Indiana Jones and the Kingdom
of the Crystal Skull (’08 review)

5 out of 5

The excitement of summer movie season has become diluted with every lame Batman sequel or annoying Speed Racer.  Happily, director Steven Spielberg, writer/producer George Lucas, and star Harrison Ford have rejoined to make summer movies awesome again with the fourth Indy adventure, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  While Raiders still remains the best Indy movie, Crystal Skull is a worthy successor that borrows elements from all three previous movies without feeling like an uninspired retread.  Crystal Skull has a sense of adventure and discovery like Raiders, it has a family banter dynamic like Last Crusade, and it’s weird as hell like Temple of Doom. 

Still swinging whips and punches, an elderly Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. (Harrison Ford) is on a quest to find the mystical crystal skulls.  Traveling with Indy is a motorcycle greaser named Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) who is trying to find his mentor, Ox (John Hurt), and his mother, Marion (Karen Allen).  Hunting down the good guys is the deadly Russian agent Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) and her troupe of killer communist cronies who are also looking for the supernatural crystals.  But what will the skulls reveal, and do they hold a power beyond human understanding? 

Ford seems energized for the first time in almost a decade after sleepwalking through generic good guy roles.  He is defined by this singular, iconic role, and Spielberg knows it. The first time Indy pops up on screen, Spielberg deftly plays it with bold shadows, showing first Indy’s trademark hat, then the silhouette of the iconic figure, and finally spinning the camera around to reveal our hero.  Indy isn’t showing much wear from his decades of adventuring, but you really want to see Indiana Jones complaining about his aching back?  No, you want to see him whip-slinging and throwing haymakers!   However, Indy has gotten a tad more scholarly in his latter years, at one point lecturing on the difference between quicksand and dry sand as he’s sinking into it! 

Skull is really a one-man show, but the ancillary characters are colourful.  LaBeouf gets in a few laughs with his Fonzie-style mannerisms.  Allen is great treat to see again in an Indiana Jones movie because she was always the best of Indy’s ladies.  The interplay between Indy/Marion/Mac is the story’s heart in the midst of all the madness. There is a distinctly tragic vibe to Ray Winstone’s drunken Mac, who takes his place in a long line of Dr. Jones’ two-faced friends.  With an awesomely evvvvilllll Russian accent that is a lot of fun, Blanchett’s baddie is deliciously scenery chewing.  She’s also a tad crazy, even for an Indiana Jones villain, with her trying out “psychic” powers on Indy that he simply laughs off. 

Previously, the Indiana Jones series had been set in the 1930s, but since Ford has aged, the movie’s time period has been updated to the late 1950s.  The earlier films cribbed from the 40s’ adventure serials, but now there’re a lot of references to ‘50s sci-fi movies, rampant McCarthyism, and communist fears.  It gives the movie a nice historical flair that sets it apart from its predecessors. The final shot of the opening action sequence shows a big nuclear mushroom cloud, signaling that Skull is an Indy movie for the atomic age. 

One of the reasons that Indy’s fourth outing took so long was because Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford couldn’t settle on the “MacGuffin,” i.e. the object that keeps the plot moving like the ark in Raiders.  Crystal skulls are cool but they may raise a few eyebrows with their unearthly origin.  It fits with the other MacGuffins because the skulls are presented as extremely ancient with mystical/religious significance.  Things get especially crazy in the third act when Indy finds the resting place of the skull, but Spielberg plays it with an eerie vibe that sells it perfectly.  The ending is an entertaining genre mash-up unexpected for an Indiana Jones film.

Like all Indiana Jones movies, the action pieces are the highlights.  The opening is a cool nod the series history, taking place in the big warehouse seen at the end of Raiders.  Another strange and hilarious scene is set at ground zero of nuclear testing facility.  There’s a frantic swordfight that takes place across two speeding jeeps, which is a lot like the mine cart sequence from Temple of Doom.  A brutal fistfight happens in a field of killer ants, and the conclusion is disgustingly hilarious.  Spielberg’s classical eye for composition and presentation of action is refreshingly old school compared to the soulless whiz-bang of many modern action directors.  

Mainly, the reason why Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is so great is because it’s dangblasted fun.  This is an energetic romp that lets a screen icon live again, showing the audience how there’s only one man who swings his whip above everyone else.