I mentioned before my wait of nineteen years for a sequel to Indiana Jones. Last Friday, that wait finally came to an end. That said, I now have to write the review I never wanted to write.

I'm not writing this as a critic. I'll remove that hat for the purposes of this review. It would be silly of me to even pretend to be able to view this movie with complete objectivity.

I did everything I could to keep my hopes and my expectations as neutral as I could.

Even so... the nine-year-old self I wrote about previously, and the 28-year-old that I am now, had his heart broken.

If you aren't interested in reading this in its entirety - writing now I really cannot be sure how long it will be - I will spare you the chore of having to scan for my reaction (assuming you haven't guessed).

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is in no uncertain terms a bad movie. It's a poor entry into the franchise and most certainly is the worst of the four films. I wrote before that this film will be the catalyst for my faith in George Lucas. He asked why I would blame him alone if the movie is bad. Let me answer that question.

The reason given for the length of time we have been waiting for this movie, at least from the point it was known it was officially in the works, was that all parties involved needed to agree upon the perfect script.

Last I heard, a script existed that both Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg agreed upon. If I am not mistaken, it was written by Frank Darabont. Lucas passed on this script, choosing instead to push his alien crystal skulls idea that he has had since 1992. My guess is that Lucas refused to do anything that didn't involve this story and finally Spielberg and Ford just gave up and let him have his way. So we get the sequel George Lucas wanted, further evidenced by giving him story credit. We get the sequel he wanted and it is a massive disappointment.

Let me say first that it isn't all bad. Harrison Ford is in perfect shape. He slips into Indy as if its been 20 minutes not 20 years. His chemistry with Shia LaBeouf is perfect. His chemistry with Karen Allen is still there. He was a sight for sore eyes — a little older, but still Indy.

For the most part the acting was fine. Everyone delivered solid performances with the exception of Karen Allen. I like Karen Allen but for some reason she was just not any good in this movie. She always seemed to have some silly grin on her face like she was just too happy to actually have work to try to do anything else in the movie except smile. Granted, some of the back and forth between her and Indy was reminiscent of Raiders, but she never really fell back into Marion. Her character felt really tacked on also.