Editorials > Introducing the Phrase "Nuke the Fridge"

That's right. Three decades after its little brother TV first earned the term "to jump the shark," cinema finally has an equivalent phrase of its own, courtesy of no less than Steven Spielberg, perhaps the most successful filmmaker of all time. The Urban Dictionary has recently received a number of submissions for "nuke the fridge," which is defined as follows:

Nuke the fridge is a colloquialism used to refer to the moment in a film series that is so incredible that it lessens the excitement of subsequent scenes that rely on more understated action or suspense, and it becomes apparent that a certain installment is not as good as a previous installments, due to ridiculous or low quality storylines, events or characters.

The term comes from the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which, near the start of the movie, Harrison Ford's character survives a nuclear detonation by climbing into a kitchen fridge, which is then blown hundreds of feet through the sky whilst the town disintegrates. He then emerges from the fridge with no apparent injury. Later in the movie, the audience is expected to fear for his safety in a normal fistfight. 

I personally like the term and how it succinctly sums up a lot of complaints against the most recent "Indiana Jones" movie. It will be interesting to see if this passes into common use the way "jump the shark" has.

(Slashfilm, FilmDrunk) 

-David Morgan