Fun with Franchises: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Part II — “Mayan Angelou & Malcolm Xcavation”

We continue with another entry in our Fun with Franchises series. This week’s film is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Fun with Franchises is a series born out of my friend Colin and I realizing how much fun it was for the two of us to watch the same movie separately and then share our reactions. We started by watching all of the James Bond movies, for the purposes of ranking them for the blog. I brought him in because he was much more of a Bond expert than I was at the time, and I felt his perspective would liven things up. He would be the color commentator to my play-by-play man.

We soon discovered that, by watching the movies separately and then putting everything we said together in the same place, hilarity ensued. We each brought in our own observations, not knowing what the other would say, and then reacted to what the other said. And we loved every minute of it.

We had so much fun, we figured we had to do it again. So we graduated from a single franchise, to all franchises. If you’re gonna have fun with franchises, it wouldn’t be right if you didn’t franchise it. Season 1 included the Harry Potter movies, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Twilight (which neither of us had seen before we watched them for the articles) and Pirates of the Caribbean. All of those articles can be read on the Fun with Franchises page.

Also, just so we’re clear, this is all for parody. We’re just messing with them because we love them. (Well… Twilight…) We’re watching movies we enjoy and are simply having some fun with them.

Right now, we’re doing the Indiana Jones franchise, and today is the second part of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

We begin Part II somewhere you probably don’t want to be drinking the water for a good 20 to 30 years.

Is this the same base? Different base? What is our proximity to the other base and to the explosion? How did they get him here safely?

TUMBLEWEED!

Colin:

Super Sabres? Those are cool. More planes, please.

Where were all you assholes when the BIGGEST SECRETS IN AMERICAN HISTORY WERE BEING BROKEN INTO?!

Yeah, so he dies of cancer.

Colin:

Turns out all you need is some Dove and a few brushes to wipe away lethal radiation.

I’m sure his next session with Marion will go well.

“Your dick tastes like quarters.”

Colin:

Oh, good. This is very Indiana Jones. Bathing.

The real problem with this moment, however humorous it is, is that it sets him up to be indestructible. Which is the exact same problem Die Hard had in the later ones. The point of Jones (and McClane, for that matter) is that he is destructible. In the FIRST movie, he’s in pain and saying he’s got all this mileage on him. And now all of a sudden he’s exposed to radiation and is totally fine? That’s not the character.

The filmmakers are — and this is me getting into final thoughts territory now — buying into the mythology of the character and using the memory of it instead of the actual character to tell the story. It’s almost as if he knows he’s Indiana Jones. It’s like Chuck Norris in Expendables 2, how he walks around spouting his own Chuck Norris facts. That’s not what got you to that point.

This is Michael Bay lighting.

Apparently Mac was in MI6 when he was in OSS. Why can’t he just be an archaeologist? Why must he also be a spy? I mean, sure, the war, but why can’t he just be him?

Colin:

He was MI6, he was OSS. Of course we have to talk about the war, and of course we know he’s coming back because it’s Ray Winstone. I want to make a movie where you think someone’s coming back for the whole movie cause they were played by someone famous, and then they never do. Like McConaughey in The Wolf of Wall Street. That was great. He was just there and then he was gone.

“Don’t wave your war record in our face, Colonel Jones, we all served.”

See? Why the fuck was that necessary?

“No kidding. What side were you on?”

“I don’t think you realize the gravity of your situation. You aided and abetted KGB agents who broke into a top secret military installation in the middle of the United States of America, my country.”

That’s why I wrote all that out. Just so I could get to that last part. Sure, there are horrendous things about this movie, and easier examples to talk about why this movie is shit. But to me, it’s the little things that piss me off as well. Little things like this.

“My country.” Fuck you. It’s everybody’s country. They work for the government. Why is it not their country? So what if they’re assholes?

“What was in the steel box they took?”

A…. terrible plot to this movie?

These looks are dangerous.

Also, that sign says radiation area. The door is open. All of these people are dead.

Colin:

That’s just where they’re scrubbed him. But now he’s good and it should be good as well.

Yeah, I don’t buy that. Radiation in the 50s is like AIDS in Africa according to Shiho. That shit’s just in the air.

“You tell us. You’ve seen it before.”

“Oh. You mean that Air Force fiasco in ’47.”

Didn’t you know that when you found it? I mean, you knew the fucking box was magnetized. Clearly you remembered it. What kind of horrible exposition is this? Did Spielberg even give a shit with this movie?

Colin:

Do you need to ask that question?

Yes. Because Steven Spielberg has not really shown a capacity to not give a shit. So you see him doing this and you’re like, “What the fuck are you doing?” It’s not all on George. George helped write the other ones too. So I see this and I wonder what he was thinking during this. Probably that they could skate by on nostalgia.

Apparently both Tom Stoppard and M. Night Shyamalan wrote drafts of this script. Which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about it.

“I was tossed into a bus with blacked-out windows and twenty people I wasn’t allowed to speak to.”

Colin:

Did you smother a chicken? Oh my god! It was a BABY!

And that stopped you… why? At what point did you stop being Indiana Jones?

“Hauled out in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere on some urgent recovery project and shown what? Pieces of wreckage and an intensely magnetic shroud covering – mutilated remains? None of us was ever given a full picture.”

Colin:

Does everything have to have historical reference now? Is history now a big inside joke that we’re all supposed to laugh at when it pokes its head into the plot? This is Roswell that he’s talking about, I’m assuming. I hate that this is aliens.

So why were you brought there? And why twenty of you?

And how do you not know what this is? I’m sure the stories are out there about what it was.

Also, I Hate That This Is Aliens

“Then we were threatened with treason if we ever talked about it.”

That seems weird. Throwing people into a bus, not telling them where they’re going, telling them they can’t talk to anyone else inside the bus, showing them some weird location, not telling them what’s going on, then saying if they talk about it ever again, they’ll be considered traitors. This sounds like a Kafka novel.

Honestly, I’d rather see Indiana Jones and the Metamorphosis of Terror.

“So you tell me, what was in the box?”

Meanwhile, here comes this asshole.

Colin:

Alan Dale. I know him from (not proud to say) The O.C. He’s also in Winter Soldier, which was interesting. He pops up and I remember being in high school, watching a show about white people in California.

“My god. Don’t you know better than to climb into a refrigerator? Those things can be death traps.”

First… what? And second… obviously fucking not.

And then he just causally turns to dumb cop and dumber cop and says, “Relax. I can vouch for him.”

That’s all it takes? Then what the fuck was the purpose of these other two assholes? How did this guy know to show up?

Colin:

And they’re still shitty to him later in the movie. Isn’t the whole point of this period in US history that nobody was above suspicion and that nobody could REALLY vouch for anybody else, no matter what their rank?

Communism < The Plot

Man, imagine a good Cold War spy movie.

Not even if this were one. Just one.

I’d rather be watching that right now.

And now for the exposition.

Colin:

Of course they have a dossier on her available at a moment’s notice, and everyone but Jones knows who she is. Cause it turns out that Hollywood’s version of the spy profession is a lot like Hollywood itself. Everyone knows everyone else.

Apparently she’s traveling around, picking up artifacts she thinks have paranormal military applications.

Colin:

Okay, this is typical. Someone snatching up artifacts for political reasons. That I can get with – if it’s not alien shit.

Dude, you’re fucking up the file.

See, I told you. Someone put a lot of hard work into that file.

Some guy’s entire job was that file.

“Not everyone in the army’s a commie. And certainly not Indy.”

Colin:

Someone other than John Rhys-Davies just called him ‘Indy’ and I just died a little bit.

Back to Colin’s point — how do we know the other guy’s not a commie? How do we know those guys aren’t commies?

“What exactly am I being accused of aside surviving a nucular blast?”

