Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008

2/4 Stars

The opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in many ways epitomizes the two directions that this movie seems to be pulling in. With Elvis blasting through the speaker, a 1950's hot rod rips across the screen at high speed. This is playing to George Lucas' strong points- his love of high velocity vehicles is shown in everything from the drag racing in American Graffiti to the TIE Fighters whipping across the screen in the original Star Wars film. There is another element in this sequence however- a pack of computer generated prairie dogs that are intended (I think) to provide some comic relief for the audience. This is pure cheese.

This is Indiana Jones IV- a movie that has some fun adventure elements combined with a lot of camp and bad jokes. On a personal level, I desperately wanted to love this movie. I have seen it 8 times now. I have come up with creative ways to justify certain things. Nevertheless, my conclusion is that this is a cheesy "B" adventure movie that has Indy, Russians, and aliens. This seems to be the point though. According to a featurette on the main disk of the DVD, an original title for the movie was going to be "Indiana Jones and the Saucermen"- another was "Indiana Jones and the Giant Ants"- and the goal was to make a 1950's B movie with Indy in the starring role. The logic was that the first three films were based on 1930's serials, so now that Indy had aged and the film was set in the 50's, they should make it like a 1950's aliens attack film. But does it work?

The results are mixed. The film is laced with a variety of bad jokes- including one too many "I'm getting too old for this" references. Not that there weren't bad jokes in the earlier films, but they just were not this campy. Also, any sort of "edge" that Indy had in the previous films is gone. The image of Indy drinking himself into a stupor after the "death" of Marion in a Cairo cafe seems a distant memory.

The supporting cast is not as strong as Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott (Marcus Brody), and John Rhys-Davies (Sallah). Instead we have the characters like "Mutt" (who is ok), Oxley (who is bizarre), and "Mac" (who sucks). The "mcguffin" of the film is also weaker than the Ark or the Holy Grail. The Crystal Skull is pretty lame in fact and I'm not sure if anyone believes Harrison Ford when he exclaims "It's BEAUTIFUL!" upon its discovery.

The greatest moment in the picture was the portion that was filmed in New Haven. The motorcycle chase around Yale following the greaser/jock brawl is a true highlight. This chase is vastly superior to the seemingly never ending chase that is the second half of the film.

In this portion, Lucas and Spielberg went wild with CGI special effects as computer generated monkeys and ants team together to "add" to the adventure. There are a number of low points here, including Shia LeBeouf's Tarzan impersonation, the "crotch shot" as he performs a split while fencing, Marion's "tree jump" into the river, and the lamest fist fight in Indy's career against an over sized Russian. This is followed by Oxley's line: "Three times it drops" after which the audience is subjected to not one, but three increasingly impossible falls off of a waterfall by the group of protagonists.

If the audience wasn't aware of it already, this is about the point where the movie gets really stupid. Quotes like: "No more forever waiting", "Not space, but the space between spaces", and
"Knowledge- knowledge was their treasure" sum up the experience.

So why 2 stars? Well, if one can get past the sheer camp of the film, it is action driven and a pretty fun experience. It is not a great film by any stretch, but somehow quite watchable. It is a film that sought to capture a "B" movie experience, and for better or worse, it seems to have succeeded. Now who wants to watch Raiders or Last Crusade?