BOOKS AND ARTS MAY 22, 2008
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a trip down memory lane so twisty that one could easily get lost. The movie is a throwback, of course, to the Indy trilogy of the 1980s, which was itself a throwback to the pulp serials of the 1930s and ’40s. But, with the action now set in 1957 (19 years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, itself released 19 years ago), it also carries a whiff of writer George Lucas’s 1973 breakthrough American Graffiti and its TV cousin “Happy Days,” themselves sentimental reminiscences of the ’50s and early ’60s. (The opening scene, in fact, features an impromptu drag race whose only discernable purpose is remind us that Harrison Ford got his movie-star start hot-rodding in Graffiti.) If that weren’t enough, the movie hearkens back to director Steven Spielberg’s ’70s oeuvre as well, specifically--well, I’m not going to say. But when a film starts off in Area 51, you pretty much know where it’s going to end up.
Even as the movie occasionally trips over its nostalgias, it’s still a likable, if unremarkable, entertainment, a pleasant echo of past delights. Credit Ford, who for the first time in a good while shows that he can still carry a big film. (We should all be so spry at 65.) And, most of all credit Spielberg, whose sheer technical expertise guides the movie over numerous rough patches. (Not so much Lucas, who reportedly insisted on the goofy sci-fi storyline and wanted to push it still further. His dream version no doubt concluded with Indy & Co. battling the Hutts on Tatooine.)
Befitting the period, Nazi antagonists have been replaced by Soviet ones (though apart from chief baddie Cate Blanchett’s accent, it’s hard to tell the difference), and our hero gets a rather rough introduction to the atomic age. But the comforting tropes of the franchise are all still there: the dark crypts and dense jungles; the creepy crawlers (scorpions, a snake, and some exceptionally irritable ants); the blowdart- and bola-wielding natives; the fisticuffs conducted across several vehicles in the midst of a high-speed pursuit; and, of course, cinema’s most immediately recognizable musical couplet: bum-pa-dum-dum, bum-pa-dum.
The movie does sag a bit in places. It’s nice to see Karen Allen again as Indy’s lost love, Marion Ravenwood, but their romantic sparring is not nearly as sharp as it was 27 years ago. And while partnering Indy with Marion’s twentysomething son “Mutt”--an inside joke for those who remember where the nickname “Indiana” came from--is hardly the disaster it might have been, when it comes to intergenerational accomplices, Shia LaBeouf is no Sean Connery. (Though here, too, credit Spielberg and LaBeouf for rescuing the character from what I assume to be Lucas’s over-the-top, Fonzish parody: the leather jacket, the motorcycle, the hair-trigger combing of his pomaded ducktail--all that’s missing is the mystical dominion over jukeboxes.) John Hurt also shows up as an old archeological colleague whose brain has been fried by the titular skull, and Ray Winstone tags along as an on-again, off-again frenemy, earning perhaps the movie’s best exchange. (Indy: “So you’re a triple agent?” Him: “No, I just lied about being a double agent.”)
The plot is hastily cobbled, serving mostly as a means of getting Indy from Point A (Nevada) to Point B (a mythical lost city in the Amazon) with as many action sequences along the way as possible. These set pieces benefit from Spielberg’s playful choreography--a fight that goes from motorcycle to car and out the other side to motorcycle again is particularly clever--though they’re at their best when they forego CGI in favor of human stunts. (Like Tarantino’s Death Proof last year, the film is a powerful reminder of the virtues of flesh over pixels.)
Equally crucial, Spielberg had the sense to hold his movie to a reasonable length: If ever there seemed a likely candidate for cinematic bloat, it was this film, with its two-decade gestation and over-syllabled title, but it wraps things up in just under two hours. Said wrap-up is, regrettably, the weakest part of the film, with a finale both too familiar and too far-fetched, and an epilogue much limper than necessary. Still, despite its many shortcomings, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull leaves in its wake the contented glow of an evening out with a friend you’d forgotten how much you missed. As Indy chides Marion at one point, “Same old, same old.” Thank goodness.
Christopher Orr is a senior editor at The New Republic.
14 comments
- munesh
May 23, 2008 at 12:37am
Your anti Lucas comments sour your review as if you have a personal angst against the man that created Indiana Jones.
- munesh
May 23, 2008 at 12:39am
"Personal angst"?
- drdannyu
May 23, 2008 at 10:46pm
The movie jumped the shark at about the midpoint. Lucas is too over the top. At least we didn't have a Jar Jar Binks cameo.
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May 24, 2008 at 10:59am
The MacGuffin was terrible, as were both endings. I told my brother that this movie was 40% good and 60% lame, which feels about right. There were a number of lines in this that were no doubt cringeworthy. Chris, I think you might not have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark or Last Crusade lately, but those movies were far superior to this one. Easily, this is equivalent to Tempe of Doom, another movie that Lucas reportedly ruined.
- kerouac9
May 24, 2008 at 11:26pm
The camio by the Ark itself was alone worth the price of admission. But when Indiana sat at his desk and looked at his Father and colleges dead portraits the pall of mortality, the regret of age, the pain of time was so intense for me it was almost physical. Were they ever so young?