He actually says nucular. I’m assuming that was a dig at Bush.

Colin:

“Nuke-you-lar?” I feel I’m overusing this, but….really?

The way you spelled that made me think of the way, in Snatch, they say “bi-noc-u-lars.” Love that pronunciation.

He’s being accused of nothing, of course. But you know, Mac is a traitor, so now he’s suspicious.

And this guy’s like, “Are you motherfuckers crazy?”

“Do you know how many medals this son of a bitch won?”

Colin:

Medals are important. That’s how you judge people.

I judge people on their ability to order Chinese food.

I also still hate that he’s an army veteran. Why would he have won medals? Would the army even have taken him? He’s 40-something by the time the war starts. And they don’t know he’s a badass. He’s a teacher to them. Maybe a few guys know, but that shit’s gotta be classified. And if he’s CIA and such, why would he have medals? You’re just adding shit to the character just because. They’re buying into “Indiana Jones” rather than the character of Dr. Jones.

“A great many, I’m sure. But does he deserve them?”

Holy shit.

Colin:

Wait, is this FBI dude the janitor from Scrubs? That’s weird.

Nice to see a white janitor on television.

“Dr. Jones, let’s just say for now that you are of interest to the Bureau.”

“Of great interest.”

So what? His answer should be, “Okay.”

I also like how the army guy is like, “He’s fine,” and they’re like, “I don’t know, we’re still gonna investigate him.

How much money are these agencies wasting on shit like this?

I could see if you were a cult like Scientology and didn’t have to pay the people doing all the spying for you, but people are paid and use company money to do this.

So… no exposition? What the fuck was the purpose of that scene?

Colin:

This place looked a lot like the room where the interrogation in Call of Duty: Black Ops takes place.

Yale.

And the same camera movements from before.

Colin:

The university. Where we should have STARTED.

Told you — if your Indiana Jones movie doesn’t begin Part II at Yale, it’s not a good Indiana Jones movie.

Jim Broadbent. The only guy who could take over for Denholm Elliott and still look enough like Denholm Elliott to remind you of him and not be inspired casting at all.

Colin:

Jim Broadbent! This motherfucker likes pineapple.

Apparently this shit just happens all the time.

Colin:

Ohhhhhhh no. That’s an exact copy of the shot of Marcus coming up to the door and looking through it. I don’t remember what Broadbent is supposed to be in this movie, but I’m desperately hoping they didn’t just get Indiana Jones another bumbling British sidekick after Denholm Elliot sidekicked the bucket.

Not too many hot students this time. They were hotter in the 30s.

Colin:

They’re keeping this formula of ‘exciting’ opening sequence followed by boring classroom scene. No problem there, except that the open sequence was shit and the classroom bit doesn’t really set up anything that I know of. Before, we had the “fact vs. truth” and the “X marks the spot” moments. Unless there’s something about “migration vs. exodus” that comes up later, this was meaningless. And I doubt anyone even caught that.

Really all this does is get him fired (or “on leave” or whatever they call it when they’re rid of you to take the heat off of them) which eliminates my question of, “How are you allowed to go do this?” Sets up nothing. It’s not like he needs to get his job back and that’s a motivating factor. It just… happens. Not even communism is a major element of the rest of the film, or the threat of communist influence.

Communism is just a red herring.

Colin:

THERE ARE BLACK PEOPLE, YOU GUYS. And they’re taking a class on archaeology. Look at Malcom Xcavation in the second row. And what about the white guy in the back who isn’t wearing a sweater? What a Jeremy he probably is.

Malcolm Xcavation.

Also, ARCH 108; Archaeology for Future Stenographers and Porters

“What the fuck do you want?”

You never did that with Marcus.

Colin:

Notice as he’s walking out that the board is a jumble of random shit, including the succession of Chinese dynasties, and that the map that’s pulled down is of Africa. Pretty sure someone spent about 13 minutes trying to make this look like a classroom by adding “classroom things.”

Or he’s just really racist and was like, “See, this is where you negroes come from.”

‘That’s just what we called them back then!’

“May I have a moment, Professor?”

Why not. You basically barged in to ask for a private moment. Or you could have pulled a Marcus and waited until class was over. Though the difference with Marcus is that he was always interested in how shit went. Presumably, whatever dig he was on got interrupted by Russians, so now we’re left with this bullshit.

He tells them to open up Michaelson. Which I’m sure is a line from the first movie.

“When I come back we’ll discuss the difference between migration and exodus.”

Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea what the difference is.

Colin:

Does the board say “organized drainage?” He DID say that when he talked to Connery as a kid, he had a milkshake.

You think any of these kids got him an apple?

“What?!”

Look at his fucking bowtie.

I’m all for the bowtie, but not that one on that suit.

Colin:

Jeremy isn’t even looking in the right direction. What a moron.

Look at that other fuck in the back. He looks like the creepy perverted kid you knew who you didn’t really like hanging out with who breathed like the kid in Hey, Arnold.

The FBI ransacked his office. Because they couldn’t just be nice about it.

The FBI have proven to be huge assholes in things. They always ransack places. It’s like, be civil, guys.

Colin:

Maybe he didn’t get another British guy. But this British guy is gonna have to get himself another teacher.

I like his freckled suit.

Marcus.

I hope it’s a tradition that the portrait gets lost on his own campus.

Colin:

Aw. There’s So Much AIDS in Franchises.

Also, apparently they’re giving him a LOA. With full pay. So… awesome.

Colin:

“So you’re firing me.” Thanks for the recap, dickbag.

“I don’t want their money.”

I do. Give me their money.

“You don’t know what I had to go through to get that for you.”

“What exactly did you have to go through, Charlie?”

~~Butt stuff.~~

“Henry… I resigned.”

To butt stuff?

Colin:

Oh no, he IS Marcus. Weird that he called him Henry, though.

The most emotional moment in the entire film.

Colin:

I’d offer blue shit in memory of your job, but…pineapple?

That’s what it is. Blue shit is for dead people, pineapple is for teachers losing their jobs.

We’ve got you covered for all your sad occasions.

Well, his house got bigger.

Folding clothes? Really?

He’s going to London. Might end up teaching in Leipzig. Some guy named Heinrich owes him a favor.

Colin:

Leipzig? What? This is a weird case where they just name this guy, Heinrich, who could help Jones out by getting him a teaching position. And that’s it. Moving on.

I wonder if Heinrich will have to pull a few maneuvers.

Then they talk about bullshit for a while.

Colin:

Talking about the Red Scare because what the fuck else is going on?

This movie would be so much better if the Red Scare part actually mattered.

Colin:

“I never should have doubted you, my friend.” I guess we should be doubting YOU, though. When the hell did Harrison Ford’s delivery go to shit?

After Air Force One.

Secretly, I think what happened was, he saw the prequels coming out, realized he was too old to be in them and be an action star, and then went and started smoking a lot of pot. Because that’s his thing now.

Colin:

And what’s this about friends all over the place? That felt overly sincere in a weird moment. Like when he tells Sallah, “You are my good friend” in Raiders, that was after some SHIT. And it wasn’t so overblown.

In the same movie, he tells Marcus, “We’ve known each other a long time!” That felt genuine. Even Short Round yelling at Indy, saying, “You’re my best friend! Wake up!” felt better than this.

I don’t like this scene.

“Brutal couple of years, huh, Charlie?”

“First Dad, then Marcus.”

Colin:

Spare me.

By the way, why is his passport void?

Or is he being reminded of his old age?

Weird how the photo of Marcus is during Last Crusade. I assume Sallah took that photo, then?

Or is this from the Nazi stash?

“We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away.”

Good line. Wish it were in a better movie.

That face.

Don’t show us this. This is a far cry from anything that shot would represent.

