As someone who, as a boy, spent countless hours whipping invisible
Nazis in the backyard, and clinging to the family station wagon in an imaginary
dash to Cairo, it pains me to announce that Indiana Jones and the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a dud. A long time in coming, the
movie has turned out to be an uneven and, at times, outright silly
blast of fan service, and little more. And though it tries hard to play
on your nostalgia for the original trilogy—especially the
still-unsurpassed Raiders of the Lost Ark—no amount of
fond memories can make up for a terminally weak story, especially one
that reeks of being patched together out of desperation from several
abandoned drafts before it.
The warning flares fire immediately: The series’ familiar dissolve
from the Paramount logo is played for laughs, a wink-wink to the herd
of fanboys braying for Indy’s return. The year is 1957. Commies have
replaced Nazis, the war has turned cold, and Indy (Harrison Ford), his
posture a little less rigid than we remember, is trying to beat a group
of Russians, led by a sexy scientist (Cate Blanchett), to a mysterious
artifact known as the Crystal Skull. It’s a race that eventually takes
him from the Nevada desert to the jungles of Peru, an army of
sidekicks—from old war buddies to old flames—in tow. Chief
among these is a young punk named “Mutt” (Shia LaBeouf), whose greased
pompadour and ever-present switchblade have been pillaged straight from
The Wild One. Cocky but green, Mutt is searching for his
kidnapped mother, whose name just happens to be Mary. Hmm…
Given Ford’s age (not to mention the age of fans of the original
trilogy) it’s not hard to understand why Steven Spielberg and George
Lucas brought the young buck onboard. But Mutt, for all of LaBeouf’s
charms, turns out to be a mistake, his presence only amplifying what
they hoped to diminish. While David Koepp’s script gives brief service
to Indy’s advancing years, every time the man springs into action the
movie tries to have it both ways. The result is a movie that never
quite jells—one foot in the past, the other trying desperately
hard to keep up with the present.
Nowhere is this rift more apparent than during Crystal
Skull‘s major set piece, a
multivehicle scramble through the
jungle that cuts between Ford’s old-school punch trading and LaBeouf’s
much more agile, and completely out of place, stunt work. Indiana Jones
is a hero in the classic mold—able to take a punch, his feet
firmly planted on the ground. Mutt, in contrast, is of the green-screen
generation, and the need to energize the action leads to one of the
poorest directing moments of Spielberg’s career.
At its best, Crystal Skull captures at least some of the
excitement you remember from the first three films. (An early
motorcycle chase is especially sharp.) But as the movie lumbered along,
its story eventually disintegrating into sci-fi nonsense, I couldn’t
help but regret I was watching it. When we’d last seen Indiana Jones he
was riding off into the sunset after having discovered the Holy Grail.
It was the perfect ending to the series: simple, iconic, and lasting.
I’d have preferred to remember him that way. 