I am a big Indiana Jones fan. I watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade frequently. The strange turn that is Temple of Doom doesn’t really appeal to me outside of the fact that it is an Indy film, which therefore gives it a pass. However, 19 years after the previous Indiana Jones feature hit the big screen I didn’t know what to expect. I avoided all marketing and the first time I saw a single frame of footage was when the Paramount logo morphed into a groundhog hill and the film began. I went in with high hopes and low expectations. I didn’t think they could pull it off and, unfortunately, I was right.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a blemish on the much beloved franchise. It’s big dumb fun, yes, but to a fault. And after rewatching the trilogy twice recently and then watching Crystal Skull you can feel the film trying to force its square frame into the tiny round hole franchise creators George Lucas and Steven Spielberg wedged open.
The film kicks off with an impressive opening siege on Area 51 and is then followed up by a warehouse battle, a jet engine propelled escape followed by Indy surviving an actual nuclear bomb. In all honesty, Crystal Skull is more of a page out of a Stephen Sommers movie than something we expect from the whip-smart Spielberg Indy franchise.
You can make your own assumptions about where the film will go based on what you have seen, heard and read about crystal skulls and I will only tell you you are right. The story has nowhere to really go outside of its obvious ending and the goings on in between are only there to fill the running time. There is very little audience interaction or intrigue. We are left to be herded like cattle to the end of a two-hour bombardment of CGI special effects and action sequences that either go on too long or should have never made the final cut in the first place.
As for Harrison Ford as the iconic title character, I must admit I felt he was spot on. Following a questionably slow introduction, it seemed once he got back into the action and the whip was released he was once again Indy. Shia LaBeouf as Mutt, the young ’50s greaser sidekick, would have been great had he been given anything to work with. Outside of his introduction, the “greaser” aspect of his character turned into nothing more than a costume and a comb.
The worst of the bunch is the miscast Cate Blanchett, one of our finest actresses, but are you telling me there isn’t a single Russian actress that could have filled this role? Blanchett’s accent hurts to listen to and makes me beg for the days of Indy vs. the Nazis. Most likely the reason they went with Blanchett was in hopes she could act her way into the role considering there isn’t anything for her to work with. It boils down to “she’s bad” and that’s about it, and that just isn’t enough.
It pains me to write a negative review for a film featuring a character I love. I just got done watching Temple of Doom on SCI-FI and popped in my Last Crusade DVD to revisit the character. However, I can’t in good conscience go against my feelings. As I watched Crystal Skull, I quickly abandoned the feeling that this may actually be just as enjoyable as Sommers’s Mummy movies on DVD, but by the time I got to the end I am afraid I can’t even say that.
