Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

Ungainly title aside, the fourth film in the Indiana Jones series (and the first one since 1989), brings the legendary character into the 21st century largely unchanged from when we last met him, which starts things off on a pretty hopeful note. However, the increasingly tiresome machinery that drives your typical "summer blockbuster" can't help but make this reintroduction to an old friend an ultimately soulless and suspense-free adventure: in effect, no different than riding the old Iron Dragon coaster at Cedar Point.

This isn't to say that I despised this movie (nor do I hate that particular roller coaster for that matter), but my expectations for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull were apparently set far too high and the resulting ride, while not unpleasant, was still just a ride, and not a particularly memorable one at that. As far as its place in the franchise is concerned, Crystal Skull isn't the worst of the bunch (that distinction is still held by the ungodly excruciating Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom), but it was nowhere near as satisfying as Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, never mind the original action classic Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

Frustratingly, Crystal Skull starts off looking like it just might be up to the standards set by two-thirds of the original trilogy. The opening 45 minutes of the movie is easily the best stretch, beginning in the typical James Bond fashion that the series holds dear. We meet up with Indiana Jones being held prisoner by a gaggle of Russian soldiers led by Cate Blanchett (doing her best Nastasha Badenov impersonation). The Russians are in search of a special box hidden away in a vast Army supply warehouse (you can see the inevitable sight gag coming here from a mile away), and Jones reluctantly assists them before making a break for it and kicking off the first of many stunts and special effects set pieces to come.

Once Jones is safely back at his day job, we are gradually brought up to speed on what's been happening in his life over the previous twenty years (which apparently have passed in real time). As a decorated WWII hero and "part-time" teacher, Jones may be flintier with the passage of years but is still tough enough to believably hold his own in fistfights with men a third of his age, and it's a pleasure to see him on the silver screen again. Now paired up with teenager "Mutt" Williams (a rebellious, leather-clad hellion straight out of The Wild Bunch), Jones heads into the jungles of South America for unexpected reunions with an old flame and an older colleague, while tracking down the artifact that is the namesake of the movie.

It is at this juncture that Crystal Skull starts to veer sharply away from the other three films silly to the extent that it becomes the cartooniest of the Indiana Jones films by some distance (especially when you get to the nonsensical jungle jeep chase sequence and the attack of the CG ants), which would be of no major issue if it weren't for the plot, which ultimately transports the film to a place uncomfortably close to The X-Files (and tell me you didn't think of that one while eyeballing the CG-heavy climax of this film) or Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Luckily, the tone remains light throughout, avoiding the morbid excesses of Temple Of Doom, with the only "darkness" appearing early on during an eerie sequence set in a fake suburban development built in the middle of nowhere for a very specific purpose.

In the end, my feelings regarding this film aren't that dissimilar from, say, Spider-Man 3 (or any of the three Star Wars prequels, for that matter) in that commercial concerns were apparently far more important than making a movie that was worth a two decade wait. Is this really the best Spielberg and Lucas could come up with (considering they've been knocking this idea around for nineteen years while waiting for "the right script" to appear)? I went back and viewed the original trilogy to have something to compare Crystal Skull to and eventually came to the conclusion that, despite the relentless action sequences that keep you in your seat over the two-hour plus running time, this is a movie almost completely lacking the charm and writing that made the first and third entries in this series so enjoyable (I am also getting increasingly exasperated with obvious CG gimmickry, but that is an entire separate post in itself).

Ah well, here's hoping Wall*E and The Dark Knight (the only other two movies I am really excited about seeing this summer) prove to be more worthy of the hype than this one. Much as it pains me to say, make sure you catch Crystal Skull as a matinée or simply hold your fire and wait for a DVD rental: it just ain't worth ten bucks a seat.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull rating 3/5