A spoiler-heavy rumination on why Kingdom of the Crystal Skull failed

One of the main themes in my review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was that this installment, unlike its predecessors, lacked any sense of danger or importance. While I maintain that that holds true, I think there might be another angle at play that might have saved the film notwithstanding the missing danger: the lack of drama altogether.

But they were driving on cliffs and pouring off waterfalls in an amphibious car, you might say. Well, this goes beyond that. Even in the first two sequels, the creators managed to take the characters and the audience to places and put into situations that surprised us upon their arrival. Characters turned up and double-twisted not only the heroes but the audience as well. This time around, though, it seems as though the only people in the theater that weren't aware of what was going to happen next were Indiana and gang.

Let's look at some examples:

Before the film even started, there's a good chance that you knew Shia LaBeouf was playing a character that would end up being Indiana's son (those chances multiply if you run a film blog or follow movies with any regularity, I'm guessing; a casual movie fan might not have known or cared). Had Karen Allen not been involved in the project (and really, outside of the sappy ending, did she really need to be?), perhaps the telegraphing of the father/son reveal wouldn't have been so obvious, but with Allen and a young man named Mutt present, it was a foregone conclusion that a fourth-grader could have most likely picked up on.

Then there's the alien subplot. Say what you will about Indiana Jones, professor of archaeology getting tied up in a Twilight Zone plot, but what's worse is that yet another "big reveal" (that the crystal skull belonged to "inter-dimensional" beings) was news only to those onscreen. Once the location of New Mexico and the setting of "Hanger 51" were shown, where else could the plot have been leading, as if the multiple clues along the way weren't enough (the charred remains). Hell, at one point, Blanchett's baddie even shows Jones the contents of that magnetic coffin!

Even a minor twist like Ray Winstone's final flip to the "dark side" was painted with wide brush strokes for the audience. Aside from him never shutting up about money and fame - the downfall of just about every Jones villain before him - were the shots of Blanchett picking up his leftover tracking beacons really necessary? Sure, one might argue that the audience would question how the Soviets found the gang inside the pyramid, but that easily could have been answered after the fact. Instead, we were left with yet another piece of knowledge known by only by us.

All this may seem obvious, pointless and somewhat rudimentary, but think to yourself: how much different might the experience of this latest chapter have been had we in the audience not been the knowing party to all the elements of the story before the characters were? What if things just went along with Indy "making things up as he goes along" with us none the wiser about the possibilities of the story? I'd think that, after almost two decades, that wouldn't be an unreasonable request of Spielberg and Lucas. Apparently, I was wrong.