you'd see on a, say, a Sci Fi channel original film... which is to say not very good. It seems as if they decided to rush a new Indy flick to the theaters; it seems to be cobbled together hastily with no attention to even the most basic points of physics and logic, maybe to meet some contractual obligation... or maybe just to squeeze one last drop out of the Indiana Jones series before Harrison Ford gets too old to be believable in the role.

K M gave it a7:
It's a decent enough sequel in the series, I don't think it deserves the harsh criticism the users are giving it, maybe it's just out-dated.

[Anonymous] gave it a0:
A waste, from all I'd heard of the Indianna Jones series, I at least expected 5to like at least some of it! My favourite bit was when the credits started rolling, not even High Definition could save me from dooming this film. Seriously..... Aliens???

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Paramount Pictures

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Paramount Pictures