Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | 2008 | Final | UK Quad

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a 2008 sci-fi adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Frank Marshall. The screenplay was written by David Koepp based on the story created by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson and characters created by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the fourth installment in the Indiana Jones series and released nineteen years after the previous film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It stars Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent and Shia LaBeouf.

The storyline is set in 1957, an acknowledgement to the age of its star Harrison Ford. During the Cold War, Soviet Agents watch Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr., when a young man brings him a coded message from an aged, demented colleague, Professor Harold Oxley. Led by the brilliant Irina Spalko, the Soviets tail Jones and the young man, Mutt Williams, to Peru. With Oxley’s code, they find a legendary skull made of a single piece of quartz. If Jones can deliver the skull to its rightful place, all may be well. However, if Irina takes it to its origin, she’ll gain powers that could endanger the West. An aging professor and young buck join forces with a woman from Jones’ past, Marion Ravenwood, to face the dangers of the jungle, Russia, and the supernatural.

During the late 1970s, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg made a deal with Paramount Pictures for five Indiana Jones films. Following the release Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989, George Lucas felt he could not think of a good plot to drive the next installment and let the series naturally end. Instead he chose to produce the prequel television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. However when Harrison Ford played Indiana in one episode, narrating his adventures in 1920 Chicago, George Lucas realised the scene opened up the possibility of a film with an older Indiana set in the 1950s.

Filming for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull began on 18th June 2007, in Deming, New Mexico. Unlike the previous Indiana Jones films, Steven Spielberg chose to shot the entire film in the United States, stating he did not want to be away from his family. The scenes set in the Amazon jungle were filmed in Hilo, Hawaii and at the time was the biggest film shot in Hawaii since Waterworld, with over half of the film scheduled to be shot shoot on various sound stages in Los Angeles.

When Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released it received positive reviews from the critics, although audience reception was more mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes it currently holds a rating of 78% with the general consensus being, “Though the plot elements are certainly familiar, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull still delivers the thrills and Harrison Ford’s return in the title role is more than welcome.”. Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four, the same rating he gave The Last Crusade, finding it “same old, same old”, but what “I want it to be”, particularly as “a lover of pulp fiction”: “What I want is goofy action—lots of it. I want man-eating ants, swordfights between two people balanced on the backs of speeding jeeps, caverns of gold, vicious femme fatales, plunges down three waterfalls in a row, and the explanation for flying saucers. And throw in lots of monkeys”.

Commercially, the film was a great success despite going over its estimated production budget by $60 million. In the end the film was produced on an estimated production budget of $185 million. When it was released Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull made $25 million in opening day box office reciepts. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $101 million in USA, ranking it number one at the box office, making it the third-widest opening of all time. In the USA it was the third-most-successful film of 2008, behind The Dark Knight and Iron Man. The film went on to make $317,101,119 in USA and $473,552,823 internationally making total worldwide box office receipts of $790,653,942.

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