Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

This won't be a review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as much as just a discussion. As a huge fan of the character, I have a lot of thoughts on the subject (as evidenced by my previous post).

First, my nutshell review: I didn't like it. It's a pretty good action movie, but not a great Indiana Jones movie. I went in with very low expectations. It surpassed those. There were many things in the movie I liked, but just as many that I didn't. As I was watching it, I was enjoying it. Then as the movie wore on, I started to like it less. When it was over, my feeling was it was pretty good. As the days wore on and I thought about it more, again I liked it even less.

Regarding my predictions, I was pretty spot on for most of them.
My expectation for Crystal Skull is more "unrealism."
Yep, got that. I mean, surviving a nuclear explosion? Can't get much more unreal than that. And aliens? Please. Actually, though, I didn't really mind the aliens, per se. I guessed correctly about them from the trailer. My problem was that a) Indiana Jones didn't seem to have a problem with them and b) they were still around. I would have much preferred for Indy to have debunked them as a myth, or to have discovered the long dead remains of aliens (as opposed to the long dead but somehow still alive remains).

Prediction for Crystal Skull: more comedy, more one liners from Jones.
I think I was only half-right on this one. Although there were definitely more one-liners from Jones, the comedy in the movie on the whole seemed more restrained and in line with the tone of the others. I was quite worried at the beginning, however, as it seemed as though all Indy could say in the first 15 minutes were one-liners.

Prediction for Crystal Skull: lots of CGI.
Right on the money. It started less than 30 seconds into the movie with the prairie dogs. Ugh. It was fairly restrained for most of the movie (with obvious but acceptable exceptions), until we got to the Brazilian jungle. From then on, it was like watching a bunch of CGIs CGIing other CGIs. Extremely disappointing.

Things I hated:
-CGI prairie dogs
-Super magnetism
-Tumbling refrigerator
-Tarzan Mutt
-Three waterfalls
-CGI
-Aliens

Things I loved:
-Indiana Jones
-Wilhelm scream in library
-Reference to Pancho Villa & Young Indy
-Marion

Overall, it was entertaining. Nothing will ever live up to the first one, and that's okay. If I were to sum up my feeling for the the movie, it would probably be "wasted opportunity." There were several, which I'll probably address in a later post.