"The movie opens unquietly with a desert car chase and a nuclear explosion."
To say that “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is about a
search for a lost city of gold just might be the understatement of this
Hollywood year. The movie is a wonderfully garbled mess of the barriers that lie
between Indy and his goal. We know, of course, that he’ll get there, but he will
endure two hours of physical abuse in the process and we, the audience, will be
worn down by watching him almost not make it. The movie opens unquietly with a
desert car chase and a nuclear explosion.
The
characters are painted in primary colors: good, bad, and one maybe. Harrison
Ford’s Indy doesn’t aim to be the dashing fellow of twenty years ago. Instead,
he lets us watch age creeping over his 65 year old self by tripping and falling
occasionally; but boy, can he still handle that whip. We endure his wooden
delivery of lines like, “Put down that gun!” but enjoy a thought from Dean
Stanforth (Jim Broadbent): “You’ve reached the age where life stops giving us
things and starts taking them away.”
Cate
Blanchett has a roaring good time as Colonel Doctor Spalko, a Russian KGB
officer with a doctorate in some branch of science having to do with mind
control. Did I forget to say that I think this movie is set during the Cold War
and the McCarthy era? After a post Cold War period when we reached to Asia for
villains, the Russians are back.
As Indy’s old
girlfriend Marion Ravenwood, Karen Allen lifts the collective spirit with
sarcasm, superb self-confidence, and a smile that lights the jungle that
surrounds her. You will surely enjoy her life-altering conversation with Indy as
they are sinking to certain death in a dry sand pit
So what do we
see? A sword fight between Blanchett and Shia La Beouf as they stand atop two
jeeps that are roaring along a jungle path in the Amazon; swarms of hungry red
ants; our friends running, leaping, shouting and plunging over not one, but
three enormous waterfalls; a heart-thumping plunge off a cliff in Allen’s Jeep.
We also see a sweet and gentle shot of Spielbergian gophers.
We are quite
literally submerged in the noise and the special effects created by George Lucas
for director Steven Spielberg. Lucas and his Industrial Light and Design have
built ancient cave paintings, sculptures, and ingenious hidden locking
mechanisms designed by geniuses from the ancient world to guard treasure and
bodies forever. We also enjoy much gold and many skeletons.
It’s easy to
see where the money went: vehicles, caves, stunt doubles, locations, and
finally, the city of gold. The famous fedora plays a nice role in the transition
between this movie and the next sequel. We are left with the slightly sad
premonition that Harrison Ford may retire to the ranch and bequeath the hat to
his new sidekick, Shia LaBeouf.
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