...playful and entertaining, even if it looks, deliberately, as though we've seen it all before.
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Note: In the following joint review both John and Jason provide their opinions on the film, with John also writing up the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Thoughts.
The Film According to John:
It's no "Raiders of the Lost Ark." But what movie is? Nor is it another "Temple of Doom" or "Last Crusade." None of us is as young as we used to be, and it's hard to recapture the pleasures of the past, especially when those pleasures were as bright and bracing as they were in 1981's "Raiders" and its two immediate sequels. What a lot of people forget is that while director Steven Spielberg and co-writer and executive producer George Lucas attempted in "Raiders" to make a movie based on all the old-time serials and cliff-hangers they remembered from their youth, they did so in an entirely new and refreshing way. They practically reinvented the adventure-movie genre, and "Raiders" went on to spawn not only the three sequels we have now but a host of other adventure films that continue to this day.
In 2008's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" Spielberg and Lucas, after an absence from the series of nineteen years, tried to recover some of the old spark. If they didn't entirely succeed, it wasn't for lack of trying.
The fact is, though, that by now we've all become so used to the action-adventure epic that Spielberg and Lucas helped create, it's hard even for them to top themselves. As a result, much of "The Crystal Skull" seems tired or recycled. Yet that is, I'm sure, exactly what the filmmakers wanted. It's supposed to remind viewers of the old days, and it does so at almost every turn.
Needless to say, the most important ingredient in the movie series is back: Harrison Ford as Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr., archaeologist and adventurer supreme. I don't believe either of the filmmakers ever considered getting someone to replace Ford; he's the picture's greatest asset, regardless of his age. Indeed, they made Ford's mid-sixties age an integral part of the movie, poking good-natured fun at it and heading off critics before they could make it an issue. The very first time we see Indy, for instance, the filmmakers purposely have him looking grizzled--disheveled and unshaven--in an effort to show him right off at his worst. Get used to it, they're saying; we're all older (but better).
Happily, Ford is as spry as ever, and his derring-do seems as plausible (or implausible) as ever. Sure, he's older, but who cares. He remains the best part of the show, which, unfortunately, still seems weary despite Ford's tireless energy. I think it may have something to do with the times having changed, and maybe Spielberg and Lucas finding it hard to keep up. The fact is, films like "Romancing the Stone," "National Treasure 1 and 2," even the "Die Hard" saga have set the mark pretty high for humorous adventure thrillers, and even the talents of Spielberg and Lucas aren't limitless. Now, with the advent of CGI and computer graphics replacing a lot of the old physical stunt work, the filmmakers must have found themselves hard pressed to surpass their old glories. And they don't. Instead, they seem content merely to imitate past brilliance. I rather suspect it's what Indy fans wanted all along, in any case.
OK, it's been nineteen years since the last installment, which had taken place around 1938, just before the onset of World War II, and the filmmakers were smart enough to realize that Ford and company could not pretend that time hadn't marched on; there would be no more fighting Nazis. They wisely set their story two decades later, in 1957. A lot of things had happened in the meantime, which the plot reveals in casual, incidental ways, things like our learning that Indy was a hero in WWII, while he continued teaching and doing his archaeological work.
What had changed in the passing decades? Just as the filmmakers had made the earlier movies relevant to the late 1930s, they had to make "Crystal Skull" relevant to the 1950s. Accordingly, they included the important cultural icons of the period. There was by then the Cold War and the Russian Communists. There was the atomic bomb. There were the reports of UFOs that Hollywood had capitalized on since the days of the Roswell incident and pilot Kenneth Arnold's "flying saucers." There were the KGB and Nazca lines and mind control and alien beings. Naturally, Spielberg and Lucas seized on these ideas for their plot elements.
Yet, they needed a central object, a rare and sacred artifact, for Indy to pursue. They had already used the Ark of the Covenant, the fabled Shankara Stones, and the Holy Grail. What did they have left? They could have gone with the Spear of Longinus, I suppose, but that might have been too much like the Grail. They chose, instead, the mysterious crystal skulls, which some people claim are pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts of great spiritual significance. The fact that a number of such skulls, some undoubtedly real and some fakes, already exist in the hands of collectors must have seemed beside the point. Therefore, we have Indy going off seeking the crystal skull of all crystal skulls, one that holds the secret of an ancient city of gold and arcane inter-dimensional beings.
