A Review:
In the very first minutes of the fourth installment of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's infamous action series we see a brown fedora hat roll along the dusty floor of a military warehouse. Then a group of devious commies toss someone from a trunk onto that same dusty floor. We know who this person is, of course, even if the camera doesn't reveal his face to us immediately. The person places the hat on this head and then we get the close-up - it's none other than Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), back in the game. We then get a snippet of dialogue between Indy and his old pal Mac (Ray Winstone) about how some of their close calls back during WWII and how things were far easier in the "old days".
This exchange is important because the film is determined to let the audience know that they know that we know Harrison Ford is old. Yes, we know he's old. We're addressing it! Right now! That's why this movie is in the fifties! The fifties, damn it! Moments later when our chief villain, minxish KGB agent Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), asks Indy if he has any last words (and I'll let you decide if Indy really utters his last words in the first reel) he retorts: "I like Ike." Oh, because Dwight Eisenhower is President. I get it! Ha ha, Steve and George, you rapscallions!
All right, I'm starting this out a little mean spirited and I shouldn't be. I apologize. Yes, they hammer home the age and time a little too much to start but once it got rolling I kinda' dug the whole thing. Ford is not afraid to let himself look old. When he's dressed up in his professor clothes with his gray hair not obscured by that notorious hat, yeah, he kinda' shows his age. And, in fact, I like the way Spielberg initially uses the 1957 timeframe to add a little zip to the film's early action sequences.
In fact, once Indy escapes the clutches of the commies (for the first time) at the warehouse he ends up in a place about to be done in by a thing, but I won't say what place or what thing because I found them to be unexpected and, thus, quite enjoyable.
After that second close escape (that's two in about 15 minutes if you're keeping score at home) Indy gets questioned by some FBI agents who are nervous about what transpired with those dastardly Russians and then he returns to his idyllic college campus where Jim Broadbent has taken over for Denholm Elliot (who played Marcus Brody and passed away three years after "The Last Crusade") as the Dean. But after his run-in with the FBI Indy is essentially fired and decides to pack up and head for London via New York.
But before Indy's train can make it out of the station Mutt Williams (Shia Labeouf) dressed like Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" zooms up on a motorcycle and then takes Indy to a 50's styled soda fountain (where Ford really looks old) and lays out the framework for what will become the movie's primary plot points - namely, a lost city of gold and the mysterious crystal skull of the title.
After a clever chase on Mutt's motorcycle, the "old man" and the "kid" light out for South America in pursuit of the skull and along the way they will run back into Irina and the nefarious Russians, of course, and they will track down an old friend of Indy and Mutt named Oxley (John Hurt) who also had been on the prowl for the skull and, sure enough, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) turns back up, too, and it also turns out, lo and behold, she's the mother of young Mutt. She seems to have been hap-hazardly written back in, almost materalizing out of thin air, as if Spielberg and Lucas didn't so much care how she got there as long as she was there. Though, when Marion asks Indy about other girls and he replies, "They weren't like you, honey", I wanted to raise my hand as if testifying at church and exclaim "Amen!" Good riddance, Kate Capshaw and blonde Nazi! Marion is the only "Indiana Jones" girl who ever mattered. End of story.
That said, Allen is fine, not spectacular, though she isn't necessarily given a bunch to do, and Labeouf holds his own, and Hurt mumbles a lot (he's lost his marbles as a result of the crystal skull, you see), and Ford is just doing what he does, but the finest performance of the film undeniably belongs to Blanchett. She is downright marvelous. The prior three Indiana Jones films had no scenery chewing villains to speak of (admittedly, I kind of liked that) but the fourth time out Blanchett chews away. Sean Connery aside, Ford was never given such a strong supporting member off of whom he could play.
The sceenplay was credited to David Koepp (story by Lucas and Jeff Nathanson) and I have to admit when I first saw that prior to the film's release it troubled me. Koepp was also the writer of Spielberg's 2005 "War of the Worlds", a movie that started out, I thought, sensationally and got worse and worse as it progressed. Well, guess what happens to "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"? Once they arrived in South America it really did feel like more of the same but without anything new added in. The finale was a bit of yawner. The mythology of the new one didn't feel so mythic.
And here's another problem I have with current action movies and I don't think I realized it until I re-watched "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on Thursday to get ready for "The Crystal Skull" on Friday. Why can't we let our action movies be dramatic anymore? Why can't we let them be serious? There is ever hardly a moment in current day adventure films when you feel as if the main characters are truly in danger. All action sequences now are layered with cute quip after cute quip and it seems as if half of them build to punchlines rather than close escapes. In "The Crystal Skull" there is a chase scene between two, sometimes three, trucks and while some of it is exciting (though definitely not the part when Shia Labeouf suddenly turns into George of the Jungle) there's trusty Marion driving one of the trucks and coaching her son during his swordfight and looking almost as if she's out cruising the highway on a summer's day. I should have been clenching the side of my seat during this sequence, not chuckling every other five seconds.
I don't mind elaborate setpieces that push the boundaries of what human beings can actually do but at least make me think one of the characters for whom I'm cheering might not make it out of this situation alive. Otherwise, why am I watching? To see some way cool CGI? Perhaps that works for other people, but not for me.