Colin:

He hasn’t done that with the hand on his face since he thought Karen Allen was dead.

I can feel the disappointment in him right now.

Colin:

More staring at Sean Connery to leitmotif.

And that’s the end of the movie!

Colin:

And he was never heard from again? We hope?

Marcus — or whatever Broadbent’s name is — doesn’t even see him off? Did he go drown himself in some pineapple? Did he go to the bar to tender his resignation?

He’s supposed to be giving the place one last look, but instead, he looks like a crotchety old man, upset at how shit the world has gotten.

Sneaky motherfuckers on the train.

Colin:

FBI dicks getting on the train. I will continue watching for the good of the articles. Less than a half hour in and I’m drawing on willpower to continue.

It’s ridiculous. We haven’t seen them following him anywhere. Why start now? This goes nowhere and serves no purpose.

And here comes… Jesus fucking Christ. It’s just as annoying now than it was when I first saw it.

How obvious a Wild One reference is this? You’re seriously not even trying.

Colin:

Oh great, a greaser fuck on a motorcycle emerges from the steam like a clot approaching my brain.

Why is the train guy all scared? Oh no, a motorcycle. I sure do hope that ruffian doesn’t cause a brouhaha.

Didn’t he feel ridiculous in that outfit? I feel embarrassed for him. He looks like he’s wearing that sailor hat that rich people make their children wear.

Weird how he just recognizes him.

I like these shots. No idea why he just cut to it, though. Could have shown the car just start moving with Ford sitting there and it would have served the same purpose.

Man, look at those moves. Got all the turning power of a PS1 game.

“Hey, old man!”

Colin:

Optimus?

He looks like he’s trying to ignore him. Don’t engage with the street tough and he’ll go away.

“You’re running out of platform, kid.”

Colin:

That’s a great way to tell someone to fuck off. Point out that they’re running out of platform, wasting precious time as you do so.

I’m a big fan of people deliberately wasting precious time.

“Are you a friend of Dr. Oxley’s?”

“Harold Oxley, the archaeologist? What about him?”

No, Harold Oxley the draft animal.

“They’re gonna kill him.”

Colin:

Is that just how he got Jones off the train?

In that stupid hat?

You need a real good reason to get me off a mode of transport. Those tickets are non-refundable.

Little Shia looks like a tool.

Little Shia looks like the kind of kid who would use a Babe Ruth signed ball to play a game.

Colin:

Oh, of course we have a picture of the two of them. We need to be shown things.

All Lucas.

Anyway, he’s Mutt Williams.

Colin:

They made it to this diner and started chatting over a photo before introducing themselves?

Sounds like a Lucas scene.

“Mutt? What kind of name is that?”

“It’s the name I picked, you got a problem with it?”

Colin:

Mutt. Mutt Williams. What a name. Something tells me I won’t totally hate this scene, if only because it’s gonna try to echo the Sean Connery – Harrison Ford dynamic we know. Now Ford is the crotchety, old man.

Only shittier. I think is what you forgot to add there.

That’s such a dick thing to do.

“What was your relationship to Oxley?”

“Dad died in the war. Ox kind of helped my mom raise me.”

Which is a weird thing in and of itself. Was he banging mom? The presumption is no. So why would he take an interest in a kid like that?

Does Marion just attract archaeologists?

Anyway, exposition. He found a skull in Peru. A crystal skull.

By the way, while we’re here, these are the other titles not chosen for this film:

Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods
Indiana Jones and the Destroyer of Worlds
Indiana Jones and the Fourth Corner of the Earth
Indiana Jones and the Lost City of Gold
Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Covenant

Honestly… the only ones this title is better than are Quest for the Covenant and Fourth Corner of the Earth. And the only reason it’s better than Covenant is because they already did that.

Lucas’ original title for it was Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men, which… if that were the title, we’d have turned on this shit way earlier.

Apparently one idea he also had was Indiana Jones and the Attack of the Giant Ants. Which… fucking YES. Make THAT movie.

Spielberg wanted it to involve the word Mysterians, and David Koepp thought it should be Indiana Jones and the Son of Indiana Jones, which is just fucking awful.

Then they settled on Crystal Skull, and Lucas insisted the word Kingdom be in there somewhere.

This is how shit gets done in Hollywood.

Colin:

Based on franchises and the Red connection, shouldn’t this have been Indiana Jones and the Mission from Moscow? It’s a preposition swap, sure.

Also, while we’re here… this script was compiled over the course of 15 years. In ’93, the draft included the whole A-bomb sequence, the Russians, and Indy getting married at the end. And then in ’95, the second draft had him searching for Noah’s Ark. This draft had Marion back, him having a son (who was apparently supposed to be nerdy), aliens, and a crystal skull. But then Independence Day came out and that was shelved. Then Frank Darabont came on and wrote a script called City of the Gods, which is similar to this film, except no son aspect. Spielberg apparently loved this draft, and said it was the best he’d read since the original Raiders, but Lucas said no. Never said why (I guess because he’s intent on ruining everything himself), but said no. So then they brought on David Koepp, who went through and cherry-picked a bunch of ideas from the other drafts and turned them into the Frankenstein’s monster that is this film. He said his idea was to make a film that acknowledged Indy’s age, went for comedy and adventure like the first movie, wasn’t as dark as the second movie, and wasn’t as comic as the third movie. And instead, we got this.

Colin:

It’s kind of interesting to hear that, because I feel like 15 years is the perfect amount of time to truly fuck up as a person in your life. Like, 15 is just old enough to have made horrible choices that will mess you up forever. So when you hear that this failure was 15 years in the making, you see that it wasn’t ALWAYS going to be this. It might have been on other bad tracks, but nothing was fixed, so there was always a chance. And then they hit 15 and decided to drop out and do meth and knock some chick up and all the good stuff. And that’s what this is.

It seems they just wanted to make it, so they went with whatever George felt was best. So the okayed whatever there was before they decided to just never do it.

Anyway…

Nice moment. Basically spelling out their relationship even before the movie confirms it.

Though why the chick walks away without giving that beer to anyone is beyond me. It seems to only happen just so that moment could occur.

Colin:

That’s a great moment. Him stealing the beer and Ford putting it back. See? More of this.

Apparently Oxley is to this skull as his father was to the Grail.

And apparently there are a bunch of crystal skulls in the world. One of which he saw in the British Museum.

Oxley apparently found one and was going to Akator with it.

Akator is a mythical lost city.

Of course it is.

“Conquistadors called it El Dorado.”

Colin:

Okay, so El Dorado. We’ve already heard about Roswell and bullshit. I’m really not giving a shit about the plot at this point.

Some tribe was picked by the gods to build a city of solid gold 7,000 years ago. (And somehow Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a better title than Lost City of Gold? I mean, yeah, sure, for this shitty plot, but why didn’t you make the city of gold the primary focus? I might have went along with the aliens a little more that way.)

“It had aqueducts and paved roads and technology that wouldn’t be seen again for 5,000 years.”

Colin:

Says who? You know what, ancient civilizations besides like, Rome…y’all weren’t shit.

“Francisco de Orellana disappeared in to the Amazon looking for it in 1546. I almost died of typhus looking for it myself.”

Honestly, would have preferred that movie.

But again, it pisses me off that so much of this is like, “Oh yeah, I did that shit.” Why did you have to look for it when you were younger? Isn’t it better if you didn’t look for it before? What is this adding? And what does it say when you haven’t done any of the leg work and already failed in this, and are only doing everything you’re doing because someone else figured it out?

“I don’t think it exists.”

“The legend says that a crystal skull was stolen from Akator in the 15^th or 16^th century, and that whoever returns the skull to the city temple would be given control over its power.”

So for later… skull was stolen 500 years ago, and didn’t get more than like, a country over from where it was stolen from.

