I did some reviews a few years ago somewhere else, and I am now allowed to put them up here.

Laying into Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull is kind of like kicking a homeless hunchback ex-celebrity. Its quite clearly crappy, nobody ever expected it to be any god, and however much it hangs around outside schools and ruins peoples childhoods by feeding them pieces of broken bottle through the fence at playtime (Figurativley speaking of course), you can never really feel angry at it because you are aware that it once was a great and mighty institution and filled your life with glee.

But unfortunatly for Indie and the homeless drop-out everyone is kicking it even as it lies on the street spitting out teeth, mob psychology has just kicked in and I want a piece too.

When it began I was filled with excitment. I wanted to see it happen again. I felt like a young ‘un again. Indie is dragged out of the back of a car by some nasty Nazi’s, sorry, russians, and we are introduced to a new character played by Mr I’m-actually-a-really-bad-guy himself Ray Winstone. A few kick abouts with the Nazi’s (russians) and a funny little bit about Area 51 and the roswell alien, and I’m sat in my seat thinking this is quite good. A nice aside, but I won’t make a whole film about it.

Fatal words. As they did infact make the whole plot about an alien and an ancient race of people who worship aliens. There is actually very little plot, seeing as how the Jones Liniage has had some mindbenders to understand, what with the Arc of the Covenant in relation to the Nazi Regime, A quest for the holy grail and the one in the middle that no one can really remember except for the kids in the mines and the heart pulling out bit.

So, ok, a shoddy plot, thats alright, if we have some madcap but believable adventures. Some silly mixed with some realism. Like the big fire ball in the tomb beneath venice and hiding in the coffin to escape the firey burny death. Why is there a big fire ball? well, who cares as long as he escapes it in a scientific manner.

Lucas seemed to go a bit crazy when formulating a follow up to this. Instead of a unexplainable explosion and a reasonable escape, be created a totally plausable explosion and a ridiculous escape from it. I know, to get away from this nuke, I’ll hide in this Lead Lined fridge.

I’m sorry, but a bomb that burned peoples shadows to walls, and in the film itself reduces a Nazi (russian) jeep to a pile of liquidy metal chunks can’t breach the Acme all purpose lead lined fridge. Well the lead lining in theory would protect you from all that nasty radiation, but at the same time, not all the firey, burny super-ultra-hot nuclear DEATH FIRE!

The fridge would have been superheated, the shock wave that bounced the fridge about a half mile through the desert would have broken every bone in his body and when he opened the frigdge, being that cllose to a mushroom cloud would have seered the skin from his body. Not to mention the nuclear gases rapidly replacing the atmosphere he is breathing.

Actually it would have made a thoroughly better film if the door opened and a skeleton with a hat slumped out face down into the sand and a slowed down version of the theme tune dirged on as the credits rolled and we sat there watching seven foot long cockroaches suck the eyeballs from his skull.

It would have saved us from Ray Trust-me-I’m-a-nice-dude Winstone’s “I’m evil, actually no i’m not” act, which gets old the third time round where Indie still gives him a gun and expects his to cover him without popping a few shells in his back.

In the end, all that happened was that George Lucas, who looks and sounds increasingly like Dame Edna Everidge, decided to ruin another aspect of my childhood and squeeze some money out of Indiana Jones. I watched scenes from the last three films made slightly different by replacing an evil nazi with an evil nazi (Russian) or scorpions with ants or an evil gestapo with a psychic or the plot with a great big serving of shit and bollocks.