They should have called it quits at ‘Last Crusade’
”
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
”
starring Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf and Cate Blanchett
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And I doubt there is
any summer blockbuster that has been as anticipated as the return
of Harrison Ford in
”
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
”
They should have called it quits at ‘Last Crusade’
“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” starring Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf and Cate Blanchett
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And I doubt there is any summer blockbuster that has been as anticipated as the return of Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”
Ford held up his bargain in the movie, and looks dashingly handsome as a much older Indiana Jones. But there are so many things wrong with the film that even Cate Blanchett’s usually amazing acting couldn’t save it.
First, it seems that George Lucas, who wrote the story, and David Koepp, who wrote the screenplay, must have got confused about which film they were writing. Maybe they thought the plot was for the upcoming “X-Files” movie because there was plenty of government conspiracy and alien life force in this movie.
The movie starts out with Indiana Jones and a colleague (Ray Winstone) kidnapped by Soviet spies and taken to a government warehouse in New Mexico – Roswell, N. M. The warehouse is labeled not-so-discreetly as No. 51 and Irina Spalko – played by Cate Blanchett with a horrible Russian accent that would be better suited for a cartoon character – wants something Indy found years ago.
He knows just what to do to find the missing artifact among piles of wooden crates, and soon he is on the run from his captors as the trademark Indy music plays in the background. Before we know it, he has escaped and is back teaching classes at a New York university. We are to believe that since his last escapade in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” he has taken on a quiet life.
The quietness is short lived and soon enough he finds himself on a transcontinental adventure with a young man named Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf). The kid finds Indy after his mother goes missing in South America and sends a letter that only Dr. Jones can translate. It turns out Indiana is an old friend of Mutt’s mom, though he doesn’t remember her, and the man who became a surrogate father to the boy when his own father died in the war.
LaBeouf plays Mutt at first as an over-the-top rebel and even makes an entrance into the film that looks a lot like Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” But it’s never very clear what the boy is rebelling against and it’s especially not clear why Indiana Jones would take him straight into the face of danger on his latest adventure.
But the pair end up in Peru together on a wild goose chase for an artifact Professor Oxley (John Hurt) – the man who helped raise Mutt – claims to have found. Oxley has gone missing from a Peruvian jail, but his crazy carvings into the jail walls and floor offer clues to where Indiana Jones can find the crystal skull.
Soon enough they find Mutt’s mother, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), and Oxley. But they also find themselves trapped by the Soviet agents Indiana has already defied once in the movie. Now they are all traveling together to return a crystal skull to a lost kingdom because it promises untold power.
From this point on, the movie is pretty much one long car chase scene – with monster-size insects.
It is clear that director Steven Spielberg and the writers had some very clear intents with the film. It is a throwback to the days of radio adventure shows and 1950s movies.
The footage isn’t as crisp as movies today, as though it were shot decades ago. This is most obvious in an early scene between Mutt and Indy in a soda shop. The colors are just a little muted and there is a lot going on in the background, as though the filmmakers are trying to overcompensate to make the scene seem real. But the problem with some of the scenes, such as this one, is that there is too much going on in the background and it makes it hard to focus on the main actors.
The dialogue is all right, but it seems better suited to a comic book and an old-school radio broadcast. Indiana Jones and Mutt throw out punchy one-liners, but even that cannot save the movie.
In the end it is really the plot that throws the movie off kilter. Leave the aliens to the X-Files next time around. And for now, anyone who wants a real fix of Indiana Jones should get to Blockbuster for movie one, two or three.
