Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

15 years later, is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull still bad?

Ray Winstone and Harrison Ford stand together in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Paramount Pictures

From the moment it begins, something about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just feels off. The film was released nearly 20 years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which brought Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ original Indiana Jones trilogy to an extremely traditional, but nonetheless celebratory, end. Despite that fact, Spielberg, Lucas, and franchise star Harrison Ford decided to bring the franchise back in 2007.

Recommended Videos

It was a poor decision, and not because Spielberg or Lucas had become worse filmmakers in the 20 years since Last Crusade. Not even Ford’s older age was much of a hindrance in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. On the contrary, the actor is quite good in the film, and he repeatedly proves throughout it that not many other performers have ever been able to strike a pose as well as him.

However, in the 18 years between Crystal Skull and Last Crusade, the franchise’s key creative team seemed to forget what made it so good in the first place. As a result, when Indiana Jones finally stepped on-screen again, the old-school filmmaking spirit that had once made his original adventures so exciting had vanished, replaced by contemporary shortcuts that left Kingdom of the Crystal Skull feeling like the zero-calorie version of a meal audiences had once savored.

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’s main sin

A prairie dog stands up from a mound of dirt in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Paramount Pictures

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens with a shot of a CGI prairie dog popping up out of a mound of dirt. To say that this one image foreshadows many of the problems that are still to come in the film would be an understatement. Not only does the shot itself look surprisingly fake, but it also signals to viewers that the Indiana Jones franchise’s once-famous reliance on practical effects is a thing of the past. The rest of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, unfortunately, follows through on that promise.

From a truly unnecessary and much-derided sequence involving CGI monkeys swinging through a jungle to a third-act climax that slowly but surely devolves into a swirling storm of bad digital effects, the Indiana Jones franchise’s fourth installment is full of moments that look laughably bad. While that’d be a disappointing thing to say about any film, it’s a particularly frustrating criticism to be able to make of an Indiana Jones movie.

The franchise has, after all, never been all that thematically compelling. Instead, the series’ first three installments — 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark most of all — stand out mostly for just how exuberantly they were made. The three blockbusters feel like pure-hearted exercises in big-budget action filmmaking on the part of Spielberg, a director who has always been more at home in the action-adventure genre than most.

If ain’t broke, don’t CGI it

Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf both hold flashlights in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull.
Paramount Pictures / Paramount Pictures

Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade are bound together not only by their similar tones and recurring stars, but also by their practical effects, locations, and set pieces. From the face-melting scene at the end of Raiders to the nightclub sequence in Temple of Doom, the first three Indiana Jones movies feel simultaneously fake and real, and that’s part of their charm. Viewers may, for instance, know that they’re not seeing a real boulder roll toward Harrison Ford during the iconic opening scene of Raiders, but they also know that something is rolling toward him.

There’s a tactile quality to the filmmaking on display in the franchise’s first three installments. They look and feel like the products of a filmmaker who was given the chance to utilize every moviemaking trick at his disposal. The result is a trio of action movies that are hokey and cheesy, but also effective on a truly visceral level. Therefore, when Spielberg and Lucas chose to abandon that tactile quality by using CGI to bring large portions of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’s sci-fi story to life, what they were left with was a film that was just hokey and cheesy.

Will Dial of Destiny repeat the franchise’s past mistakes?

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny | Official Trailer

Now, 15 years after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull first tarnished its reputation, the Indiana Jones franchise is coming back to the big screen. The series’ latest entry, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, is the first not to be directed by Spielberg, who relinquished the director’s chair this time around to Ford v Ferrari filmmaker James Mangold. While viewers will have to wait until the film’s June 30 release to find out how well Mangold dealt with the pressure of stepping into Spielberg’s shoes, too, the first trailers for Dial of Destiny don’t suggest that the film learned from its predecessor’s greatest mistake.

Instead, Dial of Destiny looks to be even more CGI-reliant than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Consequently, although the new film’s overall quality has yet to be determined, it’s undeniably disappointing to see a series that was once defined by its practical filmmaking tricks ultimately adopt the same shortcuts as many of Hollywood’s other, less well-regarded franchises.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is available to stream now on Paramount+ and Disney+.

Alex Welch
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Alex is a writer and critic who has been writing about and reviewing movies and TV at Digital Trends since 2022. He was…
3 underrated Netflix movies you should watch this weekend (December 27-29)
underrated netflix movies to watch this weekend december 27 29 2024 kneecap hero

The week between Christmas and New Year's is the most awkward one of the year. Why? Well, personally, I don't know what to do with myself. All the Christmas festivities are over, but it's too early to start those resolutions. (And no, I'm not going to start my annual New Year's diet early. Someone has to eat those leftovers.)

The best way to spend time right now is to catch up on things you missed doing in the last 12 months. For me, that's watching movies I heard about and somehow missed watching like Red Rooms or The Order. Along those lines, the following list contains three worthwhile movies streaming on Netflix that are worth your time and attention on the final weekend of the year.

Read more
Stop! And watch these 3 great movies leaving Netflix by January 1
A boy puts his hands over books and leans on them.

The new year is on the horizon, with 2025 within our grasp. By now, you know the drill with Netflix. Movies will be departing from the service at the end of December. 300, Jaws, Big Daddy, Captain Phillips, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are some movies leaving the service by January 1.

Unfortunately, the carnage does not stop there. With a list of over 40 movies, it can be quite stressful to choose one movie. That's why this list has three: the fourth film in a popular racing franchise, a romantic coming-of-age tale, and an action-packed thriller.

Read more
3 underrated Netflix movies you should watch this weekend (January 3-5)
A soldier looks ahead in Number 24.

2025 is here, and it's weird living in the future. But some things remain the same: Early January still stinks, and all the good movies have already been released and watched. Nosferatu? Seen it. A Complete Unknown? Watched it opening day. What's a person to do for the weekend?

I should probably exercise, but I'd rather watch a good movie or two. Netflix has plenty of them, and these three underrated movies are just the ticket for spending quality time at home. One is a recent arrival you may not have heard of, while the other two are older movies starring actors who are still headlining blockbusters today.

Read more