Latest Plink: Why 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' was kind of a letdown...

Here's my latest Plink. It's on a topic I don't frequently discuss/judge/critique, but I wanted to answer the question. If you disagree, let me know. I'd love to chat about it. Leave me a comment or hit me up on Twitter at @mikebilleter. Anyway, here's the "movie that disappointed me"...

I'd come to expect a lot from the Indiana Jones series. The originals were some of the first "adult-themed" movies that my parents let me watch as a kid, so I've always had fond memories of borrowing my dad's VHS tapes and watching the movies over and over. The airplane propeller scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark is forever ingrained in my memory.



I also loved the Temple of Doom (even though many people don't) because it just ended up being the one I watched the most. Monkey brains, voodoo dolls, fire pits...it was as intense as any 8 year old could handle. I loved that.



Then when I heard they were making a new one, I was skeptical but excited. I'm by no means a film snob, so if there's action and some humor and some fun, it's hard for me not to be happy with it. Coming from a comic book nerd, you take your lumps as far as "bad movies" (Daredevil...which I didn't even hate, but lots of people did) and "good movies" (Iron Man, Incredible Hulk) go. I've come to expect that sense of needing to suspend belief so that, even if the movie is fantastical and unrealistic in the grand scheme of things, it can still be enjoyable.



But...watching guinea pig-sized ants and Caddyshack-esque gophers communicate like characters from a Disney/Pixar film and watching Indiana Jones survive a nuclear blast after being launched through the air at breakneck speeds in a 1950s REFRIGERATOR was just too much for me to handle.



I'm aware that voodoo dolls and arks full of demonic spirits that melt Nazi's faces off are by no means realistic, but at least the old films had the benefit of my childhood awe and mystification to help make them fun.



This one just seemed forced and paled in comparison to my hopeful expectations. I can only suspend disbelief so much (I mean...I actually enjoyed "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer"), but this one just pushed me too far in the off-put direction.



So, I'm certainly no film critic, but that's my response to this Plinky prompt. Sorry George Lucas and Steven Spielberg...I'm sure you're both crushed. I would be too.