Rory, you have the floor.
-Nick
A Response:
I give credit to Spielberg, the man can direct an action sequence. The elaborate sequence at story's opening in a "familiar" warehouse is of course over the top but never lacks for excitement. The Indiana Jones films have always been filled with a healthy does of the unbelievable. This latest film is no different. Rogue Russian agents attempting to uncover an artifact that will help them take over the world. The pulp action that can only exist in a movie isn't what makes this film problematic.
It seems more the rather dull story is to blame. Reports are that the story went through numerous iterations over the 19 years it has been since the last film. Sure the script may be credited to David Koepp but it feels like it was written by one hundred scribes. After its brief desperate efforts at the opening to set the scene in the fifties (Shia LaBeouf in full on Marlon Brando attire in his first appearance is pretty bad but the most painful moment for me is a greaser-jock fist fight in a malt shop) and to establish that our hero has aged a bit, they basically abandon both themes pretty quickly.
There are a number of what I'll call cameos in this film that are really painful and at time gratuitous. Apparently subtle nods to previous installments might be missed and have the seemingly idiotic audience that we are taken to be won't get it if we aren't reminded constantly. Which now that I think about it seems to be a real theme, as Nick mentioned. They constant need to remind us Indy is old or its the 50s and on and on. Throw in a handful of attempts to "explain" bits of the story which only raise more questions and you have much of the disaster that is this movie.
And into this mess, Harrison Ford is barely treading water. He seems to be lacking that amused joy he had in previous films despite not having lost a step in his ability to take a punch, fall from great heights and other feats. His latest side kick is Mutt (LaBeouf) and honestly he just isn't that interesting nor does he really click with Indy in the way that past sidekicks have. John Hurt is put in a role that requires almost nothing of him and is more sad than fun. And the long missed Karen Allen returns joyful and pleased (although decidedly sexless) but her character doesn't really mesh well with who she was in Raiders nor does she do much after her initial introduction.
The only one who appears to be having any fun and who is constantly fun to watch, is Blanchett. Yes she chews scenery but if she wasn't doing that then the whole movie might be worse than it is. She's carrying a heavy burden of keeping us from yawning between action sequences that although get bigger and longer as the film progresses also get more tedious and had me thinking "enough already".
To be fair (or at least in the interest of disclosure) I wasn't thrilled when I walked out of the theater but I wasn't as disappointed as I am now. With a few days to think about it all of the problems I noted (and those which Nick addressed as well) just started piling up. Again this is disappointment more than hate. Spielberg does shine at orchestrating an action sequence but the story falls flat and his attempts to conceal that with some boring and obvious plot twists and overly long action sequences.
I'm going to choose to remember Indy as he was in Raiders and pretend that the sequels never really happened.
-Rory
A Summary:
What's the old saying? Too many cooks spoil the broth? Too many chefs add too many spices and then the meatloaf tastes less like meat and more like loaf? Something like that? Well, on "The Crystal Skull", as you stated, Rory, you've got a lot of cooks adding their ingredients to the hotdish and, yeah, it feels like it.
I wonder if writers never really receive proper due regarding action movies. I think about what I would consider to be the best action film thus far of the decade, "Batman Begins". Yes, the movie looks good, and the action scenes are done well, and the acting is nearly uniformly outstanding, but the immense quality of the writing is what pushed it up into the realm of greatness. Every piece was crafted to fit in its place and so it built to something whereas "The Crystal Skull" felt like everything was tossed in a bowl and sloshed around. It gained no momentum. The stakes never increased. It just whirred along on one plateau, never kicked it up a notch.
Or perhaps action movies are starting to run out of places to go. Anymore I find myself entertained the most in action movies by things not typically thought of as action, like in "The Crystal Skull" when Indy winds up in the place about to be done in by the thing (I'm still not giving it away) or the look Cate Blanchett gives Ford when she's standing up on the back of the jeep during the extended chase in the jungle.
We all want different things from movies and I've stated and re-stated my dislike for getting exactly what you expect and a lot of "The Crystal Skull" is precisely that - exactly what you expected. Do with that information what you will.
-Nick
In the very first minutes of the fourth installment of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's infamous action series we see a brown fedora hat roll along the dusty floor of a military warehouse. Then a group of devious commies toss someone from a trunk onto that same dusty floor. We know who this person is, of course, even if the camera doesn't reveal his face to us immediately. The person places the hat on this head and then we get the close-up - it's none other than Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), back in the game. We then get a snippet of dialogue between Indy and his old pal Mac (Ray Winstone) about how some of their close calls back during WWII and how things were far easier in the "old days".
This exchange is important because the film is determined to let the audience know that they know that we know Harrison Ford is old. Yes, we know he's old. We're addressing it! Right now! That's why this movie is in the fifties! The fifties, damn it! Moments later when our chief villain, minxish KGB agent Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), asks Indy if he has any last words (and I'll let you decide if Indy really utters his last words in the first reel) he retorts: "I like Ike." Oh, because Dwight Eisenhower is President. I get it! Ha ha, Steve and George, you rapscallions!
