This whole “green” phenomenon is getting out of hand. I saw “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” last night and it had so much recycled content that I thought the movie was directed by Al Gore, not Steven Spielberg.

Twenty seven years ago, Indiana Jones was fighting the Nazis in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”

By my math that means he should be battling ‘The Beatles’ in this movie, but somehow it’s 1957 and the Germans have been replaced by the Russians.

Couldn’t they have at least made it “East Germans?”

Anyway, it’s a moot point because Harrison Ford is now well into his seventies and the only thing he should be fighting is cholesterol!!

badum bum… heeeey, thanks for coming out. Try the veal!!

If you’ve seen the original movies then the big gimmick here is the winking and nodding that’s going on, as everything makes a cameo….and I do mean EVERYTHING.

I half expected “Short Round” to be delivering some Chinese Food to Indy in the middle of a temple fight.

“No time for chicken balls Dr. Jones.”

This is the most convoluted Indiana Jones plot ever. It has something to do with dead aliens, a crystal skull and (of course) an ancient temple hidden in the jungle somewhere. Quite honestly the story makes NO sense (uh… the last piece of the puzzle in the Peruvian temple is from a crash site in the Nevada desert from the 1950’s?!!), but they think that tossing in a car chase into the story every seven minutes will distract you long enough to stop you from thinking.

For me boredom worked just as well.

You can tell that this movie was rushed into theatres because I’m going to point out a REALLY bad piece of editing trivia here.

At one point Indy is tied up in the back of truck and “Mutt” tosses him a switchblade.

Indy presses the button and you hear a ripping sound, followed by Indy looking worried and Mutt saying ‘What did you do?’

And then?

Nothing.

Indy stands up and cuts everyone else free.

WTF was that all about?!!

They must have cut the scene out that explained that little exchange because it makes no sense at all.

This is almost as bad as the scene in Raiders where Indy is on top of the submarine right when the captain says “dive” and he’s still hanging onto the top of the sub four days later after it crosses the South Pacific Ocean!!

Here’s my favorite plot hole in THIS film though.

The crystal skull is so magnetic that it will pull metal up off the floor, and crowbars stick to it like glue.

At one point in the film, there’s a sword fight on top of a pair of speeding trucks and the skull keeps getting tossed from one vehicle to another.

Why isn’t the skull stuck to floor of the METAL truck!!?

Even better, why aren’t the swords getting stuck to the skull everytime they pierce the burlap sack that’s holding it as they toss it back and forth?!!

Normally I’d let something like this go, but they made such a big deal of how magnetic it was at the start of the film that it’s kind of important.

So, as long as we’re on the topic of lazy writing, let’s break down just how badly they ripped off the original movie in this film:

Do you have a ten minute fight scene that takes place on a convoy of moving trucks, filled with soldiers along the edge of a cliff?
 Affirmative.

Do you have a temple scene in which a poisonous dart pierces a piece of wood that someone is holding?
 Thunk!!

Got any angry cannibal chase scenes?
 Of course.

Does Indy risk life and limb getting something out of a temple only to find jack booted bad guys waiting at the exit for him so that they can take his prize?
Hell ya.

Heck, they were so busy stealing scenes from their own movies that they even lifted a classic line from “The Untouchables” when Indy tells Mutt that he brought ‘a knife to a gun fight’.

How do you expect to steal one of the most memorable lines in the history of film and think you’ll get away with it?

I’m surprised Indy didn’t grab a RPG and scream out “Say hello to my leetle friend!!”

But wait, I’m not done yet.

Is there a classic scene in which a bad guy obsessed with gold, finds a treasure vault that is crumbling to the ground, and then spends all of his time stuffing coins into his pants instead of running for the exit?
That’s a big ten four good buddy!!

Ya, but please tell me that they don’t actually re-do the scene at the end where the bad guy activates the ancient artifact and then has his face melted do they?
Fortunately not this time!!

(Ok, I’m lying… YES THEY DO!!).

This was the second biggest disappointment in the history of films. The only way it could have been worse was if Indiana filmed his honeymoon in night vision mode and then stopped having sex to answer the phone.

I give it two out of five stars.