First off, I don't think it was a good portent that the very first shot of the movie contained a CGI gopher. Mainly because there were three movies before this, and none of them needed CGI. For anything. It was also not a good portent that they had that other stupid CGI effect with the gunpowder. In fact, when Indy said, "the contents of that box are highly magnetic," my first thought was, this is gonna be a fucking long two hours. Also, why exactly did they need his help in locating the box? As he later said, he was present at the UFO crash, but it was more to the sidelines. You'd think the Russians would kidnap one of the actual heads of the project or something.

Which brings me to my next thing. Aliens. Fucking aliens. The great thing about the other three movies was that he was in pursuit of more terrestrial artifacts. It's too much of a stretch, given what came before, to see Indy involved in an adventure revolving around aliens. He's just not that kind of hero. Which was also why I objected to him getting caught in the nuclear explosion. The other three movies did just fine on actual physical stunts, fistfights on tanks and conveyor belts and such. Swordfighting on moving jeeps looks lame because it doesn't look like a part of Indiana Jones's world. It just didn't feel like a part. And the flying saucer the end... was definitely out of place.

Oh, and word to the wise: don't continuously reference the first three movies. It was fun seeing the Ark of the Covenant, but constant references to movies better than this one are bad.

The only really good thing about this movie was the interplay between Harrison Ford and Karen Allen. Out of all the women in the Jones movies, Marion was always the most interesting. But sadly, too many of their scenes felt rushed. Actually, most of the last half of the movie felt rushed. And even John Hurt's performance was less than lackluster. Which is a shame, since he's on my list of favorite actors.

But I did just learn that Spielberg and Ford were at odds with Lucas about a few things in the story. Most noteworthy, they both felt that adding aliens was stupid. So I guess the nuclear explosion was also Lucas's idea. Congratulations, George. First you tainted Star Wars, and now you've taken another perfectly good trilogy and spoiled it forever since you've forgotten the meaning of the word "no."