“Right, power. So there’s some kind of power. What’s the power?”

“I don’t know, kid. It’s just a story.”

Right… like all the other times it was just a story.

Colin:

You’re the one who’s been through three (more, really) crazy adventures involving shit that was just a story. And Temple of Doom established a precedent for stuff that doesn’t fit in the Judeo-Christian myth (yeah, I said ‘myth’), so at this point, all bets are off.

So apparently Mom went down there to find him, and he had been kidnapped, so now she’s kidnapped too. And somehow he knew to find this guy, who hadn’t spoken to Oxley in 20 years.

Colin:

Shia’s not bad on delivery, I’ll give him that. I don’t really hate him in this movie as much as…I think I hate this movie.

“Now, she said you’d help me.”

Okay, so that’s how he knew. But how did she say Indy would help him? Wasn’t she kidnapped?

Colin:

He does say “now” a lot at the beginning of sentences, huh? Is that something he picked up from watching all the old 50s movies? Apparently he watched stuff like Rebel Without a Cause in preparation for the role. He’s not James Dean, but I’m not going to knock him here – he does an admirable job with what he’s got to work with.

His ‘now’s are not followed by ‘see’.

Colin:

I’m not sure what I thought of Shia during the Even Stevens and Holes days, but he’s come around lately, hasn’t he? Fury, for shit’s sake. That was a good performance. Oh right, back to this movie.

He’s been terrific lately. Unfortunately that’s mixed with a lot of public miscues, which is preventing people from realizing how good his work has been.

“Me? What’s your mom’s name again?”

“Mary. Mary Williams. You remember her?”

Colin:

Mary? Oh, this is gonna be the reveal. And this is where pretty much everyone knew what it was going to be about. It’s one of those things where anyone who knows Indiana Jones movies knows way before the reveal that it’s going to be Marion Ravenwood, and anyone who doesn’t know Indiana Jones movies is going to go, “Marion Ravenwood? So who the fuck is she?”

“There were a lot of Mary’s, kid.”

Big fan of that line.

Colin:

Me too. Not many lines I’m a big fan of in this movie. But that’s one I wish I had said.

Aww… he’s got mommy and daddy issues.

“You don’t have to get sore all the time just to prove how tough you are. Sit down.”

We know who his mother is. And presumably she became Mary Williams after he was born. So, why would he presume Indy would know his mother’s name after they were together? Wouldn’t you think to be like, “Oh, this was her name when you knew her”? I also like how he says Mary just to try to keep some semblance of a surprise that it’s so very obviously Marion. Just seeing this, you know he’s his son and his mother is Marion, and yet they go through shitty motions to try to make it a reveal.

Colin:

She got married REAL fast after he was born though. He might not even know her maiden name. But that’s all stretching. Let’s acknowledge how wrong this all is. Also, what the hell is this guy at the other table so worked up about?

Ready for this? I’m gonna tell you exactly what the situation is at the next table. And I guarantee you’d gonna go, “Oh yeah, that’s what it is.”

Jock guy is friends with sweater kid. Not best friends, but friendly enough. Friendly enough to where he isn’t embarrassed to be seen with him at this place. Sweater kid is best friends with chick. Jock really wants to bang chick, and he used his friendship with sweater kid to set this up. The thing is — sweater kid is gay as shit, and Jock has no idea. Just never crosses his mind. Always makes jokes around him about chicks and gays, and never picks up that it makes sweater kid uncomfortable and sweater kid always nervously laughs whenever he does. Sweater kid also has a huge thing for the Jock. Chick knows sweater kid is gay but isn’t saying anything. She’s almost acting as a beard for him, but not really, since they’re not “dating.” She’s not interested in Jock at all. She thinks he’s a complete meathead and is not her type. Her type is a less gay, more masculine sweater kid. But she knows sweater kid likes the Jock, so she’s putting up with it for now. Eventually she’ll go out with Jock a few times, maybe fool around a bit, but it won’t go anywhere, and Jock will eventually bang the hot blonde cheerleader from the football team for the rest of college.

Now, in this very moment, Jock is telling a story, designed to make him look good, probably at the expense of another teammate of his. Someone being embarrassed in the shower or getting his pants pulled down during practice. And the chick is listening like, “Oh my god, that sounds terrible, that’s borderline sociopathic.” And sweater kid doesn’t give a shit, he just wants Jock to like him. So he’s overdoing it, and going, “Oh my god!” And his reaction is so strong that Jock thinks the story’s going over amazingly and the chick really liked it too.

My real question is — wasn’t that backstory that I made up just now based off a still image more interesting than what’s actually happening in the movie?

“She said if anybody could find the scroll, it’s you. Like you’re some type of grave robber or something.”

Colin:

Graverobber. That’s not entirely inaccurate.

I wish he was finding an actual scroll. A scroll is the least of our worries in this one.

“I’m a tenured professor of archaeology.”

Got that tenure money.

“Oh, you’re a teacher? Well that’s gonna be a big help.”

Colin:

Hah. Fuck teachers. Is what that was about.

Wait, you CALLED him professor at the train station. You know who the fuck he is.

See, this is why this movie is shit. It doesn’t even know what it said two scenes ago.

Christ, this is just like the prequels.

“Anyway, she called me two weeks ago from South America.”

Where? Just South America?

Colin:

There was only one phone back then.

“Said she’d escaped but they were after her.”

No mention of who they is. Ever. Maybe if we knew who “they” are, you’d know the right person to go to. Like, if she said “Russians,” then maybe you can go to the government.

Also, I was going to ask how she made that call? Because it seems like they wanted her to make the call. That would be an interesting scene. She “escapes” and calls her son and tells her to get Indy, and rather than them doing the act like, “Come on, get back inside,” and that usual bullshit, where they pull her away just after she gets the message across, and we find out later that’s what they wanted her to do, if they walk right in just after she hangs up like, “Thank you for that.” And then the rest of the scenes are her trying to escape so she can tell him not to come get her.

Oh, yeah, sorry, back to the movie.

Wouldn’t want to continue to interrupt the suck.

She mailed him a letter from Oxley. Because apparently she escaped long enough to stop at a fucking post office.

He also says the letter is nonsense. Because of course it is. Indy has to decipher it.

Colin:

Letters and skulls and bullshit. I’m so checked out of everything except their back and forth as father and son who don’t know it yet. Also, notice how clear it is that this was just printed on the paper instead of written? No pen depressions or anything. It’s totally smooth.

How is that not suspicious?

Colin:

Oh, the FBI dicks are here! Is there gonna be a greaser fight? I like it when shit gets greasy.

I repeat my previous statement.

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know. Maybe FBI.”

“Come quietly, Dr. Jones.”

“Make that KGB.”

I like how Russian guys in suits are walking around and nobody’s suspicious at all.

Colin:

KGB? I’m pretty sure you just yell, “They’re KGB!” and the entire room tackles them. Notice how this is a diner of white Americans in like 1957 – everyone here is on board to jump a commie. Isn’t it funny how the era during which we were most afraid of becoming pod people was when we were most like pod people?

Also notice how a diner full of white Americans in 1957 has no idea communists are sitting among them.

Colin:

They ordered coffee. I thought you got arrested for having an accent in those days.

Nope, just for being black.

I almost asked that in Last Crusade, when Elsa showed up. Like, “So your contact has a German accent. Do you not immediately have some suspicion about them?” Even if it’s a little suspicion, you have to have that thought. But I didn’t say it because she’s hot, so you forgive a lot. That should make her doubly suspicious, but whatever.

And now he’s got a knife.

“Nice try, kid, but you just brought a knife…”

“To a gunfight.”

The awfulness of that dialogue aside… why the fuck are they pulling out guns in the middle of a diner?

