It’s funny to see absolutely zero reactions from the teenagers in front of us in the theater when Indiana Jones said, “I like Ike,” to Irina Spalko’s little speech about him joining the Russian’s quest.

I don’t think they got it. Nor did they get the whole Russian bad guys thing.

Ah. Life imitates art imitates life. Indiana Jones is dealing with aging and so were the elders in the audience who remember seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time in theater.

Or, in my case, being so traumatized by Temple of Doom (The monkey brains! The heart! The lava!) I didn’t even dare watch it again until college.

I went to see Indy with zero expectation other than to be thoroughly entertained. And I was.

I have been missing Indy, and even at this age, Harrison Ford still did pretty good. The movie was A LOT OF FUN.

Just don’t go in expecting to see an Oscar nominee or Raiders of the Lost Ark II, because it’s just not what this is.

Oh and there is no special little bit at the end of the credits like Iron Man so feel free to walk out when the screen goes dark. 🙂

Now, spoiler ridden review awaits after the jump.

I wrote this to Rude Cactus this morning when he asked what I thought of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls.

It’s like Lucas and Spielberg decided to put all of their greatest movies together in an Indy blender. A little throwbacks to all of their great movie moments through their best collaboration yet.

A little American Graffiti for the street race. A little Close Encounter or ET on the alien angle. There’s even the “I have a bad feeling about this” thrown in there for good measure.

I joked that there was no killer shark or any Jews so Steven didn’t throwback to either Jaws or Schindler’s List. Brandon pointed out that he thought he might have seen a menorah in the chapel at the end.

It’s REALLY good to see Marion Ravenwood back. She was the best Indy girl there was! Mutt’s true identity as Indy and Raven’s love child was expected but still got a good gasp out of people in the theater. It’s like you KNEW he was Indy’s kid. You KNEW for sure. But at some point, you got all caught up in the action that you kind of forgot that he was until Marion reveals it later.

There are other unbelievable, absolutely ludicrous moments in the movie that you either forgive it and keep on, or you’d just walk out. Like the greaser monkeys. Okay, THAT was going over board. But we laughed our butts off and went along for the ride anyway. And the boat/car with the mounted machine gun on the hood. I mean, you can’t even stand on the hood to shoot the thing. Wouldn’t you be standing in front of the driver? Survival chance of that very last waterfall is ridiculous. But it’s alright. I’ll go along with this ride.

Us Stargate SG-1 fans also got a bit extra giggles through the House of Aliens part. From the treasure trove to the pyramid and all of these alien technologies. We were expecting a bunch of Jaffa come running out.

“Hi, Thor!” I whispered to Brandon when they put the skull back on the 13th alien’s body.

Yes, a lot of the movie was ridiculous even for Indiana Jones standard. Yes, a lot of it was unbelievable. The alien thing broke traditions with the biblical and ancient mythological a bit, but it DOES tie in with the odd Inca/Mayan stuff.

But it was a very fun ride.