Urban Thought Collective

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL ®

Movie Biases:
Pre-sold.

Major Players:
Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), Karen Allen (Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark), Shia LaBeouf (Transformers), Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth), writer David Koepp (Spider-Man), producer George Lucas (Star Wars), and director Steven Spielberg (E.T.).

I watched the “Indiana Jones” trilogy back-to-back-to-back in a fourteen hour period before going to the press screening at the Paramount lot on a lazy Sunday afternoon. These are the actions of a grown-up black kid from Seattle who idolized Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones so much, that he still calls the occasional woman “sweetheart” or “doll.” To say this is my most anticipated movie since the first “Star Wars” prequel is an understatement’s understatement. Did my childlike, gleeful flirtation with the past set myself up for failure in the present? After all, this isn’t your childhood’s Indiana Jones.

In a nod to Lucas’ beloved “American Graffiti,” “Kingdom” opens with a drag race across the 1957 New Mexico desert, ending in a mysterious U.S. Army Hangar 51. There, a kidnapped Indiana Jones (Ford) and duplicitous buddy Mac (Ray Winstone) are pressed into aiding Russian mind-control expert Irina Spalko (Blanchett) recover a mysterious box with magnetic, otherworldly properties. With one harrowing escape after another, Dr. Jones is soon accused of being a Communist sympathizer and loses his job at the university. En route to a vacation, young greaser motorcycle mechanic Mutt Williams (LaBeouf) derails his plans with news that Indy’s colleague Dr. Oxley (John Hurt) has gone missing in the South American jungle. He was pursuing the legendary Crystal Skull of Akator, and the fabled golden city of El Dorado. Mutt and Indy set out after their beloved friend, encountering Spalko, temple guardians, and long lost love Marion (Ravenwood) Williams (Allen) along the way.

Getting around well for a 60 year-old man, Ford and the franchise are in great shape, with all the hallmarks you loved about the previous three. The sweepingly iconic John Williams music (that score is like aural crack), overproduced punching sound effects, and that timeless, indestructible brown fedora. “Kingdom” revels in crazy, moment-to-moment action, highlighted by low-tech stunts and Indy’s reckless, unplanned creativity (”I don’t think he plans that far ahead” remarks Marion dryly to another Indiana Jones precarious predicament).

For the creepy-crawlies in this feature, scorpions and flesh-eating ants take center stage, along with one strategically-placed snake (Indy HAAATES snakes, remember). The David Koepp script (story by Lucas and Jeff Nathanson) strings along the action set pieces at a fairly decent clip, but noticeably sags midway through the second act under the complexity of the narrative (I’m STILL not exactly sure what the Crystal Skull does and why). While the previous adventures featured somewhat complicated plots mixed with an oblique history lesson, not even today’s highly advanced preteen could keep up with “Kingdom’s” convoluted plot as much as I could at their age with the original trilogy.

Ford and company don’t let a bloated plot get in the way of good time. Probably the most character-driven action franchise left standing, “Indiana Jones” brings back our old favorites while introducing new ones. Blanchett’s Irina Spalko is a force of fear, with a severe bob cut and accent to match that slices through scenery and men’s egos with the precision of her ever-present rapier. Even if its overkill getting an Oscar-winning actress to play the heavy, I enjoyed every second Blanchett’s Spalko was onscreen, and missed her when she wasn’t. Allen slips back into her aggressive feistiness as Indiana Jones’ truest love, who gives far more than she gets. (Total aside: I know it’s been almost 30 years since “Raiders” but seeing a slim, embryonic Karen Allen less than 24 hours before seeing an older, weighted-down-by-age/life Karen Allen is VERY jarring. Don’t try this at home, kids).

LaBeouf impresses again as hair-obsessed, pissed off Mutt Williams, a fatherless underachiever with a log on his shoulder. But, he can handle himself pretty well in a fight. As my screening partner kept (excitedly) whispering to me throughout the movie, “I bet they’re SO setting him up to take over the series!” Indeed they are. According to IMDB.com and George Lucas, he has “an idea to make Shia the lead character next time, and have Harrison come back like Sean Connery did in the last movie. I can see it working out.” So can I, George, so can I.

And what of Mr. Ford, the fittest, box office drawingest sexagenarian working in Hollywood today? Unapologetically showing off his silver hair and weathering a few halfhearted jokes about his age, Harrison Ford’s “Indiana Jones” is just as spry as ever, bullwhip swinging like he was back in “Raiders.” His Indy is still stubborn, spur-of-the-moment, skeptical, headstrong, and courageous. He is an American throwback to the height of the Red Scare, where the biggest patriots were constantly undercut and Swift-Boated with paranoid Communist rumor-mongering. While (bull) whip-smart and filled with an extremely limited-usefulness passion for archeology, Dr. Jones is still a straight shooter. He’s more inclined to dot you in the grill and declare “I like Ike” than betray a friend or his country. It is all great, good old-fashioned (I know it’s a cliche’ but it’s TRUE), Hollywood fun.

So why the rating, REEL DEAL? Glad you asked. Lucas and Spielberg’s adherence to an ancient process of filmmaking (Spielberg famously eschewed shooting digitally for 35mm film and manual cutting/editing) is to be lauded for certain, as is the movie’s old school tone and feel of old Saturday serial adventures that were before my time. However, this is an age where an “Iron Man” can make us connect with a new legend even more bracingly than our joyful receiving of an old. This is thanks to not just technical wizardry, but also a cynical hero for our cautionary times. One realizes more and more that “Indiana Jones” is a cinematic anachronism, albeit a welcome one.

The zippy banter needs a touch more edge, the story a trifle more cohesion. While not quite as legendary as the original trilogy, a comparison/burden that it deserves to wear after a 19-year hiatus, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is not your childhood “Indiana Jones” - and it shows. That’s not such a bad thing; it’s just not a classic one.

@@@ REELS
(THREE REELS)

It’s pretty hot go give it a shot.

Like what you read? Agree/disagree with The Reel Deal? Think he’s talkin’ out his…HUSH YO’ MOUF! (I’m only talkin’ about The Reel Deal!) Email him at EJAce1@GMail.com!

UTC critic Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for The 213 Magazine, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com where his new novel I DO? is available NOW.