Movie Review - 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Starring Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, and Cate Blanchett
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Rated PG-13

In spite of everything that's wrong with Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, it's still pretty entertaining. It's on that premise that the entire series has hung its signature fedora, of course, but here in the fourth chapter it really needs the entertainment value because there's less worth watching than there should be.

Famed archaeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) has apparently not stopped traveling the world in search of its ancient and most mystical treasures. It's 1957, almost 20 years since he rode off into the sunset with his father, Henry, at the end of his last filmed adventure.

Per his usual, when we first see Dr. Jones again, he's up to his neck in trouble. Soviet forces have kidnapped him and taken him to a certain government warehouse in the middle of the Nevada desert. What they want, according to a Russian ice queen named Dr. Spalko (Cate Blanchett), are the remains of a body studied by the U.S. government ten years ago.

Also per his usual, it's never the end of Indiana Jones when we first see him in a movie; that wouldn't make for much of a popcorn flick, now would it? Narrowly escaping Spalko and the Reds, Jones returns to his civilian life as a professor, where he is approached by a young greaser on a motorcycle who calls himself Mutt (Shia LaBeouf).

Mutt spins a tale of woe about one of Indy's former colleagues who has gone missing in South America while searching for legendary crystal skulls. Before we know it, the leather jacket is back on, the whip is on his (surgically replaced) hip, and Indiana Jones is back in action.

So much has been made of this film and so much is already known about its specifics that it's hard to be surprised when you see or learn certain things that, when the script was written, were probably intended to be surprising.

Speaking of the script: This is the one they waited 20 years for? The basic idea is fine, I love that there's always a pre-cursor to the story at the beginning of each adventure, but there are an awful lot of tangents here for what should be a straight ahead action flick. It's more like the second National Treasure movie than an Indiana Jones movie, and that isn't meant as a compliment. For every good development that advances the plot, there's another one that cuts the story off at the knees. Whether it's remarkably absurd Tarzan-inspired action or...uh...the entire ending, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn't even as interesting or as believable as Temple of Doom.

Having said that, it's not like the events of the story ever betray the setup, just that after about 40 minutes in, every new development is unbelievably daffy. There are some good action sequences, for example: A motorcycle chase, some river rapids, monster ants. But there are just as many bad ones: sword fighting from the tops of cars, swinging from vines, and something to do with Indy hiding in a refrigerator. 

And while I was not prepared for how much of a letdown the action would be, I was even less prepared for how Shia LaBeouf would save this film all by himself. We're on record here at The Big Picture about the Scrappy Doo Syndrome (wherein a kid is introduced late in the series to spice things up; it never works). But Shia is probably the highlight of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We've all made cracks about Harrison Ford's age, and he has very clearly slowed down. So the introduction of Mutt/Shia not only gives the series some new life but shows that after a a long career of adventure hunting, Indiana Jones has gone about as far as he can go. There is a new generation, and he's starting to realize it.

Is Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a good fit for the series? That's a tough one, because the franchise was already wrapped up pretty well in The Last Crusade. It's not a necessary sequel and much of it feels forced and labored. It isn't fair to compare it to Raiders round-by-round because Raiders is the best action movie ever made, but it is fair to compare it to other sequels, and I wouldn't say Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is any better than either one of them. May not be worse, either.

I will say this, however: We know from watching enough reunion tours and old timers games that nostalgia alone isn't always  enough to justify the ticket. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull feels like an old-timers game. They're all out on the diamond, yes, but it's slow-pitch underhand softball now, and nobody's committed to winning the game as much as they're committed to not injuring themselves and collecting the appearance fee.

This just happens to be an old-timers game with a few exciting plays at the plate.