Movie Review: Indiana Jones IV

Like Southern Man is going to type a title like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull more than once.

The early reviews were fairly negative, and justifiably so. Yeah, it's fun and campy and self-deprecating and full of good old-fashioned swashbuckling. Heck, there's even a swordfight. Yeah, Indiana Jones pulls off a ridiculously large number of hair-raising escapes, some of which are preposterous beyond all imagination. No, you never really believe that he's in any real danger (which isn't really a flaw as the hero surviving such cliffhangers was a staple of the old adventure serials that these movies deliberately imitate). Yeah, one of the characters is his up-to-then-unknown son (a hallmark of bad sequels). No, the son doesn't die (the usual fate of such newly-found sons in bad sequels). Yeah, there are references to the rest of the franchise (including, much to Southern Man's surprise, the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles) and a well-known line from Star Wars. No, the villians don't die horrible deaths - they're rather anticlimatic, in fact. And the body count due to cold-blooded murder is disturbingly high (although watching the giant ants eat the KGB agents was great fun).

No, it's not nearly as bad as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Admit it, regardless of the reviews you're going to see it anyway and probably buy the DVD to boot. So go now and enjoy it. It's not a bad popcorn movie at all. And Southern Man got to see it wth his two daughters and his sister and a host of others and we all had a good time.

One disappointment: early in the movie, Indy's son is stung by a scorpion. Indy laughs it off, saying that it was the little scorpions that were deadly and there was no reason to fear the larger ones. So Southern Man was on the edge of his seat for the next ninety minutes waiting for the appearance of the giant scorpions. They never did. Damn it, Southern Man paid good money for giant scorpions and didn't get any. Southern Man sez that there had better be giant scorpions in Indiana Jones and the Padded Room in the Geriatric Ward, whenever that comes out.