Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of I WANT MY MONEY BACK

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is terrible. I'm going to make a list of things that are terrible about it. I'm sure this list cannot possibly encompass ALL that is terrible about it, as I suffered some sort of mental block, possibly to prevent myself from finding and burning all prints of the film, so if you want to add anything, please do in comments.

Also, I should warn you, if you haven't seen the film, DO NOT SEE IT. This movie will give you cancer. This movie will be like Michael Jackson in bed with your children. This movie will make you hate Indiana Jones forever (like poor RoboGirlfriend, who had never seen an Indy film before, and never will again).

--The kids in the drag-racing car at the beginning. Why the hell are they there? What do they contribute? Anything? ANYTHING?! No. No they don't. The entire credit sequence and beyond has no bearing on the plot* of the film.

(* -- calling it a "plot" is being kind. More like "insipid action scenes tied together by a bored looking Harrison Ford reading things and telling them where to go.")

--CGI Animals. CGI Prairie Dogs in the beginning. HOW CUTE! How unnecessary. How uninspired. CGI Animals help Shia LaBeouf swing through the trees, and then the CGI monkeys attack Cate Blanchett. I hate you, Spielberg and Lucas and Koepp. I hate you so much.

--Shia LaBeouf is left behind in the jungle. So in order to catch up with the racing amphibious vehicles he... swings through the jungle on vines with monkeys? Really? No, seriously, this happens? YES. YES IT DOES.

--John Hurt. Why he was in this movie, I don't know. He babbles a lot, doesn't help, and speaks in verse ("That's Milton," says Blanchett at one point). Why they need such an acclaimed actor to mumble and babble his way through this film, I know not. What a waste. A waste of time. Space. Money. And, importantly, my attention.

--Ray Winstone. Why he was in this movie, I don't know. I actually kind of liked him in this movie, but his character is so amazingly under-developed it baffled me. He has a decade+ of work with Jones, yet he becomes a turn-coat on his BFF because the "soviets pay." Really? At least Belloq in Raiders wanted the glory of the discovery, and the power the Ark brought, despite his... distaste for the Nazis employing him. Winstone just seems to careen around the plot as the script demands, regardless of character, rationale, or anything else. Then, at the very end, after spending the previous five minutes looting treasure, Indy's got him holding onto his whip, and is reeling him in so he doesn't get sucked into another dimension (yeah, no, really), and Winstone just says "I'll be OK," and lets go of the whip. WHAT?! FUCK YOU, MOVIE.

--Karen Allen. Not terrible. I like Karen Allen. By far the best Indy-Chick. However, underutilized in this film. Because there are a bajillion other characters that need to be underdeveloped, we don't really even get her until half-way through the film. I guess my complaint is that she isn't really used, and the movie she's in sucks.

--When Marion drives the truck off the cliff and onto the TREE growing out the cliff-side that SAVES THEM from HORRIBLE DEATH? Stupid. The part where Marion drives them off THREE HUGE WATERFALLS? And they don't die HORRIBLE DEATHS?!

--There was never any moment where I felt any of them were in any danger. Ever. The motorcycle chase through the streets of New Haven... er... "College Town".... was cool, but there was never any danger. At the end, when the temple is being sucked into itself, Indy is literally WALKING UP THE STAIRS. Indiana Jones and the Warner Bros. Cartoon Adventure should have been the real title. I was about as worried for Indy and Co. as I am for the Roadrunner.

--In the jungle, there is a totally ridiculous machine the Soviets are using to cut a path through the dense underbrush to make a road for their evil-Soviet convoy. Or whatever. OK, fine, I'll accept it. Then Indy blows it up. OK, cool. But then there is a HYPER-LONG chase on ROADS through the jungle... the jungle that they needed a ginormous ridiculous vehicle to cut roads with. The entire film is filled with implausibilities like this. Or "plot-holes" if you want to call them that.

--Who are these scary gymnast dudes in the cemetery that attack Indy and Mutt? No, seriously, who are they?! They never come back, they're never explained. 

--Indiana Jones does not solve any real puzzles in this movie, with the exception of "figuring out" where the blah blah is and ohmigod this movie is punishment.

--The Bad CGI Alien at the end. Need I say more.

--The non-threatening Soviets. At least in the previous Indy movies, the bad guys were Nazis, who were, actually, like the worst-fucking-people ever. Nazis = not good. I think that's just a fact we can agree on (beyond the fact that yeah, Oskar Schindler was a Nazi -- not all were TERRIBLE -- but you know the point that I'm making). But the Soviets in this movie aren't particularly threatening. They don't really mess things up too bad. Indy escapes them pretty easily (and kills a ridiculous amount of them in horrible horrible ways), and their evil "master plan" isn't really that threatening: They're going to somehow use the Crystal Skulls to psychically alter all Americans into communists. OK. Great. Except we never see any possible threat of this happening. It's all big-talk.

--Oh, did I forget to mention that Indiana Jones survives a NUCLEAR EXPLOSION from GROUND ZERO? By getting into a "lead-lined" fridge, and then being launched a few miles into the distance. Obviously, a lead-lined fridge not only can protect you from radiation, but also from physics, as being rocketed at hundreds of miles an hour and then bouncing across the desert would turn you into a sort of Indiana-Gelatin.

Ugh. There's more. I'm just sick of spending time thinking about the movie. I love you, Raiders of the Lost Ark. I respect you, Temple of Doom. I think you're silly but enjoyable, Last Crusade. But Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? I hate you. I will always hate you.

-RoboNixon