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Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull
dum, der-de-dum, dum, der-de-dum, dum, der-de-dum, dum, der-de-dum, DA-DER-DA-DAAHH, DER-DA-DERRRRR, DA-DER-DA-DAAAAAAAAAH, DUM-DER-DER-DER-DERRRRRRRR!
Right then, before I go any further with all of this, I warn you that this boring monologue contains huge plot spoilers, so stop reading if you haven't seen the movie and want to without hearing what happens beforehand.
So, there we were, ready for some serious Indy action. It's been a long-time coming, after all "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" came out in 1989 and we only had the "Young Indiana Jones" TV show to tide us over in the mean time. So the pressure is on "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" (Needs a shorter title) to deliver the goods. We were ready to be entertained.
I won't go into how we managed to cock up and lose fifteen quid by pre-paying for our tickets online then missing the showing due to visiting rellies at the hospital. There are somethings that get higher priority than even Indy movies in life, believe it or not! But we decided to bite the bullet, join the queue of mutants for the box office and pay out a further thirteen quid for the next showing. I tell you, no wonder cinemas are feeling the pinch these days, what with DVD release dates being so soon after the theatrical release and the big price to get in. The price has jumped a quid in a year for feck's sake. Stupid.
I also won't detail how the dickhead on the ticket desk told us that the film actually started at 9.05pm and it actually started a few minutes earlier, meaning we missed the first 30 seconds of the film. "Big deal" I hear you say, but I like to see the WHOLE FILM and not miss the first bit. F**king knob'ead. Anyway, we were three rows from the front, so there was no falling asleep to this one... which suited me fine!
Back to the movie. Ahhhh yes, the movie. This story, set in the middle of the Cold War, with witch hunts and trials rife in the USA and the FBI doing all sorts of dark deeds to "keep us safe from the Communists", focusses on the Crystal Skulls (duh), the El Dorado and extra-terrestrial beings. It also focusses on the continuing development of the story of Indy's family life.
The movie opens in Roswell, New Mexico in 1957 at Area 51. Immediately, this kind of dates the film considering the amount of stuff that's been made over the past ten years about that sort of thing. Still, the film's opening set piece does get the viewer right into the picture with it's X-Files (and this is not the last time I will mention Da Files during this) alien hand and shifty glances from the characters. The warehouse is, of course, the place that we saw at the end of "Raiders" where the Lost Ark is stashed. The first thing that came to mind when The Man In The Hat was first seen was "Jeez, he's looking old now." Harrison Ford does have the excuse that he made his last Indy movie twenty years ago, but there were parts of the movie last night where he did look a little too old in the tooth for this kind of thing. Still, the opener was a big affair and he was throwing himself around like it was 1980 and making "Raiders" and he does joke about his age throughout.
The story then moves on at a relatively good pace. We get to hear what Jones had been upto for the years inbetween movies including becoming a war hero and more adventures in archeology as he is questioned by the FBI under the suspicion of Cold War "Un-American behaviour" and Jim Robinson from "Neighbours" turns up to vouch for him, which is odd considering him being in the X-Files as the alien-in-disguise AD of the FBI! Up until now, the film is entertaining and fun, but it's only when Jones is put on paid-suspension from the University and then runs into "Mutt" Williams (not Lange, unfortunately) and the story all of a sudden comes alive and the pace picks up. The following motorcycle chase is excellent and some of that Indy magic comes back. After this, you get the journey taken by our lead characters represented on the map with a red line, which was nice and then the plot slows down again.
And this is the very problem with the movie. There are set action pieces followed by a shit-load of talking. The scripting of these bits just doesn't strike awe into the audience like the speeches in the previous movies. The history bits just don't crackle with mystery and the explanations are just a bit dull. There are no cool old paintings of knights taking leaps of faith or rays of deathly light coming from the Ark of the Covenant, just random scratchings of aliens with big heads. The action beats (oooo, get 'im!) just don't happen as often as they should, so it all settles down into talk too easily. But the worst crime here is the lack of a comedy violence scene along the lines of Indy shooting the swordsman in "Raiders". The audience was waiting for it and it never happened. Big shame.
Saying this, when the action happens, it certainly does happen. There are fights, car chases and a few good treasure hunter moments which lift the film to the experience you want it to. The aforementioned bike chase is great, as is the extended car-in-jungle chase later on with Mutt's sword fighting and rope-swinging taking up a lot of screen time. The only thing I would say is that some of it is not as inventive as previous gags. The mine-car chase and flying wing scenes of old take a lot of topping, after all, and there's nothing that quite matches up to that in this movie. But the action is great and the thrill are all there delivered with the usual Indy tip-of-the-hat and touch of humour. The only thing with all this is that when I left the movie, I did feel that in the movie, you never got a feeling that the characters were ever in real peril, even though the situations were tense and dangerous. There was no real feeling that any of them would die horribly, even if they were in dire straits. This meant you ended up not caring as much possibly and the resolution of each bit was not a total "letting out of every long held breath".
