Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Ok, this movie didn’t blow me away, but I really didn’t expect it to. I am not a huge fan of George Lucas but I am of Steven Spielberg. I feel like Lucas relies too much on what his ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) has done in the past to make his movies. To me it doesn’t seem like they have expanded much of their technology or CGI work since their Star Wars days. They still rely hugely on models, which are obvious in the movie. They hide their special effects with bright light in your eyes or other things to distract you. Whereas somehow when Spielberg did Transformers there was nothing hidden, the special effects were in your face and flawless.
The actors did pretty well. They didn’t hide Harrison Ford’s age and they didn’t need to. He pulled it off and sold it. Even his reaction with the woman from the first movie, they were able to bring her back successfully and make that relationship work. Shia Lebeouf, I don’t really know what to say about him. I really like him in all his other movies; he is funny and talented but for some reason this part didn’t go so well. 50’s greaser is not in his range I guess.
So the Indiana Jones movies have always had events in them that are far fetched and hold a yeah right feel to them. But they were always able to make you believe it could happen. In Temple of Doom, they made me believe a man could rip out another man’s heart just by saying “Kalima”; I even tried it a few times on Jon. This one though, the climactic end scene does make you believe, but it’s the little stuff like climbing into a lead lined fridge to survive a nuclear blast and then being thrown about 8 miles in that same fridge and just rolling out of it, that makes you think, What the snap were these guys smoking when they thought that up.
As for the overall storyline, in my opinion, blah and way too far fetched. The other movies pushed the limits and made it believable, this one doesn’t even know where the limits are and then takes you to la la land. It is adventurous; it has its humorous moments, and it does keep you interested, but not enough for me to say this was a great movie. I am kind of disappointed in the fact that I have to spend another 8 bucks to take my nephew to it, waste of time though. I will give it a 3 out of 5 on the Awesomeness scale because of Ford and that they tried.