While in Middleton, WI this weekend seeing friends and hiking, we couldn’t resist seeing the fourth installment of Indiana Jones: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Our friends were kind enough to buy the tickets in advance so that we did not need to show up hours early and stand in line. Thank you! - the lines were long.

The theater was packed. The people who came in even a few minutes after us had to fight for seats and some families and friends had to split up. We were lucky to find four together in the second row from the back, really good seats to tell the truth.

I really don’t want to say too much about the movie’s surprisingly strange plot. I’ll someone else post those spoilers. However, what I will post about is the over feeling that I got from seeing this movie.

I saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the theaters as a youngster. I think that I was too young. It was really freaky. I had to be taken out into the lobby a few times because I just could not handle all the crazy in that movie. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull only has one scene that I would caution parents of young children about: Fire Ants consume a couple of live people.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull put me in a good and happy mood. I love movies about a smart educated guy that can hold his own in a fist fight. It gives me hope, not all egg-heads are socially inept. Yet, the movie seemed to have an agenda that revolved around making education cool. I guess that the children being left behind are in greater numbers than we think, or they are deciding to dropout before completing high school. The movie had a stay in school edge to it that I could appreciate, but felt strange in the movie. Well, you decide.

I really liked seeing Marion Ravenwood back in action. She was in the original movie, Raders of the Lost Ark, and made her return in this one. Jessica and I agree that Karen Allen was hot for any age. It was refreshing to see a woman on the big screen instead of a plastic manikin. I tell you she looked much better than Harrison Ford who looked as if he had fallen under the spell of the botox generation.

Anyway, it was a good time, and a good movie. I look forward to adding it to my DVD collection when it comes out.

Go see it, and let the summer movies begin!

The Soulless Machine