pre-review: indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull

When The Last Crusade was released waaaaaay back in 1989, Indiana Jones left behind a rather big hat to fill. Plenty of films tried to put on that ever-familiar fedora, but even the most successful old-school adventures hasn’t quite achieved the iconic status of Jones. No, not even Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft. And now comes The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Plot details were kept under wraps, critics were kept at arm’s length…the secrecy has been seen as a bad sign - only studios with something to hide keep screenings to a minimum. The biggest worry: the fourth film would be to the previous three was the Star Wars prequels are to the original trilogy.

There have been early reviews. “Mixed!” cries a headline on Yahoo! News. A few pubs like IGN ranked the film as third best in the series. And so the hype is deflated. Or is it? The tomato meter stands at 78%, hardly a number to scoff at.

As I look forward to the film, however, I can’t say I’m either beside myself with hype or beating myself up with skepticism. My guess is that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull won’t achieve the impossible, namely, to rouse us the way Raiders of the Lost Ark roused audiences back in 1981. But I fully expect it to continue where The Last Crusade left off and deliver a solid crack of the whip. In other words, it should be fun, which is really all I’m looking for in an Indiana Jones film.