After nineteen years, the filmmakers have delivered a new Indiana Jones movie that isn’t all that bad, not very good, and mostly lifeless. The only other recent Steven Spielberg movie I felt this apathetic to was The Terminal. I had a reasonably good time at the Kingdom of the Crystal, with many small joys proliferating the screen from beginning to end, and with a handful of very entertaining scenes, but only rarely did I care about what was happening on screen.

I must start by saying I’ve never been a huge Indiana Jones fan. I’m in the rare minority in actually enjoying the disdained second film, Temple of Doom, the most. While Kate Capshaw’s character is borderline grating at times, Temple of Doom is the only installment I thoroughly enjoy from beginning to end. Raiders is the overall best film for sure, but there’s a quality about Temple of Doom that entertains me more.

To prepare myself for the new film, I re-watched the original trilogy, and the same held true. I admire Raiders of the Lost Ark, but find it fairly slow at times, with the ending being an absolutely ridiculous climax. Karen Allen’s probably the best thing about it. Again, I admire it. But watched with joy for the full two hours? Not so much. How a film like this is considered one of the best films ever and garned Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Director is beyond me!

Last Crusade is by far the weakest of the initial trilogy, with a blah story, blase love interest, and blank villain. The joy of this film is Sean Connery, who’s a lot of fun as Indy’s dad. And then there’s Temple of Doom, the dark child of the trilogy, that is without a doubt the most fun of all four films. There’s just one action piece after another, the mine cart chase and the finale on the bridge being the stand-outs. The film also features a career-best line reading from Ford. “We… are going… to DIE.” Kidding of course. Well, kind of.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a little bit better than Last Crusade but nowhere near as fun and exciting as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom. After all the buzz and speculation for nearly twenty years about this movie, everyone has to have expected something a little better. It’s serviceable, and not a terrible movie (which it easily could’ve been), but five days after seeing it I remember very little.

By far the best thing about the movie is watching Harrison Ford on screen again. Not watching him just be there, but really, truly act. This is the most alive Ford has been since probably Air Force One eleven years ago (although his performance in Robert Zemeckis’s What Lies Beneath was semi-memorable). Ford is finally back, and it took Spielberg to resurrect the guy. One of the most famous and successful movie stars of the 80’s and early 90’s, he has dropped way below the radar as of late, despite my continued appreciation of the man.

Ford has always been a major talent, and there’s a lot more that he’s capable of than fucking Firewall. The Indiana Jones trilogy. The Star Wars trilogy. The two Jack Ryan movies. Blade Runner. Witness. Frantic. The Fugitive. And the aformentioned Air Force One (a guilty pleasure of mine). The guy has a lot of classics behind him. Even though this newest installment isn’t a classic and will never be regarded as a classic, it was great to see the old Harrison Ford back in action.

The acting across the board is pretty solid in the movie, and there’s not an annoying character in the bunch (something even Temple of Doom can’t vouch for). It was a great idea for the filmmakers to, instead of finding a new love interest for Indy, bring Marion (Karen Allen) back because she’s the only one who’s had real chemistry with him. While their close relationship is a little bit forced in this new installment, especially given the last scene, it’s still welcome to see her again and her interaction with Indy.

Shia LaBeouf has long been hated by many people, but never by me. I’ve been a closeted fan of his ever since seeing him on the second season Project Greenlight, where he proved at such a young age that he could go up against two hack directors and try to make the best of mediocre material (which culminated in a really awful 75-minute film entitled The Battle of Shaker Heights). He was really solid in Disturbia last year, and in this, he even oozes some sex appeal, in a Marlon Brando outfit and with a Grease-like hair-cut. I really don’t mind if he becomes a major movie star by any means.

And then there’s Cate Blanchett, amazing in everything else, but just OK in this. She’s not given a whole lot to work with, playing a funky Russian assassin who we’re supposed to be intimidated by and yet can’t even put up a fight with Mr. LaBouef. Come on. She should be able to pummel him! I loved the look of Blanchett’s character, but she’s a little bit dull in the pantheon of similarly dull villains of the Indiana Jones saga. Villains were never the strong points in these movies.

The film has a number of entertaining action set pieces. My favorite in the film, probably because it features such a lack of CG, is a motorcycle chase involving Indiana and Mutt (LaBeouf) riding around a university campus while being pursued. This is the kind of clean, fun action that would’ve been done on an Indiana Jones movie thirty years ago. The long forest chase, so heavy on the CG, is a lot less interesting. Most of the movie is watchable, of course, but there’s nothing too exciting or memorable.

The film feels, just like it probably was, like it was compiled from five different screenplays and merged into one. One action scene leads to the next, without any sense of urgency, and after awhile, you’re thinking, so what? Whenever the movie slows down, which isn’t too often, the dialogue is mostly exposition-heavy, which gets real boring real fast. There were a couple talky scenes where I literally started thinking about stuff outside of the movie. At least they got the ending right and didn’t give a certain someone a famous hat. That’s all I have to say.

Steven Spielberg has always been one of my favorite directors, forever my childhood hero. One of my most memorable movie-going experiences as a kid was seeing Jurassic Park on opening weekend with my dad, crouched down in my chair in both terror and awe. He’s never worked that kind of wonder on me since but his work in the 90’s ranging from Schindler’s List to Saving Private Ryan was superb. The last film of his that I’ve loved, however, is Minority Report (a terrific thriller) and everything since has just been decent. Indy 4 doesn’t break that trend.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull needed something more than a shorter title. It needed another pass in the screenplay stage. We were waiting nineteen years already; three more years to get this film right wouldn’t have hurt anybody. I’m being hard on this movie mostly because it should’ve been something special, and instead, it’s just serviceable entertainment. Unlike much of Spielberg’s other work, it will long be forgotten in the years to come. But for the summer of 2008? I guess it’s not the worst way to spend an afternoon than in the pursuits and adventures of Indiana Jones.