Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1213 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-11-10
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: PAL, Full Screen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Nearly 20 years after riding his last Crusade, Harrison Ford makes a welcome return as archaeologist/relic hunter Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, an action-packed fourth installment that's, in a nutshell, less memorable than the first three but great nostalgia for fans of the series. Producer George Lucas and screenwriter David Koepp (War of the Worlds) set the film during the cold war, as the Soviets--replacing Nazis as Indy's villains of choice and led by a sword-wielding Cate Blanchett with black bob and sunglasses--are in pursuit of a crystal skull, which has mystical powers related to a city of gold. After escaping from them in a spectacular opening action sequence, Indy is coerced to head to Peru at the behest of a young greaser (Shia LaBeouf) whose friend--and Indy's colleague--Professor Oxley (John Hurt) has been captured for his knowledge of the skull's whereabouts. Whatever secrets the skull holds are tertiary; its reveal is the weakest part of the movie, as the CGI effects that inevitably accompany it feel jarring next to the boulder-rolling world of Indy audiences knew and loved. There's plenty of comedy, delightful stunts--ants play a deadly role here--and the return of Raiders love interest Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood, once shrill but now softened, giving her ex-love bemused glances and eye-rolls as he huffs his way to save the day. Which brings us to Ford: bullwhip still in hand, he's a little creakier, a lot grayer, but still twice the action hero of anyone in film today. With all the anticipation and hype leading up to the film's release, perhaps no reunion is sweeter than that of Ford with the role that fits him as snugly as that fedora hat. --Ellen A. Kim

DVD Description
DVD Special Features
- Production Diary: Making of Crystal Skull
- Warrior Make-up
- The Crystal Skulls
- Iconic Props
- The Effects of Indy
- Adventures in Post Production
- Closing: Team Indy
- Pre-Visualisation Sequences
- Galleries
- Trailers

Stills from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Synopsis
Harrison Ford dusts off his infamous brown fedora for another Indiana Jones film, which is once again made by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. The year is 1957, and Indy is on the run from a team of Russian spies led by a rapier-wielding Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). The Russians want Indy to help them locate an ancient artefact that they believe can be used as the ultimate military weapon. Indy manages a narrow escape, and tries to return to his life as a professor of archaeology, but he soon bumps into a '50s greaser named Mutt (Shia LeBeouf). Mutt's mother, as well as one of Indy's longtime friends, have been captured somewhere in Peru. Mutt and Indy hop on a plane to the country, where they manage to track down both Mutt's mother, Marian (Karen Allen), and Professor Oxley (John Hurt), but they also find themselves surrounded by the same scheming Russians. The Russians have found the artefact they were seeking, but Indy now knows its secret and dangerous powers. With the help of Mutt, Marian, and Oxley, he races to return it to its rightful resting place.
While a bit more grizzled than the last time we saw him cracking his whip in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, Ford still manages to bring the right mix of humour and swagger to Indy. Longtime fans are sure to love the many inside jokes and nods to the previous films, as well as the reappearance of some favourite old characters. While CRYSTAL SKULL has the same exotic locales and wild chases of the earlier movies, it definitely sets itself apart with its heavy use of CGI. This fourth instalment of the Indy franchise is immensely enjoyable entertainment that contains some fun surprises along the way.

Customer Reviews

DR JONES & PROFESSOR SPEILBERG - ONE LAST TIME ...
The decision to resurrect the Indiana Jones franchise after 18 years was a brave one. Could Harrison Ford (64) still pull off the swagger, athletic action and smart one liners that made Indy such a sensation all those years ago ? Did Speilberg still have the nous to direct a full on pop corn action film with brains ?
Well if you ignore the use of ropey CGI and the ridiculous last 15 minutes (when the film literally falls apart) the answer is a resounding yes. The Crystal Skull of the title may be a weak prize for Dr Jones to seek but how he gets there is great fun - man eating ants, nuclear explosions, bad sword weilding Russians and some spectacular chases - it's all thrown at Indy who handles it all with aplomb. Ford plays on his age and gives us the grumpy, cynical and world weary Indiana Jones you'd expect from a man just about old enough to collect his bus pass.
Speilberg's latest prodical son, Shia Labeouf, plays a young greaser who may, or may not be Indy's son and Marion Ravewood returns from Raiders in a nicely pitched and spunky performance.
It's hard to be completely positive about Indy 4 though - simply because the first three films were so great, and there are moments in this movie when you feel that Speilberg and his cast are cruising on past glories. The aforementioned dodgy CGI also grates and there are many, decidedly underdeveloped, characters. A tighter script and a shorter running time (it's the first IJ film that feels too long) and Crystal Skull could have stolen the Summer. As it is it lost out to Batman and Hellboy. Shame.

Doesn't live up to its legacy, but still worth watching
Bringing old film franchises into the 21st Century can be a bit of a hit and miss affair. On the one hand, we've had relative success stories lately such as Rocky and Rambo, but on the other hand we've had real disappointments like Die Hard. I must admit, I was kind of curious to see where Indiana Jones would fall on this spectrum.

I've always been a fan of Indiana Jones movies. With their rollercoaster action scenes, globe-trotting exploits, brutal fist fights, explosions, evil enemies, abandoned tombs and fiendish booby traps, they had everything it took to fire the imagination of impressionable kids like me. In many ways, they actually harkened back to the old fashioned adventure serials of the 1930's and 40's, so it was interesting that the basic formula still worked with an entirely new generation of viewers.

The series came to a fitting close in 1989 with The Last Crusade. Like everyone else, I was convinced that Indy had run its coure and there would be no more films. Steven Spielberg didn't feel the same way however, and various scripts were hashed out over the next two decades. Eventually, with an ageing Ford threatening to pull out if shooting didn't start soon, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was put into motion. The result was one of the most anticipated movies of the last decade.

