Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008 Directed by Steven Spielberg

The adventure continues . . .

Set during the Cold War, the Soviets – led by sword-wielding Irina Spalko – are in search of a crystal skull which has supernatural powers related to a mystical Lost City of Gold. After being captured and then escaping from them, Indy is coerced to head to Peru at the behest of a young man whose friend – and Indy's colleague – Professor Oxley has been captured for his knowledge of the skull's whereabouts.

Harrison Ford Cate Blanchett Karen Allen Shia LaBeouf Ray Winstone John Hurt Jim Broadbent Igor Jijikine Dimitri Diatchenko Ilia Volok Emmanuel Todorov Pasha D. Lychnikoff Andrew Divoff Venya Manzyuk Alan Dale Joel Stoffer Neil Flynn V.J. Foster Chet Hanks Brian Knutson Dean Grimes Sasha Spielberg Nicole Luther Sophia Stewart Chris Todd Dennis Nusbaum T. Ryan Mooney Audi Resendez Helena Barrett Show All…

Alternative Titles

Indiana Jones og krystalkraniets kongerige, Indiana Jones 4, Indiana Jones 4 - The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Индиана Джонс и Королевство xрустального черепа, Indiana Jones 4 - Et Le Royaume Du Crâne De Cristal, Indiana Jones 4 The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indiana Jones og Krystallhodeskallens Rike, 夺宝奇兵4, Indiana Jones 4 - Le Royaume du Crâne de Cristal, Indiana Jones 4 and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Индиана Джонс 4, Indiana Džounsas 4, 인디아나 존스 4, Indiana Jones 4 - E Il Regno Del Teschio Di Cristallo, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indiana Jones 4 - Das Königreich des Kristallschädels, Indiana Jones 4 - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 2008, Indiana Jones 4 - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

adventure action

122 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by SilentDawn ★★★★ 39

Fuck yes.
I love it. All of it. From the classical opening giving way to a rollicking rock 'n' roll tune, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is something different than fan-service for disgruntled internet complainers. It is a luscious tribute to 50s B-movies and the pulpy comics that inspired them, embracing every glorious quip and every moment of flowering insanity in order to liven the Indiana Jones universe into an old-fashioned burst of blockbuster entertainment.
Crystal Skull reminds me of a time when summer popcorn extravaganzas were directed, focusing on the story at hand rather than worrying about the studio's five-year plan of world domination. Steven Spielberg revels in every silly and goofy quirk in George…
Review by DirkH ★ 21

Gripping drama about a dementing geriatric Archeologist who thinks he's having an adventure while in reality he's being spoon fed porridge.
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 32

84
With each revisit of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I have less and less patience for people who disregard it outright. Barring any overt nostalgic sentimentality, which feels based on Spielberg's contribution rather than Lucas', this film flies into the future with a clever 'old man Indy' spirit and a technological spin. Its narrative of Area 51 and Soviets and Ancient Temples and Fire Ants and Waterfalls and Secret Passages and Aliens (!!!) made sensitive fanboys irrationally angry. So did its plot inconsistencies and so-called "unbelievable" moments, all of which are featured in the fourth entry about a famous archaeologist who carries around a whip and dabbles in christian mysticism. There's something to this release,…
Review by davidehrlich ★★★★ 13

You may have heard that there’s a scene in Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in which the cinema’s most iconic archaeologist survives an atomic blast by hiding inside of a lead refrigerator. The incident occurs about 20 minutes into the grizzled whip-cracker’s fourth feature-length adventure—widely considered to be the series’ best (note to self: fact-check this later)—and it follows a scene in which a small squadron of Russian soldiers infiltrated Area 51, unveiled an alien corpse, and got derailed by an arthritic part-time college professor who’s so bad at his job that . . . well, these were supposed to be his office hours. So it’s safe to say that, even before the scene in question, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, like the earlier films in its series, doesn’t feel particularly beholden to realism.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON REVERSE SHOT
Review by Coolnilk ★★★½ 6

Though a fourth installment likely wasn't needed & it's arguably the weakest of the franchise altogether, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is still a moderately fun follow-up that occasionally makes a few of the more absurd aspects in it to work in its favor.
Not all of these specifically manage to work as the film boasts maybe a bit too much CG as a whole & extremely far-out cartoonish portrayals/scenarios, but when it does work at the right moments, it hits the mark relatively well by being consistently entertaining on various levels despite those faults at hand.
Harrison Ford's older rendition of the title role here is pretty solid as well, and the continuing father-son relationship from its…
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 18

84
Tired: Indy outrunning a boulder.
Wired: Indy surviving a nuclear blast via refrigerator.
Review by maria ★★½ 11

crazy how they didn't try to milk this franchise dry and make a fourth one, RIGHT??????
Review by Kenned Lehmann ★★★ 3