Colin:

Was that an Untouchables reference? Did Connery give you permission to say that? He’s dead! The character, not the actor. God knows Sean Connery will never die. He’ll just get older and more Scottish until he can only make guttural grunts at women.

Look at those mustard titties.

Remember when mustard was an acceptable color?

Even in the army. You could get rank with it!

“Hit this guy.”

“Who?”

WHO?

“Joe College. Hit him hard.”

Colin:

Joe College? Was I ever Joe College? I sure hope not. I think I made it through college without being punched a single time. Except for that one time freshman year when I got drunk and woke up with blood all over the front of my shirt and no idea where it came from. I wish I was lying about that.

You’ve been headbutted a few times, though.

“Here, hold this.”

“That’s my boyfriend!”

Best character in the movie.

Colin:

This chick throws a punch. I wanna date HER. Also? That was Spielberg’s daughter.

There just so happen to be bikers at this bar?

Wait, what?

Is that so they hit the kid and ignore him?

Also, what are the Russians doing during this?

There’s gonna be a rumble, TONIGHT!!!

Colin:

I like the one stripey guy on the left. That’s Mike’s uncle. Puerto Rican.

Uncle Puerto Rican is my favorite.

Holy shit, he just broke a glass over the motherfucker’s head.

Colin:

Shia just broke a pitcher over Joe College’s head. I welcome this development.

Colin:

All the greasers join him? I don’t even care about how stupid that is, it’s great. This is like the bar fight in Dodge City, which remains to this day one of my favorite moments in cinema. Some shit goes down between two people and an entire bar just picks sides and erupts immediately. The most fascinating part about that particular scene is how there are sides, but everyone’s dressed basically the same and they still somehow manage to distinguish who they’re supposed to be fighting.

Only problem… they just use it to get them out of there and don’t let us see it at all.

CHAIR!

Gonna say it now, since apparently the film doesn’t care to show us the most interesting parts — you know how you know this isn’t really an Indiana Jones film?

I don’t think we’re gonna say more than three times total throughout these entire articles about Harrison Ford’s facial expressions. At least, not in the way of the other movies. This one will be more, “Wow, he looks dead inside.”

Colin:

Thick malts. Mmmm.

I kind of want to own my own malt shop one day. I’d make a good soda jerk. Like, if I could own a combination movie house, bar and a soda fountain, I’d be a happy man. And all that other stuff about being rich and designing that awesome house.

Also would have liked to see that chick inside’s thick malts.

“Your mom didn’t escape. They let her go, so she could mail the letter.”

I don’t think now’s the best time.

Colin:

Nice exposition going on in the middle of this chase. I don’t give a fuck, to be honest. Okay, so they let her go and she did some stuff that would lead them to him and to the right answers.

I feel like there’s a lot of that in this movie. “That’s nice. I don’t give a fuck.” But the first half is sincere, and not sarcastic. We’re just acknowledging that both are true.

It was so he could get it and translate.

So… they let her mail a letter just so it could go to Jones and he could translate it? That seems overly convoluted.

“Get on, gramps.”

Smell ya later, gramps!

Colin:

If you call someone “Gramps,” I’m calling you Gary, and that’s it.

That car looks like it has a propeller on it.

Also, why are those bikes conveniently colored?

Just like his students were conveniently colored.

I can’t tell if that’s one of his three faces or dementia. He thinks he’s on a fucking rocketship or something. Like those old guys who think they’re in a car and they’re sitting out by the window, making race car noises quietly.

This is such a soundstage. Actually kinda nice.

A soundstage with Yale projected on top.

I was on that campus a week after they shot this.

No reason for me to tell you that. I just remember it.

Also, clearly not them.

Colin:

I like the idea of this chase because it’s new and not offensive. It’s a chase in his hometown, which we’re not used to seeing. There’s a motorcycle involved, right? Why not? I’m saying so much bad shit about this movie, so I’m going to call this like it is – neutral. Also, fucking New Britain. I’m from Connecticut, and that’s the town next to the one I’m from. So screw them, of course.

Fucking Shelbyville, am I right?

Why are you so afraid? It’s two guys? Just punch them or something.

See? These aren’t facial expressions, this is Alzheimer’s.

I also question the guy on the bus who is not looking at any of this happening.

And how that does not look like Shia LaBeouf at ALL.

There you go!

Punch the guy who looks like someone put a digital Broderick Crawford mask on that guy.

There was a guy in that seat a minute ago.

Colin:

My problems with it begin with Mutt pulling alongside the bus and being unable to go faster. You’re not able to outrun this bus or this car? This happens in chases a lot, where it looks like the bad guys are neck and neck with you cause you’re maxed out, and then as you’re about to come to some obstacle or whatever, somehow you edge ahead and out of harm’s way. And it’s like…where was that speed before?

It’s also a bus, whose job it is to not go fast and let people off in a timely manner.

Colin:

This isn’t like Bad Boys, where they know it’ll come down to one, and you have an AC Cobra 427 pitted against a Porsche 964 Turbo S 3.6. Cause that’s like, sort of a fight, but I think we all know who wins (and who won) that race. But this is like, there’s clearly more speed in that bike, but he simply doesn’t drive faster so we can have an altercation with a KGB agent instead. That’s how Lucas works. You can move a vehicle, or the plot. Not both.

And when I blame Lucas for shit, it’s because Spielberg is on record saying he just let George talk him into whatever on this one. He stopped saying ‘no’ to George and went along with it. And therein lies a massive problem.

I feel like George is also the kind of guy who, when you say no to him, he actually says, “Oh, well okay,” and tries something else.

There are such good ideas here, and yet… crickets.

Colin:

Wow, pulled into the car, at which point the driver should hit the brakes if he has an ounce of sense. But once again, vehicle or plot. Not both.

That should have made him veer into the bus.

Kudos to him though for maintaining control of the car.

Colin:

He really knew to go around. I can’t say I’ve ever ridden a motorcycle and I don’t think I have a desire to, if only because they’re more involved than cars. Four wheels are so much better than two. For all the assholes who want to say that motorcycles are freeing and fun, I’ll just say that I’ve drifted cars at great speed while wearing shorts and boat shoes. Enjoy your road rash.

Colin:

Out the other side of the car! This isn’t at all bad. They’re also filming close to the ground a lot, which I like for a chase. That was one of the aspects of the Quantum of Solace chase I really enjoyed. And there were a lot of low angles in Crusade during the motorcycle chase.

Does no one see a tenured professor of the university doing all this?

He also just got fired, essentially. So how does this look that he’s in such a public event right after getting shit-canned?

These streets should not be so slick. But as a film fan, all for it.

Look at that guy’s face.

That looks like it should probably take them down.

Colin:

I want to state for the record that at this point in the movie, my notes are already comparable in length to the entirety of my Matrix: Revolutions notes. There’s something about a movie that makes me write more, and I think it does correlate to shittiness, but it isn’t a linear correlation.

Good movies, I write a lot. Mediocre movies that are good but not thought-provoking, I write less. Then there are interestingly shitty movies like this where I write more, and then really shitty movies like Revolutions where I just want it to be over.

Colin:

You can tell this is Yale because of the brownstone walls and the gates. Can’t have New Haven mixing with Yale.

There’s always someone manning the gates.

You guys are gonna need a new gate.

Colin:

Bitches in bobbysocks.

Are you deliberately trying to hit every plant on the way through?

FUCK FOLIAGE!

The best part is, you can just tell they added those just so they could destroy them. That’s the problem with shooting on old campuses like this, you know what’s there just for the sequence.

Colin:

Motorcycles are just better for campus chases. Or segways, if you’re a douche college.

Colin:

“Sookin sin!” It’s weird, or not, that because I’ve seen Patton about 138 times, I know that to mean “son of a bitch.”