The film kicks off in Nevada in 1957, with Indy and his partner Mac held hostage by Soviet agents and forced to infiltrate a government warehouse to recover the crystal skull - a mysterious artifact of alien origin that the Russians believe has the power to control human minds. After a spectacular chase and shoot out, Indy manages to escape, and from then on, the film is a race between the two groups to recover the crystal skull and return it to its place of origin in the Amazon Jungle. Along the way, Indy hooks up with a young biker called Mutt, who proves to be a useful ally as well as an occasional pain in the arse.

With the huge amount of speculation and anticipation surrounding it, it was inevitable that Crystal Skull wasn't going to live up to the hype. But even I was surprised by the vitriolic reactions of some fans. People were actually dismissing this movie as not being part of the official canon.

The thing is, Crystal Skull isn't a bad film. It's just that its not as good as its predecessors. And how could it be? The other films were nothing short of cinematic brilliance.

A lot of people have commented on the ridiculousness of the plot, and while I have to agree that its probably the weakest of the series, its main problem is the characters. Mac's constant double-crossing becomes real old, real fast. By the end, I had no idea who the guy was working for, and frankly, I didn't care. I just wanted him dead. Marian Ravenwood (Indy's squeeze from the first movie) makes a welcome return, but her appearance feels perfunctory and underused. She never really does anything crucial to the plot, and I'm left with the distinct impression that her role is nothing more than fan service.

And Mutt doesn't do much to help matters. Last Crusade was about Indy's relationship with his father, and it worked mainly because Connery and Ford had such great chemistry. With Crystal Skull focussing on Indy's relationship with his son, it was clearkly trying to come full circle, but it doesn't quite work here. Ford and LaBeouf just don't have that magic.

Cate Blanchett is sleek and sexy as Soviet agent Irina Spalko, but she never really seems to present much of a threat. She's just disposable eye candy, ready to be killed off once she's served her purpose. She's certainly nothing compared to Toht from Raiders or Mola Ram from Doom.

The one pleasant surprise is Harrison Ford. At 64, I really didn't see how he could still play an adventure hero like Indy, but all credit to the guy, he really got in shape for this one. With the bullwhip, leather coat and fedora, he's still every inch the character he was twenty years ago.

On the downside again, the whole aliens plot bothered me, as it was such a marked departure from the series' traditional religious undertones. Raiders, Doom and Last Crusade dealt with Judaism, Hinduism and Christianity respectively, while here we've got... space aliens. Not good.

Many people have pointed to the more ridiculous action scenes, like Indy taking shelter in a lead-lined fridge to escape an atomic blast, or Mutt swinging through the trees Tarzan-style, accompanied by flocks of CGI monkeys. Okay, I have to admit, these scenes are pretty stupid, but if you think about it, they're not much less believable than the mine cart scene from Temple of Doom, or the opening of the Ark in Raiders.

On the subject of CGI though, I just have to mention that this film goes way over the score. I'm no cinematography expert, but I recognise good visuals when I see them, and I didn't see them here. CGI can be effective at making scenes more impressive if properly used, but when directors go over the score, it just becomes distracting and irritating. George Lucas has had far too big a hand in this one.

In the end though, I found Crystal Skull a fairly entertaining viewing experience. It won't rock your world or change your life, but its a decent, fun, brainless adventure movie. And let's face it, there's worse ways to kill a couple of hours.

No, I don't think so
Let me qualify this by saying that the first three films were not great films, but they were popcorn masterpieces. Let me also acknowledge that Indiana Jones has always been about thoroughly entertaining, fantasy adventure.

Right, with that in mind, let's dissect this mess of an installment. The plot was painfully off target - where the first three films based themselves on religious scripture & mysticism (something the viewer could at least vaguely relate to) that was obviously out for this edition. No doubt there was far too much worrying at Paramount about who might get offended - how times have changed...*sigh*

Instead the plot feels like it has been through about three different committees, all of whom have tried to squeeze in as many non religious alternatives as they could think of. It all adds up to something that is beyond fantasy adventure and unfortunately, beyond entertaining.

The cast: Harrison Ford is back and he's, well, he's not what he used to be. Neither is Karen Allen (Marion) who has a go at recapturing some of the spunk that made her interesting in Raiders - sadly, it's all a little embarrassing this time around. But wait, there's a new addition to the team in the form of Shia Laboeuf, who plays the young upstart "Mutt". All I can say is that River Phoenix had more screen impact in 10 minutes of The Last Crusade, than Laboeuf does over an entire film. But special honours for acting must go to John Hurt, who does a great impression of a dribbling maniac.

The enemy: well they're a pastiche bunch of evil commies (who somehow have no trouble running amok in America's most top secret military base), but they're no match for the nazis. I really missed the old enemy - couldn't some of the russians have at least worn the odd swastika? Well, perhaps not, but it would have tripled their menace factor instantly. Instead we get Cate Blanchett hamming it up as some sort of commie scientist/politburo/swashbuckling/queen bee er, I'm not sure what.

The rest: Lucas loves the green screen and this film is no exception. And don't forget the CGI scorpions, how Kate Capshaw must have laughed when she saw that scene - where are the real creepy crawlies?!

Old Indy films practically guaranteed horrifying deaths - well, if death by ant sounds horrifying enough then you're in for a treat, but the rest, especially the finale, are a major let down. Melting faces and "he chose poorly" this is not.

I think you get the picture, it's half baked, ill conceived, unnecessary and tired. The franchise is ripe for some new life to be breathed into it. This is not it.