I'd heard very negative reviews of the kingdom of the crystal skull before catching it at the cinema but i chose to ignore them and make up my own mind. I shouldn't have wasted my time and money.

The kingdom of the crystal skull is beyond terrible: Nearly all the jokes fall flat, the limpid action sequences merely highlight the fine line between 'comic book' and just plain ridiculous (and unfortunately favour the latter) and the epic quality of the earlier films is completely absent, the whole thing instead looking like it came straight out of a computer. And that's before we even get to the 'plot'...

The villains (this time around, some cardboard cut-out russians) are entirley forgettable; a fantastic supporting cast (cate blanchett, ray winstone, john hurt) is wasted, all of them looking lost among the incomprehensible storyline. Harrison ford is still excellent as indy but he has nothing interesting to do here. And the central plot revelation is so ludicrous it's… more »

I'd heard very negative reviews of the kingdom of the crystal skull before catching it at the cinema but i chose to ignore them and make up my own mind. I shouldn't have wasted my time and money.

The kingdom of the crystal skull is beyond terrible: Nearly all the jokes fall flat, the limpid action sequences merely highlight the fine line between 'comic book' and just plain ridiculous (and unfortunately favour the latter) and the epic quality of the earlier films is completely absent, the whole thing instead looking like it came straight out of a computer. And that's before we even get to the 'plot'...

The villains (this time around, some cardboard cut-out russians) are entirley forgettable; a fantastic supporting cast (cate blanchett, ray winstone, john hurt) is wasted, all of them looking lost among the incomprehensible storyline. Harrison ford is still excellent as indy but he has nothing interesting to do here. And the central plot revelation is so ludicrous it's beyond belief. I literally couldn't believe what i'd just seen.

But worst of all, the kingdom of the crystal skull is missing the vital ingredient that set the original films apart from the rest of the '80s blockbusters: Magic. I seriously believe that a couple of indiana jones fans could've come up with a better storyline for this film in one drunken night down the pub than all the years spielberg and lucas had to develop this. Their only excuse for the awful end result must be that nobody is around to tell them 'no'.

And that's a genuine shame, because the earlier films stayed with me for years. I'd pretty much forgotten all about the kingdom of the crystal skull by the time i arrived home from the cinema.

As for the dvd: Despite a wealth of special features, i'm puzzled that there isn't an extensive documentary on it called 'kingdom of the crystal skull: Why this film sucked!'