This is a nice and simple shot.

At least they got to bust out all the nice vintage autos for this movie.

What are they protesting?

Did people just protest communism in the 50s? Like, randomly?

Colin:

What is this protest? Are Spielberg and Lucas going to try THIS hard to frame everything in political terms? Why does it have to be such an us vs. them thing at every turn? They’ve really gone overboard with this whole communist thing. The Nazis were a nice set of bad guys cause we know them and you don’t have to focus on how much we hate them. It’s a given, and that’s why it works.

Why are they scattering for one motorcycle?

Apparently just communists. No reason to protest. We just don’t like commies.

That’s how you stop the reds.

So… do they know they’re Russians? Or is this just a random act of coincidence?

“This is crazy!”

And he just met you.

When did you get so old?

Also, GET OFF OF THE LAWN!

“Somebody’s gonna get hurt!”

I hope it’s that guy.

Also, that other guy has a sign saying we should burn all communists.

Kind of ruining the point when your “Better Dead Than Red” sign isn’t painted another color.

Colin:

Come on! The closeup on the “BETTER DEAD THAN RED” sign is majorly overkill. These guys have lost sight of what makes a decent movie.

That is really the prevailing theme of this entire movie. You really see it when you look closely at it. The close ups, the prairie dogs… almost every decision they made is the wrong one.

The part that’s real fucked up is that this franchise started with Spielberg wanted to get back to his roots, be down and dirty and just make a fun movie that reminded him of the serials he watched as a kid.

What was this movie motivated by?

Not Shia.

I WILL have a nice doomsday.

Aww, they won!

They’re gonna be dead and red.

Nice windshield gag.

Looks like Red Grant is driving that car.

That guy’s also got them Chris Cooper lips.

Ever notice how Chris Cooper’s got that look where you’re never quite sure if he’s wearing lipstick? And you know it’s something he can’t help, but it’s also kind of unsettling?

Colin:

See? So he left town for Crusade and when he came back, they made him Dean of Students.

He had about the same run as Hitler.

Thanks Brody.

Colin:

Marcus Brody’s statue stops them? I…I think we’re done here.

Well that’s fucked up. I hope they got that fixed.

Also, why is his statue randomly there? Are all the deans memorialized this way? Or is it because he earned them so much money off the back of Indy?

Colin:

That was a good moment, though, admittedly. Mutt’s laughing and Indiana shames him into silence, which is exactly how it worked with Henry Sr. after Indiana takes care of all the Nazi motorcyclists in pursuit. This sort of quiet character moment callback is acceptable and welcomed.

Yeah, but he’s not doing it for good reasons. One was, “I disapprove of this violence.” This is, “This is disrespectful to a great man who was a friend of mine, young man.”

Colin:

“No, your other left!”

Into the library we go.

Colin:

About time the cops showed up.

She’s cute.

How does that asshole with the briefcase not hear a fucking motorcycle coming through?

Colin:

This is a loud bike. Everyone would be out of the way immediately from the second they entered the room.

“You’re going too fast.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

Maybe not the best moment for an age gap exchange.

Wilhelm.

Colin:

Wilhelm scream, but my heart isn’t in it.

Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care.

Nice archway. But those old scholars definitely don’t approve.

“Excuse me, Dr. Jones.”

Colin:

Tell me this kid isn’t asking a question right now after Shia and Gramps dropped a bike in the library.

“Yes?”

“I just had a question on Hargrove’s normative culture model.”

Colin:

He is. Dear me.

Okay… ignoring why they thought this was funny, because I get it. I want to understand the motivations of this kid. Here’s his professor, riding on the back of a motorcycle with some random kid, sliding underneath all the desks. And he happens to slide right into your chair. Now, the astronomical odds of his happening, you studying for a class and your professor showing up exactly like this… how is the first question he has not, “Damn, Dr. Jones, are you okay?” Sure, you want to ask the question because you’re studying it. But wouldn’t you be like, “Hey are you okay? Also, is this a bad time for a question?” Because then the joke could be him looking around and going, “Sure. Go ahead.” And then he asks the question and he answers it, and the comedy is drawn out. This way just feels cheap. This feels like some shit out of a parody.

Colin:

Open invitation, folks. Give us money and we’ll tear the shit out of your script and make it better.

“Forget Hargrove. Read Vercourt Child. On Diffusionism. He spent most of his life in the field.”

Colin:

I mean, next week this guy’s gonna be in here regurgitating Gordon Wood anyway, so what does it matter?

“You want to be a good archaeologist…”

“You gotta get out of the library!”

Didn’t you say last movie that whole bullshit about archaeology is done in a library and how x never ever marks the spot? What happened to that?

Colin:

He’s the old man who’s slowed down, but NOW he’s telling kids to be adventurous? I’ll never understand where they were coming from. But I think ARCH 108: Archaeology for Future Stenographers is probably done because of that menace, the typewriter, so maybe he’s trying to be more legit these days.

Look at the tits on that one.

Also, I love how everyone dresses exactly the way you’d expect stereotypical 50s kids to dress. No one in the 50s wore t-shirts?

Colin:

Not at Marshall College, they didn’t.

Why did we need the cut in to his face?

Obviously because we’re gonna see his corpse at some point.

Colin:

I’m so glad movies have people read words that are on the screen. I want information going in my ear holes AND my eye holes at the same time. And didn’t the book say 1511-1546? Are we to believe he was 35 when he died, but had that Dumbledore-ass portrait done sometime before that?

That’s what 35 looked like back then.

Can we not figure out aliens from that drawing?

Hey, remember when the Russians just chased you all over your campus? Maybe don’t immediately go right back to your house after that. Especially if it’s to take time and translate shit. Maybe do that while on a train or plane or something.

Anyway, it’s an ancient language. Nobody speaks it. Hasn’t been spoken aloud in 3,000 years.

“I might be able to read it a bit if I walk it through Mayan first.”

Always loved that line. Always remembered that line. Just the phrase “walk it through Mayan first.” Subtly telling you how smart this dude is, and it’s just a throwaway line.

Colin:

Ancient languages, and he knows them all. “Walk it through Mayan” is yet another way of saying oral sex.

I bet he’s a regular Mayan Angelou.

“You know, for an old man, you ain’t bad in a fight.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“What are you, like eighty?”

I’m going to assume that was sarcastic, because otherwise, this is awful dialogue.

Reaction shots.

Colin:

OOOOOH HE CALLED YOU OLD and guess what you are.

Apparently Ford asked for this. He wanted more old jokes. He thought it would make people less weird about it. If you say so. His idea was that the appeal wasn’t in the age but rather the resourcefulness. Which I get. But also… these jokes suck.

“It’s a riddle.”

Of course it is.

“Leave it to Ox to write a riddle in a dead language.”

Sure as shit ain’t leaving it to anybody else.

“Follow the lines of the earth only gods can read.”

Crop signals?

“Which lead to Orellana’s cradle. Guarded by the living dead.”

So by walking it through Mayan, you were able to get that clear a translation?

Why is he leaving clues for everyone else to find if he’s crazy?

He’s talking about the Nazca lines. Can only be seen from above.

Colin:

He writes a riddle that apparently doesn’t matter cause it never needs to be used to hide anything from anyone and Jones immediately explains it. So it might as well have been spelled out.

“Only gods can read them because only gods live up there.”

Colin:

Okay, so there’s the riddle explained. And the skull is there. It might as well be in Marrakesh, for all we care. It’s it a huge place, so good luck finding it.

“Oxley’s telling us the skull is in Nazca, Peru.”

And you needed to point that out, because…?

Colin:

Another DC-3, which is a bit implausible, but still POSSIBLE, I guess. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and just allow that they wouldn’t want to fly something newer to South America.