Pros: Harrison Ford, and a few entertaining scenes, thanks to Mr. Ford... Seriously, just Harrison Ford back as Indiana Jones and still acting the part to near perfection is enough for me to still enjoy some of the movie and give an above average rating. Didn't mind Cate Blanchett or Ray Winstone either.. I actually liked the idea of making the Communists the new Nazis.
Cons: Mutt Williams, the mcguffin and the whole alien theme of the movie, nuke the fridge, the overuse of CGI and basicly everything else more or less. I didn't care for the alien theme, it just doesn't belong in an Indiana Jones movie in my opinion. Every other mcguffin has had some sort of religious…
Review by matt lynch ★★★ 2

Obviously this isn't as alchemical as the others and certainly contains its fair share of cringes, but it's also packed with top-tier Spielberg action sequences (especially in the terrific first half) and wild, indelible images like Indy in front of the mushroom cloud or the guy getting consumed by giant killer ants (cool!). All that makes the final 30 minutes a real bummer, particularly the scowling aliens in their dipshit CGI whirlpool of knowledge, a sequence that structurally mirrors the RAIDERS finale but without any of the squeamishness or terror. Anyway, whatever, I like this, it's not as bad as everyone says. Full disclosure, I'm friends with a guy who not only helped render the infamously nuked fridge, he also worked on Devastator's balls in REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. For the record he hates both movies and thinks I'm completely out of my mind.
Review by josh lewis ★★★ 2

spielberg's classicism v lucas' retrofuturism: dawn of justice. a wild union of 30s serials, 50s b-movies and the 2000s blockbuster.
Review by Matt Singer ★★ 1

I was kind of an apologist for this one when it came out; I would have previously said maybe three stars or at least 2.5. But rewatching this again over the weekend on basic cable, I could not believe how many horrible choices (Shia LaTarzan vine swinging) and horrible choices (John Hurt as a babbling lunatic) and horrible choices (Indy and Marion bickering) and horrible choices (apparently sentient hordes of CGI killer ants) and horrible choices (endless Indiana Jones pratfalls) and horrible choices (the name "Mutt Williams") and horrible choices (the completely incoherent mythology surrounding the crystal skulls and the aliens) and horrible choices (basically every single part of the last 40 minutes) there are in this thing. And I…
Review by Mike Thorn ★★★★★ 11

"I’m in the future; Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m trying to push it to a whole different place. So, still we have a sort of tension. This recent one came out of that. It’s kind of a hybrid of our own two ideas..."
- George Lucas

Recent reviews

Review by Jacob ★★½

Indy - “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Something felt off. I can’t really pinpoint the feelings my girlfriend and I had while watching this. I’ll just say this, about the 1hr marker we were yawning countlessly and we were completely motionless. The beginning was fun. We accepted the refrigerator scene and we enjoyed Shia LaBeouf’s introduction. I’m not sure when the film got very tiring but it’s extremely apparent the flaws became overbearing. The weirdness and silliness was more annoying than it was campy and fun. Shia swinging from tree to tree, the uninteresting UFO and Aliens plot, characters that are even more uninteresting and annoyingly awkward, the bloated use of CGI, the colony of human eating ants. It all was oddly weird and terribly unbelievable. No charm, no spirit. Just another case of cash grabbing.
Review by Hollis Martin ★★

I don't have to tell you how disappointing this film is. It just is.
Review by Matt Stice ★★½

This movie is too ridiculous even by Indiana Jones standards. There’s a good film buried underneath here somewhere. I just wish it came out more.
Review by SmoothBagels ★★★★

Easily the best one in the series, in my opinion.
I'm baffled how it rates so low amongst other reviewers, there are so many great scenes in this film. To list just a few; Indie surviving a nuclear explosion by hiding in a lead-lined fridge. The millions of meat eating ants. The sword fight across multiple moving vehicles through the Amazon. A literal flying saucer traveling into another dimension! I could go on.
And what's brilliant is all of the scenes I listed above flow together so seamlessly. You dont even question that you've started with a 70 year old teacher being fired from his job, and suddenly 2 hours later aliens are burning someone alive purely from brain malfunction.…
Review by Toni Hopkins ★★

They should’ve all died after that insane car chase scene
Review by Tomei Bombadil ★★★

I personally don't think this movie is as terrible as most people say it is. It's not great either, but I don't think it's any worse than Temple of Doom, really.
Review by Luke ½

ass
Review by Fin Morris ★★

Painfully average and uninspiring with way too many scenes that far outstay their welcome.
Review by willow ★★★★

oxley was my favorite
Review by SUJIN_ ★★★½

노익장의 해리슨 포드, 여전한 오락성, 어드벤처 블록버스터의 명맥의 연장.
Review by Will Catmur ★★★

God, I'd forgotten how shit some of the stuff in this is but overall? Still an enjoyable movie
I'm intrigued by the prospect of James Mangold directing an 80-year old Indiana Jones film
Review by Nora

I've always thought Indiana Jones's son would have been sexier