OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING…
Screenplay by David Koepp
Story by George Lucas & Jeff Nathanson
Directed by Steven Speilberg
“You know, for an old man you ain’t bad in a fight. What are you, like 80?”
I grew up in the golden age.
The late 1970s / early 1980s was the era that created the summer and Christmas blockbuster extravaganza films that everyone (and I do mean everyone) takes for granted these days. But I was there, as were many of my friends, at the beginning of this magical era…when amazing franchises were created…
Star Wars, Superman, Star Trek…with E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Alien thrown in for good measure. A childhood filled with the sound of screaming TIE fighters, tough space marines, warp speed, aliens phoning home…
…and then there was Indiana Jones. It owed its legacy to an earlier, more innocent time…far more than Star Wars ever did. It was an unapologetic tribute to a style of Saturday-morning, serialized adventure that no longer existed. At least, until George Lucas and Steven Spielberg resurrected it with a vengeance.
The three Indy films were perfect…yes, even the (deservedly) much-maligned Temple of Doom. They were a troika of perfect entertainment - epic in scale, and dripping with sepia-toned wonderment. Could such stunning, creative lightning be captured one more time, nearly two decades after the last movie?
Well, for the most part, I’d have to say…yes.
THE GOOD
(1) The acting was top-flight. Harrison Ford is older, more cynical, more grizzled…but still full of the wit, the sparkle, and the boyish enthusiasm necessary to be Indy (and he’s fitter than any 65 year old man has any right to be, dammit). Shia LaBeouf matches him move-for-move as Mutt (and takes on many of the heroic traits that an older Indy now observes with wry amusement - particularly being beaten into a daze). It’s obvious that he’s being groomed as a future replacement, but it’s not intrusive, and never takes the focus away from the star of the film.
The only iffy performance is the usually reliable Cate Blanchett. As a character, Irina Spalko is about as cliched (and dominatrix-ish) a Soviet agent as you can possibly get away with on screen and not laugh at hysterically…though we are allowed to watch as Indy himself mocks her preposterous accent on our behalf. It’s why we’re not discussing this in THE BAD section of this review.
(2) Spielberg hasn’t lost his ability to deliver the roller-coaster entertainment goods. After years of dark, majestic, and very adult films, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a movie that allows him to release his childhood fantasies with giddy abandon. The actions sequences (particularly the college campus bike chase and the BRILLIANT jungle sequence) are never less than breathtaking. But he hasn’t forgotten the heart and soul of the film, as we journey with an older Indy to find a place in this new, more dangerous, post-WWII world. The quiet moments (such as the post-blacklist melancholy drinking session in Indy’s home study) are just as good - if not better - than the action set pieces.
(3) The aliens and the grand finale. You are either going to enjoy it, or believe this is the moment when the movie jumps the shark. I thoroughly enjoyed it, because (a) not only does it play into the little-green-men-1950s mindset, (b) it also subverts expectations, by offering a majestically brief glimpse of a pure, silver flying saucer…which disappears in a miasma of debris and alien energy. It simultaneously avoids B-movie cliché — offering a pure taste of standard Spielberg E.T.-isms & becoming something incredible to behold — it also takes ancient alien visitations, and integrates them well enough to be indistinguishable for any other successful ancient jungle civilization the writers might have cobbled together. It’s even a nice tip of the hat to the Von Daniken-isms that expounded on the setting of the film, back in the 1970s. In short, Indiana Jones suddenly manages to be nostalgic AND post-modern.
(4) Our requisite goo and squirm factor is AWESOMELY handled. We’ve had snakes (and we have it again in a hilarious “pseudo-rope” joke), we’ve had frozen monkey brains, and we’ve had rats…but the evil, man eating ants beat all of them, hands down. In fact, I had to cover my eyes on more than one occasion as they deliciously & disgustingly swarmed over their victims!
THE BAD
(1) The monkeys - and Mutt - swinging through the forest. It is supremely ridiculous, and the movie could have done without this sequence. Mind you, the little kids in the audience absolutely LOVED IT, and for that reason alone it’s eminently forgivable…almost!
(2) Karen Allen is very much under-used as Marion. She flashes the old, sardonic smile, displays the same charming-but-tough attitude, and can still turn on, at will, the wonderful chemistry she has with Harrison Ford…but she barely gets enough time to show off any of these wonderful characteristics.
(3) The cold war/Communist paranoia and black-list threats are laid on thick in the first act…but they’re soon forgotten. They were handled in a very competent manner, and yet…it’s as if Spielberg and Lucas quickly decided to back off from the murky politics, in case it transformed the the film into something far too grim and adult. Perhaps far too much like Raiders of the Lost Ark…?
THE IFFY
(1) The opening sequence is so unlike any of the previous films that it’s positively hallucinogenic. We’re thrust into a secret KGB operation, then suddenly we’re in action/adventure mode inside the secret warehouse…and then we’re in the surreal midst of 1950s atomic peril. Hell, we even get a glimpse of the bloody Ark of the Covenant! It’s certainly giddy and it’s certainly entertaining, but the resulting reaction to the entire sequence can be best described with a disbelieving “Oh COME ON!” That said, the tableau of Dr. Jones — framed against the rising mushroom cloud — is worthy of being a poster.
SO…WHAT’S THE VERDICT?
Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a keeper. It leans a bit too much towards the excesses of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and is neither as funny as that film, or as intense (perhaps deliberately so) as Raiders of the Lost Ark. But it’s (most assuredly) ahead of the folly that was Temple of Doom, and can sit comfortably in the company of the other films, albeit in the bronze position of the podium. It’s not perfect, but as a film that captures the enjoyment, excitement, and wonder of that 70s/80s golden age of movie making, it’s definitely worth watching.
On its own merits, it deserves a… 7
For the overall experience, and the joy of being a child once again, it deserves an… 8
