I saw Indiana Jones IV this evening. This movie has caused me to abandon a single dimensional rating scale. More on this later. First the review (some spoilers included).

The fourth instalment of Indiana Jones is for the most part an entertaining comedy adventure movie. The expectations of over the top action are met with (amongst other things) a fight in Area 51 (watch for the cameo by the Ark of the Covenant) which ends with Indy surviving a nuclear test blast inside a lead-lined fridge, fights surrounded by man-eating ants and a highly entertaining and highly implausible fight through the jungle. The trademark comedy is there and it's well timed and actually funny. Harrison Ford still retains the ability to switch between the two Indiana Jones's, the university professor and the adventuring hero. There's an awful lot to like about this movie.

And then there are the bits that aren't as good. All the Indiana Jones movies have had mythological elements to them. This time they've gone sci fi, and unfortunately it just doesn't work as well. "Interdimensional beings"? Really? I suppose we should at least be grateful that they weren't Jedi. Some of the dialogue in support of this element is just terrible. "Not space but the space between spaces"? You George Lucas owe me a new prenteniometer. It's the kind of thing that made me decide to never see Star Wars Episodes 2 or 3 after seeing Episode 1. Fortunately nothing so drastic is required here.

So on to the rating. And I can't reduce it to a single number. The good bits were very good. The bad bits were fairly bad. And they were mostly orthogonal. So I'm going to be using a two axis rating system. On one axis we have what I shall term WIN. This is a measure of how good the good bits of the movie were. On the other axis we have Lucas, which is a measure of how bad the bad bits were. Indiana Jones therefore is rated with two numbers.

WIN: 8.2
Lucas: 4.5

Clearly Indiana Jones IV has much to recommend it, warranting the high 8.2 score. The various bad elements of the plot aren't as sizeable, giving it a 4.5 on the Lucas scale. Conclusion: It's a lot of fun, even if there are some poor elements. Go see it.