The Man with the Hat is Back!
Crystal Skull Brings a New Era of Adventure
My first thought, when seeing publicity stills from the making of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was "Wow. Harrison Ford looks like my dad." While my dad would probably be happy with the comparison, it merely reinforces the fact that nearly 20 years have gone by since the franchise ended. While most fans had probably given up hope of ever seeing Indiana Jones don his trademark fedora again, director Steven Spielberg has given us a new tale of adventure just in time for summer!
Written by: David Koepp, based on a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson, based on characters created by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman
Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia LaBeouf, Ray Winstone and John Hurt
Rated
(for
adventure violence and scary images)Running time: 124 min.
FilmGuru's Rating : 10 out of 10.
Unlike the previous tales of our whip-wielding archaeologist, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull takes Ford out of the pre-WWII 1930s. With the Nazis firmly stuck in the past, this new adventure plops Indiana down in the middle of the Cold War.
Soviets are looking for the remains of a top-secret crash that Indiana helped the United States Army recover in 1947. If you're thinking Roswell, you'd be right.
Whereas the Indiana Jones stories of the past were firmly entrenched in history, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull looks toward the future. This is a story of the 1950s, when mankind was looking to the stars and the possibility of greater mysteries than those of folklore and legend.
The years have been kind to Indiana Jones. He's clearly in the twilight of his adventuring days, but he still has the brains and just enough brawn to take on one more big quest. The fact that he's a little older, a little more gray, only makes the hero that much more real.
This time around, Indiana Jones has a sidekick. Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) joins Indiana on a race to stay ahead of Soviets who are looking for an ancient artifact of immeasurable power. Mutt has a personal stake in retrieving the artifact because his mother and a family friend have been kidnapped by Soviets attempting to retrieve it. Their only guide is a letter written by a mad professor (John Hurt) who offers vague clues about its location.
The story is formulaic, with the prerequisite close calls and chase scenes. But it doesn't matter. This is an Indiana Jones movie and -- like the matinee serials on which the franchise is based -- it has a certain way of doing things. In this way, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull gets it right. It delivers exactly what we want, with predictable results.
The story certainly has its share of surprises. But the best parts are so well laid out that we know what will happen to the characters long before the end of the film.
Returning to the story is Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) from Raiders of the Lost Ark. While Allen's character is a welcome reunion, it is a further reminder of how the franchise has aged. Marion is still a poorly-written two-dimensional character, but George Lucas never could write for women.
The film is one long love-letter to fans of the franchise. It included several nods to Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott, who died in 1992), Henry Jones (Sean Connery), and even the made-for-television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. The one notable absence from the story is the character Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) who appeared in two of the first three movies.
Certainly, the biggest complaint about the film is likely to be the plot of the story. By moving Indiana Jones away from the supernatural and into the realm of science fiction, the filmmakers run the risk of upsetting a lot of fans. If, for one, loved the switch.
Back in 1994, I saw a science fiction film called Stargate by then-unknown filmmakers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. The story of a brilliant but discredited archaeologist helping the military decipher a relic from ancient Egypt made me wistful for the Indiana Jones series that had ended five years earlier. In my opinion, as good as the film had been, it should have starred Harrison Ford and been titled Indiana Jones and the Lost Stargate.
To my delight, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull combined elements of the original trilogy with a new storyline that updated the hero for a new decade. In an era of the Cold War, Sputnik, and the atomic bomb, it's somehow reassuring to know that Indiana Jones was still adventuring.
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