Map travel sucks with CGI.

I hope you guys had a hell of a layover in Havana.

Now I wonder, is Jamaica there for modern audiences, or is that how it was called back then?

Colin:

No, that’s an AN-2 from Cuba. That plane doesn’t work in this equation. That’s Soviet and Cuba isn’t communist Cuba yet.

YOU TOOK THE FUCKING MOTORCYCLE?!!!

Colin:

That was a slightly more involved journey than we’re used to, complete with cutaways to them in the plane, but whatever. It’s perfectly fine to do new things that aren’t harmful.

Why the cut in? Remember when you used to do this entirely in long shot? What happened to that guy?

How did they draw those lines? Like keying a car but with the earth? Because I see trees and shit down there.

This place seems chill.

Colin:

This shot is totally Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when they show up at the train station in Bolivia, and it’s just….you know, Bolivia. Dust and chickens, mostly.

This looks like where Daniel Craig dropped off Olga Kurylenko.

Colin:

He actually learned to play with a switchblade for this, which I respect. I kinda want to learn how to mess around with a switchblade, cause right?

I learned everything I need to know about knives (and spoons) from The Simpsons.

Knife goes in, guts come out.

She’s got a plate on her head.

Look at that shifty motherfucker behind them!

“Ox wandered into town a couple of months ago.”

And they remembered him… why?

“Raving like a mad man.”

And they remembered him… why?

“Police locked him up in the sanitarium.”

And they remembered him… why?

“I took Spanish and I didn’t understand a word of that. What was it?”

“Kechua. Local Incan dialect.”

Naturally.

Colin:

He speaks a local Incan dialect? I’m just done.

“Where’d you learn that one?”

“Long story.”

“I got time.”

Does your mother?

“I rode with Pancho Villa. A couple of his guys spoke it.”

“Bullshit.”

Well… sure. But aside from the bullshit. Why did he need to do that as well? Why are we Forrest Gump’ing Indiana Jones into history?

“You asked.”

“Pancho Villa?”

“Technically I was kidnapped.”

“By Pancho Villa?”

He gets kidnapped a lot, apparently.

And then he mentions another name and spits. Because Mexicans would love that.

Colin:

So he fought with Pancho Villa. Against Huerta, who allegedly conspired with the Germans. You guys know your history, right? 1916? The Zimmerman Telegram? Anyway. This is four years after the events of the Last Crusade prologue.

“How old were you?”

“About your age.”

“Parents must have had a cow, huh?”

“As it worked out, things were a little tense at home.”

That would be around the time he got interesting.

“Yeah, me and my mom aren’t on the best of terms, either.”

“Treat her right, kid, you only get one, sometimes not for that long.”

She’s mad because he quit school.

“You quit school?”

“Oh, yeah. Tons of ‘em. Fancy prep schools, teach you to debate. Chess. Fencing. I’m good with a blade, I just think it’s a waste of time.”

This line also epitomizes my problems with this movie, and where this movie goes wrong. Just say fencing. Don’t tell me you’re good with a blade. We’re gonna see later that you’re good with a blade. The fact that you told us you’re good with a blade means we’re going to see you use one later on. Throwaway line, but it’s annoying and could have been done better so easily.

“You never finished?”

“No. Just a bunch of useless skills. Wrong books. Because I love reading. Me and Ox used to read all the time. But now I can pick ‘em myself, you know?”

What exactly do you read now? I agree with you that a lot of school is bullshit after a certain point, but what exactly are you reading now that’s making you a more well-rounded person?

“What do you do for money?”

“Fix motorcycles.”

Colin:

So the kid’s a genius who can play chess and fence but now he fixes motorcycles. He’s supposed to be half Fonzie, half Will Hunting?

Does he not fix cars too? Just motorcycles?

“You gonna do that for the rest of your life?”

“Maybe I will, Teach, you got a problem with that?”

“Not if that’s what you love doing, don’t let anyone tell you different.”

Colin:

See? I like that he’ll let him continue fixing motorcycles. Cause fuck you, I want to.

Archway!

With… a telephone pole.

Hello, Ray Winstone.

Colin:

Why is Ray here? Send the person you’re gonna be looking for. For a former OSS agent, he doesn’t seem very observant of what’s going on around him.

Ox isn’t there. Men with guns took him.

I’d like for that to be the explanation of why I’m not home.

They can smell all of your conchas.

Colin:

These people are crazy, which is possibly due to having lived in South America for an extended period of time during the past. I took a course on Latin American Economic Development. Things were pretty bad until recently, and they’re still not great.

Look a this motherfucker. He can DEFINITELY smell your cunt.

Nothing like soothing music to calm the mental patients.

“This letter doesn’t make any sense.”

Really? Because you seemed to understand it just fine back in Connecticut.

He doesn’t understand what “cradle” means.

And that nun has a really fucking difficult time opening that door.

“Let’s hang back. Ain’t quite time yet.”

Well she got done just as the exposition finished.

Does that say “Fuck her”? That’s the best thing to carve into the wall of your cell.

Also, Voltar. Isn’t that the machine that made Tom Hanks big?

Also not sure how we don’t already know it’s aliens.

This is a big ass cell for one crazy person.

Colin:

There’s still more riddle? I hope they just figure it out and that it isn’t just some stupid pun like in fucking Da Vinci Code. Am I the only one who really didn’t like that book?

Angels and Demons was a much more entertaining book.

Neither movie was particularly good, though.

Colin:

The nun is standing there because…she’s probably union.

Colin:

Wait a minute, a riddle about the desert with some weird pun at its center? Didn’t this happen with Shia in Transformers 2: The Secret of the Ooze?

Bay lighting.

And bay windows.

Colin:

Why does this guy get his own cell below ground when all the brown people had shitty cells upstairs? Was he especially crazy? Did he have money?

Especially Crazy: The Mike DiPrisco Story

Though, honestly, at this point it kind of has to be “Genuine Mental Instability.”

Colin:

Below ground is prime real estate in a place like this, where the days are hot and nights are cold. Insulation is key.

This also brings me back to the point I bring up like once a franchise, which is that Mike and I both want to have houses that are at least partly underground. That’s becoming a pretty core tenet of this blog.

Yes. Underground housing. Double points if it’s built out of the side of a hill or a mountain or something.

Colin:

Of course, if you take away anything from reading this, it should be that reaction shots are the key to comedy and that we would be such great rich people.

Just like Lana Turner.

What if he just carved swastikas into the wall?

Yuelta, Yerorno… he might just be listing the name of the staff that he’s gonna beat up when he gets out.

Colin:

At this point, they’re just pandering to all of us who remember examining sanitarium dungeons with our absentee fathers.

Cedarbrook, Indiana. 1997. Takes me back.

“He must have lost his mind.”

Colin:

Are those tears?

All right, calm down there, Timothy Dalton.

Right, though? Fuck her.

This is a different skull.

Colin:

That elongated cranium might just be a result of poor chiseling technique. Or a fever dream.

Maybe it just means dickhead in cave painting.

You know, after you…

.. walk it through some Mayan.

Colin:

The skull…seems to have been on his mind. Ahh. See what you did there.

Naturally, he translates the word we can so obviously figure out based on all the different languages. “Return.”

“Return where?”

To fuck her.

“Or return what.”

We went over this shit already, guys. Return the skull to the city of gold or whatever. I’m barely paying attention to what’s going on and I already know more than you guys.

Of course a broom was just sitting right there.

Colin:

This shot of him grabbing the broom and bringing it in is similar to the way he examines the library floor and then grabs the bollard (kinda love that I just used the word bollard) from the velvet rope to smash it open. The shots were pretty similar.

And then he goes up to look down, which is the opposite order as the library, but you know, whatever.

