10 Reasons Why Indiana Jones 4 Isn’t All That Bad

8. Nuking The Fridge This is another aspect that made a lot of people mad. The scene where Indy survives a nuclear test by hiding in a lead-lined fridge has become an internet meme in its own right, signifying a scene so impressive and ridiculous that everything that follows it will be automatically inferior. It€™s the cinematic equivalent of jumping the shark: as soon as it happens, it€™s all downhill from there. Or is it? First of all, Indy has cheated death in far more elaborate ways than this. He€™s avoided the angel of death from the Ark of the Covenant, almost lost his heart in a sinister ritual, nearly been crushed by a ceiling full of spikes, and only just escaped the three challenges to get to the Holy Grail. And that€™s not to mention the time he came face to face with Hitler and all he got was his autograph (there€™s a T-shirt in there somewhere). In the context of these outlandish supernatural threats (apart from Hitler) and their deliberately complicated build-ups, a nuclear bomb feels like a walk in the park. It€™s no more ridiculous than Henry Jones Sr. bringing down an aeroplane with a flock of seagulls. As with the previous point, the danger is that we care about the originals so much that we get overly defensive about them and take them too seriously. This need to constantly put the main character in increasingly desperate situations, from whence escape is improbable, is innate in the adventure genre going right back to King Solomon€™s Mines. The fridge scene is like every escape in a James Bond film: it€™s incredibly silly, but still kind of cool.