Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull: The Race With The Devil Cut

Good God - this is almost a different film! I can't recommend it enough, tbh.
I could trawl thru all the marvelous editing [dammit, it's almost a reconstruction!] on display here - but I won't, just read DK's 'Changes' tab here, it tells you everything you need to know.
I just had to make a slight deduction for 'Narrative' - no slight intended on DK's work, but it's the plot/writing of the ending - I keep expecting to see Nick (over-actor supreme!) Cage come bounding along on a National Treasure-vibe horse to the music from Close Encounters!!
WTF were they thinking with that ending??
Even the Master, DK, couldn't rescue that train-wreck but my God he gives it a great shot.
A Masterful piece of work - miss it at your peril!
;)

I really should have rewatched the original cut of this first, because I just watched the edit thinking "I thought I hated this movie? This is really pretty good. Maye I just haven't gotten to the parts I hate yet." But then they never really came, happily. Your opening song is perfect, even though I am a huge Elvis fan, your more rockabilly song established the same time period and is a cooler song. The biggest edit I actually noticed was an edit I imagined making last time I saw the uncut movie--no utterly pointless escape attempt, no quicksand scene or snake vine and of course, Indy no longer has an idiot son named Mutt. Excellent choices! The movie moves along at a great pace, it never drags and I never stop caring until the very end when it finally becomes clear at the end "The skull goes to a crystal body that is still alive and there's 12 others and they are aliens and they are going to fly away... " and there is just no edit that stays within the source material that can fix that. But you fixed everything else! I agree with you that it is almost as good as Temple of Doom now--it is only the lifeboat jump from the airplane and the mineshaft rollercoaster ride that puts Temple of Doom ahead for just being fun. But you really have taken this one right up there, much MUCH closer to the original 3!

Update 6-1-2023:
The editor made some changes and tweaks on the edit and I rewatched it yesterday. It's a very good edit, It brings out the Indy-spirit of the first three movies and makes the story a whole lot better and watchable. It's become a really streamlined edit. I adjusted my scoring.

Original review:
I knew there was a better movie somewhere in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
It's just bloated with this trying to be funny humor and scenes that add nothing but distract only from the story.

This edit achieves something great. It successfully debloats the movie. It gets rid of a lot of the sillyness and keeps just about the right amount of humor
It makes the movie tighter and concentrates on the story.
It's more in line with the other Indy movies.

It's not without some faults, but that's mainly because cutting stuff away doesn't always make for the best transistions. Though, the cuts and transistions are executed very well. For example, the removal of Mutt swinging in the jungle. It's only slightly jarring, but I couldn't have done the transistion any better and all things considered, it works, it keeps the pace going instead of slowing it down and the transition moment is quickly forgotten. It doesn't take you out of the movie, and that's the whole point.

I also noticed a small drop of audio in the beginning right before Indy guesses where Irina is from. (but this small error has been corrected by the editor)

That being said, I enjoyed a lot of the choices made in this fanedit. I had a very good evening, enjoying the Crystal Skull more than I ever did before. Thank you.