Country: United States
Genre: Action
Director: Steven Spielberg
Year: 2008
Rating: 
NOT WORTH YOUR TIME
For the first 30 minutes of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it seems like director Stephen Spielberg might have actually succeeded in providing a reasonable facsimile of what made the first three Indiana Jones movies so fun.
The effects and stunts are for the most part resolutely practical, and those that are not are seamless. The tone is right. Even taking the series into the 1950s works well (unavoidable considering Harrison Ford’s age).
A lot of loving attention has been put into recreating a fantasy version of a 1950s university town, but only one step removed from reality. The same goes for other sets, such as a model town built out in the desert by the Unites States Army, complete with mannikins. I was even able to forgive the entrance of Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) in full-on Marlon Brando Wild One mode. (It’s not a very good joke, and it’s not very flattering to Shia LaBeouf either. Compared to Brando, he looks like a baby.)
But, even so, to come back after 20 years and get the mixture of tone, action, and character so close to the mark constitutes an incredible balancing act, and the filmmakers deserve our praise for managing it.
Trouble rears it’s head in the form of the crystal skull itself, a cheesy artifact that looks rather cheap. The relationships established so effortlessly in the first act start to become awkward and joyless, especially between Indiana Jones (a grumpy but fit-looking Harrison Ford) and Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). Ms. Allen looks tremendously excited to be back, but let’s face it, the years away have not been kind to her acting chops (her looks have aged quite nicely, thank you). The dialog doesn’t have much snap either. To make matters worse, Mutt Williams is pretty dull as a character, too.
Worse, the action scenes start to take on a workaday, perfunctory quality, as if Steven Spielberg had become bored with them a third of the way through the shoot. Frankly, his professionalism is not enough to make these scenes interesting.
But Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull really takes a dive in the third act. The action becomes positively geriatric, again I think because Spielberg is simply going through the motions. As for the eponymous crystal skull, I refuse to say much about it’s significance, other than that the explanation for it’s existence shows a contempt on the part of the filmmakers for the mythology of the series. This explanation leads to a CGI-fest that is a flat-out betrayal of the sense of physical reality insisted on in the rest of the Indiana Jones flicks.
The crowning indignity is a coda that ties up the characters’ relationships in a neat little bow while Spielberg vamps endlessly and composer John Williams’ orchestra swells triumphantly. Poor Harrison Ford looks positively embarrassed, as well he should.
Roger Ebert, in his review of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, says in effect that once you’ve seen one of the Indiana Jones movies, you’ve seen them all. Spielberg and company are basically producing links of high quality sausage from a factory and any one link is as good as the next.
The problem is that I think producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg agree with him. They no longer have a sense of wonder about the universe of Indiana Jones. They have the attitude that they’re slumming and just having a lark, taking a vacation from making “real” movies.
Ebert’s vacuous and condescending opinion is refuted by Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull itself, which consists of a beautifully rendered first act, a second act that steadily unravels, and a complete disaster of a third act, a stultifying bore crammed with inappropriate pixelated imagery that violates the spirit of the universe George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have so painstakingly established. It’s a bit heartbreaking. It would have felt like less of a betrayal if the whole thing had sucked from beginning to end.
As it is, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a cynical exercise in blockbuster filmmaking that amounts to a big “F&^% You” to fans of the series.
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