Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull

Partway through watching the new Indiana Jones movie I thought to myself, "Omigod, the writers at Mad Magazine are going to have a field day with this one." And lookie here.

The writers at Mad were my heroes when I was growing up. Two events told me I was on to something.

First, if the nuns caught you with a copy of the magazine, they'd take it away from you, and maybe rap your knuckles with a ruler, too. With the metal strip still in it. If the nuns were against it, I knew it was something that I should embrace.

And second, one summer day I read a sketch aloud to my mother that left her in stitches about a termite exterminator that reduced a house to a smoldering ruin. The exterminator killed the termites with a flame thrower. The fact that on that particular day our house was being sprayed for termites could have helped. But I learned quick that day that anything that could make my mother laugh like that was a good thing. (Editor's note: I was my mother's only son and the one joy in my life was that I could make her laugh whenever I wanted.)

Okay, now if you haven't seen the movie yet and you want to see it and don't want the whole idiotic concept behind this lame "blockbuster" blown for you, STOP READING NOW.

This is your last chance.

Stop right now.

Okay, you've been warned.

So, I'm sitting in the theater watching Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, actually for the most part enjoying the whole kind of threadbare Indiana Jones cinematic experience, and then they come up with this effing Roswell business. Aliens? Are you kidding me? Hey Steve, are you shitting me? This is the best you could come up with? Aliens? This is what lamebrains come up with when they can't think of anything else. Aliens came down and did whatever.

Are you trying to tell me me ET flew away on his bicycle, grew up somewhere, and said, I'm going back there and I'm gonna get your ass? Fucking try to kill me, mo fo.

Okay, that's bad enough.

But then, it gets a little threadbare. Marion and Indie get back together again over halfway through the movie, and the best you can do is put them in some quicksand? And turn Indie into some stupid, blathering school teacher? That's like turning Tomb Raider into Donna Reed. You should have gotten them together way early in the movie instead of inflicting that little James Dean wannabe on us, and had some steamy jungle Indie/Marion sex scenes. WTF?

You know they want to do it. Again.

There are the great chases through jungles, pure Indiana Jones good stuff. But what's missing throughout the entire movie are the quintessential Indiana Jones' moments, like when he faces some big scimitar-waving giant with a bullwhip, then in the end pulls out his gun and shoots him.

My advice? Wait for the DVD.