6. Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)
The Indiana Jones franchise is made up of some of the most beloved action-adventure movies ever made. Unfortunately, the fourth entry, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is not one of those movies. Crystal Skull is almost universally lambasted as a misguided and poorly-made continuation that failed to understand what made the first three movies great, and a big part of that is down to the film’s ending.
After being sent on the hunt for a Crystal Skull in order to thwart the malicious plans of Soviet KGB agents, Indiana Jones finds himself embroiled in the discovery of the lost city of Akator. While discovering the ruins of an ancient city is certainly in keeping with the Indiana Jones franchise, everything else about Crystal Skull‘s ending is decidedly not. In fact, Crystal Skull‘s ending is one of the main reasons that the Indiana Jones movie franchise is so underrated today – it retroactively taints the previous films just by featuring the same character.
Maybe that sounds a little extreme, but there’s some truth in it. The film’s notorious ending explains that the skull belongs to an alien, and returning it allows the aliens to finally leave Earth in their giant spaceship. What’s more, the spaceship was the only thing holding Akator together, and when it leaves the entire city is destroyed – so destroyed that no evidence of its existence can be recovered. Crystal Skull‘s ending borrows elements of previous Indiana Jones movies, slaps a sci-fi twist in there, and seemingly hopes for the best. Quite simply, it’s an ending so dumb that it’s practically insulting, and it serves as a very good reason for the movie to be so widely despised.