INDIANA JONES - 18 Years for This?

I'm a huge Indiana Jones fan.  The first movie is one of the great action films of all time, and the rest, for all their flaws, are eminently enjoyable.  Which is why the last movie was so disappointing.  It was a popcorn movie, but I expected better from everyone involved, especially since it was so long between movies.  If we're going to wait 18 years and go out with one more movie, this was it?

I'm not even going to nitpick some of the goofy stuff, like the gophers.  I'll let them go.   The script had several major problems.

SPOILERS HO!!!!

One, the setup is clunky.  Indy's in trouble.  There are Russians after alien corpses.  Indy escapes the Russkies.  The government fires him from his university job.  He goes looking for the skull with his son.  He's not sure if he should return it where he found it or bring it to the lost city.  Blah blah blah.  Jeez.  That's confusing.  How about this instead?

You open with the current setpieces (Area 51 and the atomic bomb test) as Indy evades the Russians.  But the baddies grab the crystal skull from Area 51.  The FBI comes to Indy -- there are 13 crystal skulls.  The Russians have 12 -- if they get the last one, they get the power of the skulls; it's like the Ark on crack.  They'd take over the world.  Indy says -- so you need my help?  They say yeah, point us where the last one is, we're gonna go get it.  Without you.  You're too old.  And then Indy hooks up with Indy, Jr. and goes looking for the final skull to save Professor So-and-So and the world.  And has difficulty pulling off the tasks by himself because he is too old.  He has to rely on Mutt (really, that's what you named him?) to help him out.  It's a much cleaner setup, and it establishes a problem for Indy -- how can he save the world when he's getting on in years?  It also intertwines a minor arc for Mutt -- how he goes from being a rebellious punk to a hero taking direction from Indiana Jones.  You have some conflict built in -- Indy and Mutt butting heads over giving/taking orders, Mutt and Indy's whole relationship changing when they realize they're father and son, etc.  All of which is better than what played out onscreen.

Other major flaws include the double-agenting of Ray Winstone, which matters not at all in the film except for which Jeep he happens to be riding in; the fact that Karen Allen has nothing to do other than to get all misty-eyed when Indy pays attention to her; and that nobody even bothered to give an arc to Indy, Jr.   So there's no emotional journey for anyone in the film, just chasing around and some action setpieces leading up to a murkily defined climax.

Throw in the most thoroughly unimpressive bad guy in the series and the fact that the ending manages to rip off both RAIDERS (in that Indy does nothing and the bad guy's head catches on fire; although in RAIDERS, it was at least novel and Indy proved he knew what he was doing by averting his eyes) and LAST CRUSADE (in that Ray Winstone greedily grabs for gold while a pyramid falls on his head) and you've got a movie that's instantly forgettable.

Obviously Steven Spielberg can direct, and David Koepp has writtten some of the best genre films out there, including SPIDER-MAN.  So it's hard to understand why we got the movie we did.

Here's hoping Indy 5 is better.