- Minnesota
May 25, 2008 at 2:52am
"Credit Ford, who for the first time in a good while shows that he can still carry a big film." Feh. Harrison Ford couldn't act his way out of a wet paper back. Never could. His sole contribution to cinematic art has been to prove the unlikely hypothesis that IS in fact possible to bring an air of discomfort and embarrassment to EVERY situation. Whether his character is about to schtupp a beautiful woman, secure a legal triumph, shoot the baddie that has threatened his family in the face, or lay his hands on the Holy Grail, the single emotion he consistently projects is shyness. In every frame his face says, "Please stop looking at me." My 6-year-old is hot to see the new Indie picture, and in preparation I rented Temple of Doom (Bad mistake, WAY too violent for the yunguns) and there's a seduction scene with Ford and Kate Capshaw that is just plain laughable. The writer--George Lucas?--whips up some fairly cornball but non-the-less randy badinage a la Bogart and Bacall, and Ford is simply unable to carry it off. He seems like he'd rather curl up with a copy of Boys Life then throw the willing Ms. Capshaw onto the bed.
- aeromonas
May 25, 2008 at 7:54am
As much as I love the IJ films, there were several "jumping the shark" moments for me. It started with Indy surviving the nuclear bomb in the refrigerator, continued with the Shia 'becoming a monkey' scene, and culminated in them surviving ridiculous waterfalls three times in a row.
- rp
May 25, 2008 at 4:01pm
I think it's more that he has a personal angst against the man that destroyed Star Wars. It's pretty clear from the Ford comment linked to that a lot of what people have found fault with in the movie is due to Lucas.
- mcdoniel
May 25, 2008 at 4:40pm
This movie was so bad in so many ways. I was willing to like it flaws and all but it was just too hard. Lucas killed it with all his wanting to live out glory days of "American Graffiti" and "Close Encounters". Come on, give the audience some credit. The movie insults the intelligence of its audience and disappoints long Indy fans. What the hell happened to Karen Allen? No wonder we haven't seen her onscreen in ages. She hasn't aged well which wouldn't have mattered if her acting hadn't been so bad as well. Where was the telltale John Williams music throughout to help build some suspense? I came home after seeing this horrible film and watched the first Indy movie and the contrast was startling. What happened to Spielberg and Lucas......are they suffering from dementia? No one wants to see "alien" themes. The best ones were when "the wrath of God" power pervails. Where were all the puzzles? Too much CGI. Too bad. What a waste of time, talent and money. What a let-down.
- SueChef
May 26, 2008 at 1:56pm
This movie was so bad in so many ways. I was willing to like it flaws and all but it was just too hard. Lucas killed it with all his wanting to live out glory days of "American Graffiti" and "Close Encounters". Come on, give the audience some credit. The movie insults the intelligence of its audience and disappoints long Indy fans. What the hell happened to Karen Allen? No wonder we haven't seen her onscreen in ages. She hasn't aged well which wouldn't have mattered if her acting hadn't been so bad as well. Where was the telltale John Williams music throughout to help build some suspense? I came home after seeing this horrible film and watched the first Indy movie and the contrast was startling. What happened to Spielberg and Lucas......are they suffering from dementia? No one wants to see "alien" themes. The best ones were when "the wrath of God" power pervails. Where were all the puzzles? Too much CGI. Too bad. What a waste of time, talent and money. What a let-down.
- SueChef
May 26, 2008 at 1:56pm
Many thanks for the typically sharp comments. I don't disagree with most of the criticisms, but perhaps had lower expectations than some. It's not a good movie on its own terms but, for me at least, cleared the post-Star Wars bar of not being an offensive disgrace, and as such was a suitable, intermittently entertaining, vessel for cinematic nostalgia.
- Chris Orr
May 27, 2008 at 9:16pm
A few of my Northwestern buddies and I watched the original three films before last Thursday's premiere to reacquaint ourselves with the saga's unmistakable stories and characters. This was a spectacularly poor decision. It served only to heighten what would have been the consensus anyway: the fourth film was an absolute fiasco. Barring a few visually stimulating action scenes--Spielberg would have it no other way--the film fell flat on its face. The script is abysmal. George Lucas, as Orr very bravely and astutely remarks, has lost a few too many screws; this story has lost the flavor, moral/religious undertones, motivation and electricity of the earlier scripts. Now, we've got aliens--I beg your pardon, "Interdimensional beings"--and a Crystal Skull which looks like it was purchased from Toys R' us. Aside from the obvious fact that Harrison Ford is now a gruff 65, and no amount of trite one-liners ("We were younger back then," "I'm gettting too old for this," etc.)can disguise it, the film is soulless beyond rescue. Shia LeBeouf gives a refreshing performance, but even his youthful pizzazz can't negate the disastrous fact that there's not a single moment of genuine human connection in this movie. The elaborate and eventually goofy CGI, by the way, was a bad idea. Don't people want the raw effects of the first films? Maybe a 5/10.
- Sambassador
May 28, 2008 at 8:42pm
Reviews of works in which George Lucas is somehow involved seem to be tinted by a trend of Lucas bashing very dear some critics. Personal attacks on Lucas can hardly be considered a relevant part of a rigorous review, especially when they are not substantiated. It seems Lucas, who has not written the script of Indiana Jones is being used as a scapegoat for all the flaws found in the film. When critics see it fit to pontificate about the methods of a filmmaker who has attracted so many moviegoers they should do it in a more rigorous manner. The Lucas bashing rhetoric is also found in the review of films in which he was not at all involved. Christopher Orr’s review of Speed Racer, for example, starts by a sharp attack on Lucas. Impressions and biases as well expression of personal taste are more fitted for an editorial or for "Entertainment Tonight". It’s not what I expected to find in the New Republic.
- Munesh
June 1, 2008 at 9:22pm