[6.0/10] *Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull* is a thoroughly mediocre film. It is not a blight upon the Indiana Jones franchise. It is not a stain upon director Steven Spielberg’s legacy. It is, instead, merely competent enough but ultimately dull over the course of two hours. In a series known for a conveyor belt of thrills and crackling banter, that's almost worse than if the movie were outright bad.

What the best Indy flicks had going for them was engaging characters who sparked off one another with an endearing rapport comic abandon. *Crystal Skill* is skimpy, at best, on that same front. Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood, and while there’s not the same electricity between her and Harrison Ford that there was in [*Raiders of the Lost Ark*](https://trakt.tv/comments/686979), the banter and feistiness between them is winning enough all these years later. That said, while the film takes pains to honor Indy’s best romance, Marion doesn't show up until halfway through the movie, and even then, has to elbow for dialogue amid a crowded cast and a fumbling plot that minimizes the ability of her rapport with Dr. Jones to elevate the film.

The only other character that Ford really sparks with on-screen is Mac, his friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend-turned-enemy-turned...friend? Ford and Ray Winstone (with an attitude and an accent that presages Billy Butcher in *The Boys*). The two old grave-robbers have a barbed but buddy-buddy dynamic that makes them entertaining even as the character has more turns than a revolving door over the course of the movie. But even he feels like a secondary character at best.

The other lead for Indy to bounce off is Mutt, his heretofore unknown son, played by Shia LaBeouf, who’s the weakest link in the film. In many ways, *Crystal Skull* aims to recreate the rhythms of [*The Last Crusade*](https://trakt.tv/comments/696103), with a rocky father-son relationship unwittingly repaired through the magic of the adventure, only this time, Indy’s aged into the paternal role. But as young Indiana-types go, LeBeouf is no River Phoenix. He lacks the wry charm and sweaty charisma of Ford, which is no sin but makes him questionable casting as the child of Indy and Marion. Regardless, he’s also just not very engaging as a performer on his own merits, coming off generic and at times labored in a movie whose tone all but requires the cast to seem effortless in their presence to make the nonsense work. Mutt gets the most screen time and opportunities to interact with Indy in the film, and sadly, it’s to no one’s benefit.

The rest of the prominent characters are a who’s who of tremendous actors wasted in disappointing roles. Cate Blanchett plays the villain, Dr. Spalko, and between her dodgy Russian accent and her underwritten purpose, one of cinema’s best performers is somehow made forgettable. The inimitable John Hurt plays a standard issue madman for most of the picture, and does fine with what he’s given, but is mostly a prop. And Jim Broadbent does able work as Indy’s dean, effectively standing in for Marcus Brody after the passing of Denholm Elliott, but he doesn’t have much to do.

Ironically enough, despite a nearly two decade absence, Ford returns to one of his most iconic roles with aplomb, and truth be told, I still like this Indy. He’s still conspicuously and endearingly making much of this up as he goes along. He’s still consulting guides and doing real work in between all the swashbuckling. And as much as Ford’s been accused of sleepwalking through the role in his later years, when he has the right scene partner, there’s still a gruff but yielding charm to the guy that made his lovable rogues famous.

But you know what other movie suffers from the same pathology? [*Temple of Doom*](https://trakt.tv/comments/691787). And yet, what the second Indiana Jones movie has that the fourth one lacks almost entirely is simple but devastating: quality visuals.

At a basic level, *Crystal Skull* just looks kind of cruddy. Far be it from me to malign the great Janusz Kamiński, who handles the cinematography for Spielberg as usual. The scenes are largely blocked and composed just fine. But while even a cinematic lowlight like *Temple of Doom* was an incredible step down from its predecessor, what it could boast were sets and settings that felt viscerally real, and awed you with the presentation alone.

By contrast, everything in *Crystal Skull* feels painfully unreal. Everything has that awkward 2000s CGi sheen that immediately breaks immersion. And many of the images look muddy and unavailing, in a marked contrast to the crisp but gritty look that characterized the original trio of Indiana Jones films. Even when those films stumbled a bit, they were almost always nice to look at (give or take a post-airship dogfight), while *Indy 4* is a mix of the flat or the outright ugly in terms of its visuals.

The same problem extends to the action. There’s little in the way of memorable sequences in *Crystal Skull*. Few of them are outright bad. (Though Mutt’s vine-swinging adventure comes close.) But given the digital sweetening involved in almost every piece of them, your brain is constantly reminded that the danger is fake, and so the big set pieces lack the vividness that marked the best fireworks of the prior films. On top of that, the editing is choppy and the geography gets muddled, so the ability of the movie to grab your attention with a great sequence alone is diminished, if not entirely neutered.

What doesn’t bother me is the silliness of it all. Much has been made of Indy surviving a nuclear blast in a lead-lined fridge, or Mutt’s monkey escapade, or the mere fact that Dr. Jones is dealing with interdimensional beings rather than ancient gods. The truth, however, is that the Indiana Jones franchise has always cheated in terms of science and physics. It’s had plenty of death-defying escapades that make no sense if you break them down, or lean more into the four-color adventure roots that Spielberg and his creative collaborator George Lucas pulled from the serials that inspired them to make *Raiders*.

Ancient alien-types are not functionally different than ancient gods, and while I may grumble about a bunch of old people falling down three consecutive waterfalls and coming out entirely unscathed, it’s par for the course in a franchise that has always played fast and loose (at best) when it comes to realism. The real problem is that the craft is missing from these sequences, the majesty and inventiveness that makes you forget the minor trespasses of realism and plausibility, and gives yourself over to the impressiveness and charm of what you’re witnessing on the screen.

Really, though, the greatest sin of *Crystal Skull* is that a lot of the time, it’s just plain boring. I’ve complained before that even in the best Indy movie (which, for my money, is *Raiders*, some of the action sequences go on for so long that they become exhausting. Nevertheless, what you can't fault any of those first three films for is pace. There’s always something happening in the Indiana Jones movies of the 1980s, whether it’s a chase, or a fight, or just enjoyable patter between the characters.

Here, there are long, interminable stretches where the tempo goes entirely slack, and we’re subjected to long, stultifying scenes of Indy having lifeless conversations with Mutt or just wandering around muddled catacomb settings without the sort of tension or sense of foreboding that fueled similar moments in prior outings. Spielberg and company didn’t always strike a perfect balance in past Indy movies, but in hindsight, I’d rather be checking my watch from an overload of excitement than from a double dose of the doldrums.

For all those complaints, this movie starts solid and ends solid, between a visit to the franchise’s infamous warehouse and a telescoping temple of extra-terrestrial design. But in between is a whole lot of mostly fine but largely forgettable business that lacks the charismatic characters or visual verve that elevated Indy’s past adventures. Despite the histrionic complaints of ruined childhoods, *Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal* is not a terrible film. Instead, it ought to be damned with an even more grievous sin -- it’s a bland one.