It’s funny that in a room as shitty as this, they don’t have to destroy it, but a centuries old library with beautiful flooring — that shit’s gotta go.

Lawrence of Arabia marks the spot?

Wait, you just made it worse. What the fuck are you doing?

How did this sanitarium not do anything about this room after he was taken? Also, what kind of sanitarium is this? They just keep them in cells and let them do what they want? Is anyone trying to make them better? And when someone comes to take him with guns, do they just let them and do nothing? No one gets alerted?

Colin:

At that point, I think it was just segregation from the rest of the population. Like, you’re crazy, so just be crazy in this room.

“Sweep.”

The only thing missing there is, “Boy.”

And he just goes to sit down. The only thing left for him to do is pull the “I’m tired” card at 5:45 to get out of the rest of the evening.

What exactly did he draw this with? His dick?

“Ox didn’t mean Orellana’s birthplace. Cradle has another meaning in Mayan.”

And you didn’t think of this way back in your house because…?

Colin:

Oh, so you mean you’ve known for the past several days and super long journey that this was a riddle, and only now did you think to apply the only other meaning to the word that the riddle hinges on? You’re a fucking genius. This is why I hate stuff like The Da Vinci Code. “Oh, it wasn’t an actual pope, it was a guy whose NAME was Pope!” Great writing, Gagatha Christie.

Well, how were we supposed to know there were multiple meanings? Who are we, Samuel Johnson?

“Literally, it means ‘resting place.’ As in final resting place.”

Yeah, I think we figured that out. Pretty sure it wasn’t going to mean his safe house.

That’s the cemetery where Orellana is buried.

Now, my question is… why did he draw this? Did he just have to? Or did he know that Indiana was going to show up and see this and figure it out? Because both seem pretty weird and unlikely.

“You said Orellana vanished and nobody ever found his grave.”

“Well… looks like Harold Oxley did.”

Colin:

If Oxley knew where it was, did he go? I’ve already forgotten what the point of all this was and who Ox was supposed to be and why he’s supposed to be here again.

This is also sort of like how Sean Connery spent his entire life looking for the grail and had a full diary that said EVERYTHING about where it was and how to get it except the city to start from. How many canyons of the crescent moon were there? Look at a fucking map and go get the grail before someone invites you on a trip to find it. It’s a bizarre level of preparation for something they never follow through with.

Why does Oxley know exactly where the guy was buried, and why are we going there, again? Did he just go crazy and couldn’t go himself? At this point, I’m so behind on what this movie is trying to do that I’ve decided that they fail. Your setup is poor, Spielberg and Lucas.

They have written… poorly.

Graphic match!

This is where Azkaban started, right?

Isn’t it great how this grave was hidden for centuries, and then Oxley found it and now all of a sudden Indy knows exactly where it is?

This looks CG as shit.

Colin:

So here we are at the local fuck spot.

My girlfriend shaved in some Nazca lines just to mark the occasion.

WHY ARE YOU RIDING AROUND A MOTORCYCLE IN PERU?

Do they even have gas for that thing?

Colin:

Why are they here at night when they should be drinking tequila and resting up? I don’t like tequila myself, but it seems like the thing for them to be drinking while they’re here, I guess.

“Graverobbers will be shot.”

“Good thing we’re not graverobbers.”

Colin:

Shot? Shot by whom?

Also, you mean to tell me the people guarding this place know how to read and write and have the wherewithal to put up a sign? Isn’t this place supposed to be hidden and lost for years? Because this isn’t exactly a place that’s out of the way enough for it to make sense that these bodies were never found.

This is where the climax of Hocus Pocus took place.

Lens flare!

“What are we looking for?”

“I don’t know yet.”

So then why do I?

Why are you guarding this place, exactly? Never explained.

Nice, creepy image, though, I’ll give you that.

So… do these people just hang out here? Waiting for people to show up?

Colin:

Are these people just keeping guard here EVERY night in case someone shows up to disturb graves?

Interesting security system.

No one would fuck with that neighborhood watch in Orange County.

Why would you risk being seen like that? This seems like unnecessary parkour.

Colin:

You’re doing it wrong.

“I think I just saw something.”

“Ah, you’re jumping at shadows.”

He’s not jumping. He’s merely observing.

“This way down.”

This seems like something he might have done earlier. I can’t tell if that’s a good thing that Shia did it or bad because it reminds me of how Indy is not that anymore.

“This way up.”

Seriously… what the fuck?

Colin:

Just go with it. It’ll all be over soon enough.

That’s what the person strangling you says.

Colin:

That’s a tally ho in the dark onto a stone floor. I don’t know who these people are, but they must practice this stuff, I guess. I don’t get this Hollywood obsession with making natives able to perform these ludicrous physical feats. Living in the woods doesn’t make you Superman. In fact, unless Lyme disease gives you powers, I’m pretty sure you’re just a schmuck with no house.

Lyme Disease Gives You Powers

I hope they’re not orphans.

Where did he learn karate?

And breakdancing?

Colin:

And this one just disappears! What the fuck? Do they practice hand-to-hand combat on one another?

Skeleton rape!

Colin:

Shovel to the face.

Hey, it’s Short Round.

Colin:

Driver’s license photo.

So how many of these guys are there?

“Those darts are poison!”

Yeah, I kinda figured.

Colin:

They’re poison? Really? I thought they’d just be blowing toothpicks through a tube.

That’s also pretty shitty aim. Even if the shovel handle wasn’t there, what would he have it?

“Stay there.”

Colin:

I guess this is the South American Indian form of monologuing with your eyes. Just blow the damn dart and be done with it.

If he blows the dart right now, Indy is so fucked.

Colin:

See? That’s what happens when you linger on a target. And why blow darts are an inferior projectile weapon. I’m not even upset at how silly this is, I’m just glad this little bastard got what was coming to him.

I’m Glad the Little Bastard Got What Was Coming to Him

Though, if the darts are poison, and the back end can also kill him and not a poison tip… how do they get them in the tube?

So he was the only one with darts?

Colin:

Is this the first person he’s killed? I think this is the first person he’s killed in the whole movie. And it wasn’t a bloody death, and this guy wasn’t even depicted as being human as we know it. So that’s walking the line right there. Not too much of a body count, eh?

And they know what guns are?

Colin:

They respect guns, but he’s in an easily attacked position. Defensible positions are key.

Graverobbers will be shot. Yet the graverobbers are the only ones with the guns.

“You’re a… a teacher?”

“Part time.”

Colin:

Oh, no. This is the part of the Plinkett review that I remember. “Part time.” THAT was the take you used? REALLY? They use a different take for the trailer, and it’s better than this was. What the fuck was that take?

“Dead end.”

Is it ever?

“Maybe.”

Really?

Colin:

What is that shaking sound? Just like we always hear the weird gun sound effect when someone pulls a pistol, we get this strange clacking sound as Mutt’s comb shakes in his quivering hands. I know something about it immediately conveys that he’s nervous and that his quivering comb stands in for chattering teeth, but you only have to think about it for about ONE second before you realize that there should be no noise here.

If I had to guess… the little button things on his jacket hanging off the sleeves are what’s making the noise and not the comb.

So I guess we’re just assuming those were the only guys?

Colin:

We dispatched the assholes, so I guess we’re not worried about them? One of them ran off after he pulled the gun. This is one of those moments where the filmmakers just decide whether that means, “Okay, we’ve got the run of the place now!” or, “They’ll soon be back, and in greater numbers.”

Clearly, these filmmakers have decided that the natives are gone and that we shouldn’t be worried about them, because all the tension has shifted to the environment, rather than the attackers’ imminent return. Totally arbitrary, but you can read into how much of a filmmaker choice that is. If I was in their position, I’d be either getting the fuck out or fortifying my position.