I've been trying to figure out why this movie doesn't work.

There are action scenes that should be good, but aren't very intense. The plot is mostly ok, with a few flubs, but I could live with that. Even Mutt is quite tolerable (I expected Anakin II).

I want to blame Lucas for a lame alien plot, but you know, it does sort of work in the time period it takes place.

I want to blame Spielberg for failing to articulate the story in the white-knuckle manner we are accustomed, but the action seems to move along well.

I want to blame Harrison Ford for agreeing to Lucas & Spielberg's crap, and looking generally jowly, but I was never afraid he was going to break a hip.

I've decided the blame rests squarely with Janusz Kaminski. His shot composition is terrible. He frequently fails to emphasize the action on the screen, almost like he didn't know where his camera was pointing. For example: the tree cutting blades, the door being blown at Area 51, Mutt jumping vehicles, etc.

It's obvious whoever was responsible could not compose action shot to save their life.

Also, who else is there to blame for the high dynamic range/light blooming? I'd SAY the cinematographer is responsible, but I suppose with so much green screening it could have been Spielberg.

Spielberg MAY have been responsible for the problems in this film, but I don't believe that after all these years Spielberg forgot how to direct. I'm thinking if we see an Indy 5 it'll have a different DP... or it will suck too.

That being said, in the example scenes I mentioned (and several other), an edit would benefit from strategic cropping/resizing to shift the focus to the action.

Going from an HD source would make this possible, and could fix a lot of the dull action beats.