10 Films That Are As Bad As You've Heard
4. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
From the script to the casting, there’s just something about this sequel that causes it to miss the mark on every level. It was a bad sign when Sean Connery refused to reprise his role as Henry Jones Snr, but even less reassuring was the casting of Shia LaBeouf. Then there were the aliens.
While it was perfectly fine for The X-Files Movie to climax with a flying saucer breaking free and hurtling into space, it wasn’t something you expected to see in a franchise whose previous instalments rekindled the spirit of Saturday matinee serials. It felt like Lucas and Spielberg had turned into characters from Jurassic Park, pulling it off not because they should but because they could.
Throw in an overblown action sequence where Indy survives an atomic blast by jumping into a lead-lined fridge, and you’ve got a film so desperate to take your money that it will literally resort to anything. The scene even gave rise to the term “nuking the fridge”, which Time Magazine defined as “to exhaust a Hollywood franchise with disappointing sequels.”