indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull (spielberg, 2008)

despite my (sarcastic?) insistence that this movie is actually steven's way of dealing with the guilt of being a bad father to his first son (father abandons first love and child, leaves child's education up to an academic formerly of the university of chicago named "ox" [which happens amongst many 47s {bllllech}], but in the end it's all alright [but still not the son's time to shine yet...]) (not that i think/know spielberg is/was a bad father or has/had said guilt, but nonetheless it's an interesting specific-to-pomosexuals'-lives angle to explore...), indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull was not the abomination i was expecting. it was, however, quite terrible, and it reinforced the idea i've been tossing around that steven spielberg would have been an absurdly amazing theme park architect but simply a mediocre director. the aliens (or multi-dimensional beings?) "twist" took...well...everything...one giant leap too far. for what it was, though--a glorified theme park ride--, it did succeed as i did have some fun with it. still, it was not nearly as interesting and witty as two of the first three, and i find myself wondering how many of their claims about mayan language etc have any basis of truth. overall, i'd say see it because you really can't get away with not seeing it, but if you don't find this logic sufficient then don't bother wasting $12.

3.5/10

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/