Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull DVD release. Out tomorrow. (******6/10)
When it comes to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, you get what you expect. It isn’t Raiders of the Lost Ark, or even The Last Crusade, but it is still better than Temple of Doom. Harrison Ford, now 88 years old, returns in this latest installment from Lucasfilm and Steven Spielberg as the archaeologist professor turned spy, soldier and superhero. Joining him once again is Karen Allen, his main squeeze from Raiders who apparently was always “the one”. Also signing up is Shia LaBeouf, who plays Allen’s son, a tough-kid Marlon Brando wannabe in the 1950s. His presence is announced in a fairly cheesy and hilarious fashion when he shows up riding a motorcycle, dressed up as Brando in The Wild One. And frankly, his presence in the movie is largely pointless, despite the big revelation that everyone saw coming from the start.
Cate Blanchett, the sublime actress responsible for such brilliant performances as Bob Dylan in I’m Not There and Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator, is as good as expected as the evil woman searching for the titular Crystal Skull for the Russians. (It’s the 50s - the Cold War is still big news.) The standard Indy fare is here - the friends who betray him, the kid who’s along for the ride, the hot-and-cold romance with Karen Allen, the fear of snakes, the temples full of trap doors and levers and booby traps, and the ridiculous action escapes from danger. Harrison Ford is as good as ever as Indiana Jones, making light of his age at the very beginning - “this isn’t as easy as it used to be”. References to classic moments in the first three movies abound. “Looks like you brought a knife to a gunfight”. And the warehouse that houses the ark of the covenant appears again at the beginning. Is that the corner of the ark we see?
I heard people complaining a bit about the movie when it ended - “Come on, farfetched much?” But in point of fact, the whole series is magical and mystical and farfetched. This isn’t really less believable than the ark of the covenant, the holy grail, and a mystic temple where people pull your heart out of your chest. So come on people. Jump on board and enjoy the ride here. For me, the farfetched ending here just adds to the B-movie feel that has been the hallmark of the Indy series up until this point. Is there anything more B-movie than…the way this ends? I don’t think so. John Hurt, Ray Winstone, and Jim Broadbent round out a cast that appears to have been selected more for cachet than for anything else.
There are moments which are, even for the Indiana Jones series, a strain on credulity. Like the one where he escapes a nuclear bomb by hiding in a fridge, or the one where he makes an escape from a warehouse on some kind of super-high-speed rocket device. But all in all, the story moves along insanely quickly, as you would expect. The protagonists encounter several interesting ancient cultures, if only for two minutes at a time. The evil bad woman lives through the killer ants and the plunges off waterfalls to make an appearance at the very end. The duplicitous friend perishes when greed gets the best of him. And the demise of the evil woman is as Indiana Jones as it gets.
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the poster child for “popcorn movie”, the definitive summer blockbuster, where you sit down for two hours of non-stop action, check your brain at the door, and allow a guy in a fedora carrying a bullwhip to assault your senses with one stunt after another. It’s a testament to the skill of Spielberg and Ford that they make it so easy to shut off your brain. An almost-worthy inclusion into the Indiana Jones Franchise, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is worth the price of a rental. And the price of a small popcorn. It comes out October 14th courtesy of Paramount Home Entertainment.