The one thing the film has going for it though is that fact that, since I had avoided all plot hints and the like from mags and the internet etc.) I just didn't know where the film was going most of the time. The story did keep me guessing all the way through, so that was good. Before you knew it, you were at the end of the film with it's swirly whirlwind and crystal skull aliens literally blowing Blanchett's mind and Winstone having his greed do him in. Then you got the proper X-Files ending with the alien ship taking flight over our heroes as they only half see what's going on due to being spewed out of the caves fro mwhich they were trying to escape. The whole ending seemed to have been lifted from the "X-Files: Fight The Future" movie. I was a bit disappointed with this really. Just the fact that they had to use something that worked so well for Skully and Mulder ten years ago and that this was the only way they could see to go to get a proper big special effects climax was a let down.
The prologue with Indy and Marion's wedding was a nice ending and all was forgiven for the dodgy UFO as the family is in the church and Indy picks up the hat from his boy and gives "The Smile" (TM Lucasfilm) and leaves the screen. It was just like Superman's flyby-and-smile at the end of his movies. I felt like a giving a cheer as the Raiders March started and the credits rolled, but I kept it in. This was the thing with the film as a whole, one minute it was great, next minute it wasn't. Very frustrating... The audience was very muted as they left, which was not a great sign.
Back to Harrison though. Let's face it, he could stand their in the jacket and hat and we'd still cheer. He threw himself into being Indy, that's for sure and to the greater extent he did pull it off. He just looked a little creaky some of the time, which is fair enough, as he is pretty old now. Mutt's "how old are you? 80?" crack in the first thirty minutes was both funny and a little bit what the rest of the audience was probably thinking sometimes. Still, his stunts were great, even if his dialogue was a bit dry sometimes and lacking the wit that he had for the other movies. It's a shame that he didn't have more cracks to come out with. There was a nicely positioned "I've got a bad feeling about this" slotted in near the end which nodded towards Han Solo, but moments like this in the dialogue were far and few between and I didn't leave the cinema with any quotable quips from Indy or any of the other characters, for that matter. It was a bit sad that Indy spent most of the movie being called Henry and not Indy.
Shia LaBeouf is pretty damn good in his role of Jones' long-lost and before-now unknown son and takes up the slack that some of the rest of the cast leave in the action (more of that in a minute). The "revelation" that he and Indy are father and son is so damn obvious, even when the plot is trying to create some tension with the secret, that they should have possibly written it differently with Mutt knowing the secret at the start and actively seeking out his dad knowing his reputation for adventure from his mum. Then they could have spent the movie bickering like Connery and Ford did in "Last Crusade", which would have given the movie a little more emotion in the relationship. As it is, the two spend the time after the revelation giving each other soppy looks that Connery and Ford thankfully kept to bare and effective minimum.
Unfortunately, the rest of the cast are wasted for the most part. Karen Allen is WOEFULLY underused in the movie. In "Raiders" she was kicking Nazi (and everyone elses arse, frankly) but here, she just sorts of tags along. She does get to drive the van during the car chase and gets to punch Cate Blanchett, but other than that, nowt. Such a shame, but then again, Allen was looking a little more mumsie, so running around in a slinky gown and smacking Indy with a full-length mirror may not have worked as well.
Ray Winstone and Cate Blanchett are OK in the movie, but again are not given too much to get their teeth into. Considering the material given to villians in previous episodes, they are both wasted. Belloq in "Raiders" was a complete bastard and in "Last Crusade", we get Indy literally bumping into Adilf f*cking hitler, but here you get Blanchett with a very odd accent and Winstone being a little unremarkable and not very dangerous, as is his usual persona on-screen. His constant is-he-or-isn't-he a baddie is bloody annoying too and the final he's a triple-agent-but-greedy thing is something you don't even care about when the end comes.
By the way, before I forget, there are at least four tributes to Denham Eliot and his Indy Character, Marcus Brody, in the first half hour that seem to all happen in the space of 10 minutes. Paintings on walls, statues, shop fronts, you name it. It's a damn shame that Eliot didn't live long enough to reprise his role as Brody, but his presence was well and truly felt, even if it wasn't subtle.
So, this was a movie of two halves. I really enjoyed my two hours in the cinema and I was made to laugh in all the right places and silently cheered at the correct times, but it just didn't quite live up to the expectation of a nineteen year wait for one of my favourite movie heroes. Then again, this movie was never going to truly hit the spot as it's just too late for it. The three films as they were are a perfect unit and this episode is just a nice appendix, nice to watch but not essential. This film could not withstand the multiple viewings over the years that the other films could take without it getting boring, put it that way. It delivers, but falls short of the other films. This movie does everything it can to be "right", but it just doesn't have the charm or danger of the others. That said, it still kicks the sh*t out of many action films I've seen in recent years, so maybe the movie is great, but not as great as Indy in the 1980s?
I'll shut up now...
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© 2006 Graham T. Ebbrell