Are you ready for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It starts this Thursday May 22

Indy’s ‘Crystal Skull’ full of bugs, fist fights and an A-bomb

By Bob Longino | Sunday, May 18, 2008, 03:18 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The fourth Indiana Jones movie features lots of the familiar — the brown hat, the whip and having to make one’s way with a lighted torch through creepy tunnels full of cobwebs and muck. But it’s also full of things even Indy’s never seen before. Like an exploding atomic bomb.

“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” among this summer’s most anticipated movies, debuted Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival and was also screened for the media in Atlanta and other U.S. cities. It opens in theaters on Thursday.

Rated PG-13, the film is full of bugs and fist fights, totes a little blood and delivers at least one well-placed, nighttime boo scare. Parents can expect the same level of violence, intensity and frights found in the first three Indy movies.

A stalwart Harrison Ford, packing his trademark smirk, returns in the title role in a story set in 1957, some 20 years after the third film. He fights plenty of Russians and the occasional South American native while hunting for a crystal skull that could open the door to otherworldly answers to mystic questions.

The action scenes are plentiful and involve multiple truck wars (remember “Raiders of the Lost Ark”?), a big-city motorcycle chase and a good, old-school fist fight.

Here’s what fans will likely be talking about after “Skull” opens on Thursday:

CATE BLANCHETT: Sounding a little like a female Boris Badenov, the multiple scene stealer dons a pageboy haircut and swaggers her way through the movie as Irina Spalko, the evil Russian psychic/scientist and Indy’s main nemesis. She spouts Communism and mind-control ideals as though she’s a pod-person in one of the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” movies.

THE SUPPORTING CAST: Karen Allen returns from the first film as Indy’s love interest, Marion. Shia LaBeouf enters all cocky and full of himself as though he’s Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” Later on in the film, he softens his character.

THE WEAPONS: More than one rapier, poison darts, machine guns, bolos, a switchblade and a tree limb.

THE PESTS: Scorpions, a long, long rat snake and what looks like hundreds of thousands of army ants.

THE HOMAGES: There are tips of the hat to Sean Connery (Indy’s dad in “The Last Crusade”) and the late Denholm Elliott (he played Dr. Marcus Brody in the first and third films). Those who keep their eyes glued to the screen will also get a glimpse at a very familiar treasure.

Are you looking forward to seeing the new Indiana Jones movie?

Click YouTube below for a trailer of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.