A Sequel Of Recycled and Rehashed Stuff

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (KCS) is a sequel that didn’t really need to be made. I felt it was more contrived than creative. I guess I had expected more from Steven Spielberg. Perhaps Spielberg would be better off sticking to doing dramas like Munich and Schindler’s List rather than another Indiana Jones adventure film. Of course, I think he did a great job with Minority Report too even though that film had tons of dark shades dwelling on depression. Then again, Philip K. Dick’s novels and short stories have always focused on dark stuff like depression and schizophrenia.

KCS is about aliens and Area 51. On a scale of 5 stars, i'll rate it 3 stars. i particularly like the sequence where Ford had to hide inside a refrigerator inside a nuclear testing area. The nuclear blast sent the fridge which he was in far, far away. Ha.

The ending of KCS is very much reminiscent of The Mummy Returns (2001) starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz where there was a violent whirlwind spinning the vegetation surrounding an Aztec Pyramid round and round.

Many sequences look similar to those done in Raiders of the Lost Ark (RLA), The Temple of Doom (TOD) and The Last Crusade.

The chase cum sword fight inside the jungle with Shia LaBeof standing with his legs split between two amphibious vehicles look similar to the mine chase in TOD where Short Round was pulled between the villain’s henchmen and Harrison Ford with Kate Capshaw.

The vehicle chase alongside the cliff of a mountain looked similar to what was done in RLA.

The attack by the swarms of man-eating ants looked similar to what happened in The Mummy.

Kept getting reminded of what i saw in National Treasure: Book of Secrets too.

Sigh. Sometimes after watching a movie like this, it really makes you wonder aloud, "Is there really nothing new under the sun?"

Next, we’ll have another Mummy sequel, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor to be released on August 1, 2008.