"Chariots of the Gods, man!" --"The Thing"
The movie sets a tongue-in-cheek tone from the beginning by having the Paramount mountain logo turn into a prairie-dog mound. That's pretty cute. Then the filmmakers establish the time period by having a group of young people driving a hot rod while listening to Elvis's "Hound Dog." After that, we get the first opening sequence in the "Indy" series that actually has something to do with what comes later in the story. (Previous opening segments bore only passing relationships to what followed.)
With some old friends of the series no longer available for the new film (Sean Connery--Indy's father in "The Last Crusade"-- chose not come out of retirement; Denholm Elliott--Marcus Brody--had passed away; and John Rhys-Davies--Sallah--is nowhere in sight), the filmmakers recruited a few new faces, as well as an old one. The new faces include Shia LaBeouf as Mutt Williams, Indy's rebellious, long-lost son, showing up as a Marlon Brando "Wild One" look-alike; Jim Broadbent as Charles Stanforth, Indy's new college dean; Ray Winstone as "Mac" McHale, one of Indy's old adventuring companions; John Hurt as Professor Harold "Ox" Oxley, an intrepid archaeologist and close friend of the Jones family; and Cate Blanchett as Col. Dr. Irina Spalko, a nefarious, psychic harpy who seems patterned after James Bond villainesses like Rosa Kleb ("From Russia with Love") and Irma Bunt ("On Her Majesty's Secret Service), though less convincing. The returning face is Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood, Indy's old flame from "Raiders," and, it turns out, Mutt's mother. Allen's Marion is as plucky and feisty as ever and makes a welcome return to the series.
And the script gives its characters a few good one-liners: "Put your hands down, will you? You're embarrassing us," says Indy to Mac when armed baddies surround them. "What are you, like, eighty?" Mutt asks Indy. And when Indy shows his prowess in a fistfight, Mutt exclaims, "You're a teacher?" Indy answers, "Part time."
The fact is, though, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" not only has an unwieldy title, it has far too much going on it. Where the older films concentrated on a simple plot line--Indy chasing an artifact--this one gets tangled up with too many bad guys, too many peripheral characters, and too many narrative contrivances. By the time it's over, the filmmakers have thrown in everything but the kitchen sink, a problem that plagued Lucas's last few "Star Wars" sequels as well.
Nuking the fridge becomes a defining moment in "The Crystal Skull," reminding us that this one is going more for silliness than for thrills. Nevertheless, the thrills are there, and some of them are spectacular. There's the usual globe-trotting to exotic locales; the usual assortment of high-octane chases and melodramatic encounters; the usual variety of unpleasant wildlife (snakes, ants, scorpions); the usual plethora of creepy-crawly dark places; the usual quota of ravishing scenery, most of it showing up in the last third of the picture; and the usual razzle-dazzle climax, this one reminiscent of the supernatural ending in "Raiders" but done up even more theatrically. Meanwhile, you'll still hear the strains of the familiar John Williams musical score playing almost continuously in the background.
Everything you see in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is very much the same as you remember it from previous episodes, so it won't disappoint old fans. The movie just never does anything particularly unusual or precedent-setting to position itself above its competition these days. It's still fun, mind you, but not as much fun as we might have hoped.
John's film rating: 7/10
The Film According to Jason:
The fedora is back. The whip is back. John Williams, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford are all back. Hell, even Karen Allen is back. So what's missing from the fourth "Indiana Jones" adventure? The fun, the old-school feeling, the maniacal villain.
There is a fabled Crystal Skull, which, when returned to its proper resting place, will unlock the secrets of a golden city, bestowing untold power on the recipient. Of course, Dr. Henry Jones (Ford) falls into the search for it and the city after being targeted by the government. He was kidnapped and used to get inside a high-security compound housing artifacts. The Russians, led by Irina Spalko (a wasted Cate Blanchett), are after a mummified corpse for an unspecified purpose. Jones is dragged into the fray by a young whippersnapper (Shia LaBeouf), the son of his former flame, Marion Ravenwood (Allen from the first film). With Spalko hot on their heels, the group sets out on one more adventure.
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is a movie out of its time. Others have taken the same concept, notably the "National Treasure" films, and recreated the fun attitude of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." In a word, the film is flat, relying on brief comedic moments pilfered from the rest of the series instead of creating new gags or memories. After an entire film of batting away references to his lineage, is there any reason for Jones to call Mutt (LaBeouf) "Junior" other than to invoke Sean Connery in "The Last Crusade?" Why, in the opening action sequence, does the script bother to drop references--and a brief glimpse--of the Ark of the Covenant? And why does Ford get the ubiquitous line, "I have a bad feeling about this"?
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]24624[/release]