Indiana Jones movie about Peru is boring and racist

We were supposed to see "Sex and the City" but we couldn't get tickets because they were sold out. So my friends and I decided to go for “Indiana Jones and the Legend of the Crystal Skull” thinking that it could be fun to watch.

Besides, all the fuzz about Peru being part of the story had me a bit excited about it. Oh man I didn't know what I was about to see.

The movie was crap, really. It was boring, silly, with plenty of non sense violence, but even worse it was extremely racist. It bothered us so much, that we were about to walk out in the middle of it.

The movie has the same lame plot than its previous versions: crazy bad people trying to steal a secret treasure that only Indiana Jones knows how to obtain. Gun shots and never-ending fights are common elements of this film.

Its main characters and scenes seem taken from a comedy movie or a video game. Some of the computer animation scenes, including a non-sense car race in the middle of the Amazon forest and a walk through a Maya temples located in Peru (!) Somehow the scenes made me feel like I was in the middle of a video game. Also the beauty of the water falls was amazing and I think those were the Iguazu falls in Paraguay.

Now let me warn you: if you are a sensitive person about cultural and historical issues, then you will dislike this movie with all your guts. Simply don't waste your money.

Russians are presented as evil, brutal people as they become again the "bad guys" of Hollywood. The movie suggested that the story happened in the early 1950s, and I think it was necessary to show the Soviets with exaggerated accents as they spoke, while acting like robotic, sadistic and alcohol addicted individuals.

About Peru

When this movie was being filmed, Peruvian authorities and community groups prevented Steven Spielberg and his producers from recording some scenes in Machu Picchu, the sacred citadel built by the Quechua people during the Inca rule.

Apparently the Indiana Jones movie team has gotten back to Peruvians: in the film Peru is shown as a dirty, primitive country and its people are presented as retarded, lazy people walking around wearing really old looking traditional clothes and in need of a good laundry wash.

Perhaps most Americans that never go overseas might think that Peru and Peruvians are the way we are shown in this movie: the city of Nasca has a trashy airport full of chickens running around, and the beautiful Cusco has a chaotic and filthy market with crazy people laying on the mud of tiny streets. And somehow both are at the same place.

In reality Nasca is a small town with a small but clean airport located in the Andean coastal desert of Peru. It's located thousands of miles away from Cusco, a historical and beautiful city that lays at the heart of the Andes mountains. It couldn't get more ridiculous when they showed a Peruvian city while Mexican music was played in the background. Oh, and Mayans lived in South America.My goodness, I was thinking: "que estupidos..."

The worst part of the movie is its racism. Indigenous peoples are presented with the same racist fashion of Mel Gybson's Apocalypto. Here you can see Native Peruvians running around as savage, crazy, scary-looking folks fighting against an old-but-strong Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) at a temple with a Maya architecture style.

Those who don't know Peru or Peruvians well enough will get a really bad idea about us, even if we are talking about a fiction film.

Racist

In this movie Brown people are presented in such offensive ways, and not once but several times. We are bad, mean, stupid and evil. Good thing there is a happy ending: after Indiana Jones gets reunited with his family -including a son he never met before- he gets married in an white-walled church with an all-white crowd. What a victorious scene after defeating all dark-skinned evil creatures!

Sixteen century Hispanic invaders are shown as heroic people and its suggested that the Indigenous peoples from the Andes (or the Mayans of Central America by association) were not capable of building their amazing temples and cities.

Brown people just couldn't be able to construct such amazing structures, no way! Aliens from other planets had to do it. And to prove that theory, there was an all-white team lead by a British guy who led -even if he was nuts- an American family, most of whom were college educated scholars.

During the final scene, while the happily married couple kisses each other, one can see the flag of the United States in the background, shown carefully in the center of the screen. This was set in the 1950's but somehow it made me feel as if things haven't changed since then: patriotism is used as a way to excuse any kind of violence and lies.

Steven Spielberg, who directed the movie, is a Jewish American and he should be ashamed of himself. Perhaps he forgot the consequences of racism and discrimination that his ancestors faced.

Well, some people won't change as long as we continue buying their racist crappy movies. Simply, don't go to see this movie.


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