To get us all away from politics for a second, here is a review of the new Indy movie.
“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is a movie dedicated to action, nostalgic catch phrases, and a clever, surreal mystery but the compliments end here for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ fourth Indy installment. It is clear that this is the worst film of the once trilogy now quadrilogy and that the heralded producer/director combo have thrown all the successful quirkyness of the 80s movies out the window in order to capture a new audience. “The Crystal Skull” is solely a disappointing action flick, not a suspenseful action/drama with poignant downtime that provides great dialogue and character insight. The new Indy downtime occurs while the protagonists try to escape hordes of communists in a dense jungle, or while fleeing from even more communists in an unnamed American city.
Now before I really get to the tragic parts of this movie I should give it some credit (mostly because I feel like I have to). Harrison Ford shows that he can play a timeless action star and once again sweeps the audience off it’s feet while still cleverly hiding the fact that he is 65 years old. Shia LaBeouf plays Mutt, a character that reminds me more of a pachycephalosaurus than a human and barrages his way through the film, providing all of the extra excitement of a twenty something. Mutt’s mother, Karen Allen is just as great as she was in the first Indiana film and the continuous bickering dialogue between her and Ford provides some of the film’s most nostalgic highlights. Cate Blanchett, who plays a “telepathic” communist general, is generally good but suffers from a lack of importance to the story. There aren’t any connections between her and Indiana and the Spielberg/Lucas combo do little to provide the audience any reason to think of her as a dangerous human being.
Speaking of Spielberg and Lucas, they sure do know how to suck the teet of a franchise until it is dry don’t they? Here’s a suggestion to Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Lucas, why don’t you sit down together over a nice dinner and think up new ideas instead of just taking a great series of films and adding updated special effects. Indiana Jones survives thousands of rounds of machine gun fire, a swarm of hungry CGI jungle ants, random aborigines who pop out from behind every wall and crevasse, nearly two hundred ruthless communists and a…. nuclear bomb… Yes, that’s right, a nuclear bomb. Indiana Jones is perhaps the first human to ever discover that in order to survive the most destructive weapon man has every created all you have to do is hide inside of a lead refrigerator and you will be blown to safety, completely clear of all radiation. Are you kidding me? Was that you, George who decided on that clever little addendum of fantasy?
I think Spielberg and Lucas need to have someone slap them with the “duh-stick” that explains to them the reason the old Indiana Jones flicks were so good wasn’t because of the nonstop action but because they were able to combine SUSPENSE WITH ACTION. 21st century action movies aren’t suspenseful, they are entertaining and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” limits itself because it really wants to be a full-fledged action movie. The problem is that Indiana Jones movies aren’t action movies, the guy is a freaking archeologist for crying out loud, let him do more than ten minutes of archeology before discovering everything in order to add five more minutes of chase scene during the so called “climax” of the movie.
I think I’ve completed my rant on Indy 4, it is a movie with a ton of potential but suffers from leaving the effective Indiana scheme of mystery and discovery, following the dark path of “lets give our audience nosebleeds because the action is so damn intense!” Hopefully I haven’t deterred readers from wanting to go see the movie because it is entertaining and it is great to see Harrison Ford return to his butt-kicking glory days. Check that, I would like to deter people from going to see this movie because until Spielcas and Luberg can show me that they can make a movie that doesn’t involve remaking a successful hit from the 70s-80s or 90s I don’t want them to make any money.
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