All right, I'm starting this out a little mean spirited and I shouldn't be. I apologize. Yes, they hammer home the age and time a little too much to start but once it got rolling I kinda' dug the whole thing. Ford is not afraid to let himself look old. When he's dressed up in his professor clothes with his gray hair not obscured by that notorious hat, yeah, he kinda' shows his age. And, in fact, I like the way Spielberg initially uses the 1957 timeframe to add a little zip to the film's early action sequences.
In fact, once Indy escapes the clutches of the commies (for the first time) at the warehouse he ends up in a place about to be done in by a thing, but I won't say what place or what thing because I found them to be unexpected and, thus, quite enjoyable.
After that second close escape (that's two in about 15 minutes if you're keeping score at home) Indy gets questioned by some FBI agents who are nervous about what transpired with those dastardly Russians and then he returns to his idyllic college campus where Jim Broadbent has taken over for Denholm Elliot (who played Marcus Brody and passed away three years after "The Last Crusade") as the Dean. But after his run-in with the FBI Indy is essentially fired and decides to pack up and head for London via New York.
But before Indy's train can make it out of the station Mutt Williams (Shia Labeouf) dressed like Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" zooms up on a motorcycle and then takes Indy to a 50's styled soda fountain (where Ford really looks old) and lays out the framework for what will become the movie's primary plot points - namely, a lost city of gold and the mysterious crystal skull of the title.
After a clever chase on Mutt's motorcycle, the "old man" and the "kid" light out for South America in pursuit of the skull and along the way they will run back into Irina and the nefarious Russians, of course, and they will track down an old friend of Indy and Mutt named Oxley (John Hurt) who also had been on the prowl for the skull and, sure enough, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) turns back up, too, and it also turns out, lo and behold, she's the mother of young Mutt. She seems to have been hap-hazardly written back in, almost materalizing out of thin air, as if Spielberg and Lucas didn't so much care how she got there as long as she was there. Though, when Marion asks Indy about other girls and he replies, "They weren't like you, honey", I wanted to raise my hand as if testifying at church and exclaim "Amen!" Good riddance, Kate Capshaw and blonde Nazi! Marion is the only "Indiana Jones" girl who ever mattered. End of story.
That said, Allen is fine, not spectacular, though she isn't necessarily given a bunch to do, and Labeouf holds his own, and Hurt mumbles a lot (he's lost his marbles as a result of the crystal skull, you see), and Ford is just doing what he does, but the finest performance of the film undeniably belongs to Blanchett. She is downright marvelous. The prior three Indiana Jones films had no scenery chewing villains to speak of (admittedly, I kind of liked that) but the fourth time out Blanchett chews away. Sean Connery aside, Ford was never given such a strong supporting member off of whom he could play.
The sceenplay was credited to David Koepp (story by Lucas and Jeff Nathanson) and I have to admit when I first saw that prior to the film's release it troubled me. Koepp was also the writer of Spielberg's 2005 "War of the Worlds", a movie that started out, I thought, sensationally and got worse and worse as it progressed. Well, guess what happens to "Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"? Once they arrived in South America it really did feel like more of the same but without anything new added in. The finale was a bit of yawner. The mythology of the new one didn't feel so mythic.
And here's another problem I have with current action movies and I don't think I realized it until I re-watched "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on Thursday to get ready for "The Crystal Skull" on Friday. Why can't we let our action movies be dramatic anymore? Why can't we let them be serious? There is ever hardly a moment in current day adventure films when you feel as if the main characters are truly in danger. All action sequences now are layered with cute quip after cute quip and it seems as if half of them build to punchlines rather than close escapes. In "The Crystal Skull" there is a chase scene between two, sometimes three, trucks and while some of it is exciting (though definitely not the part when Shia Labeouf suddenly turns into George of the Jungle) there's trusty Marion driving one of the trucks and coaching her son during his swordfight and looking almost as if she's out cruising the highway on a summer's day. I should have been clenching the side of my seat during this sequence, not chuckling every other five seconds.
I don't mind elaborate setpieces that push the boundaries of what human beings can actually do but at least make me think one of the characters for whom I'm cheering might not make it out of this situation alive. Otherwise, why am I watching? To see some way cool CGI? Perhaps that works for other people, but not for me.
Rory, you have the floor.
-Nick
A Response:
I give credit to Spielberg, the man can direct an action sequence. The elaborate sequence at story's opening in a "familiar" warehouse is of course over the top but never lacks for excitement. The Indiana Jones films have always been filled with a healthy does of the unbelievable. This latest film is no different. Rogue Russian agents attempting to uncover an artifact that will help them take over the world. The pulp action that can only exist in a movie isn't what makes this film problematic.
It seems more the rather dull story is to blame. Reports are that the story went through numerous iterations over the 19 years it has been since the last film. Sure the script may be credited to David Koepp but it feels like it was written by one hundred scribes. After its brief desperate efforts at the opening to set the scene in the fifties (Shia LaBeouf in full on Marlon Brando attire in his first appearance is pretty bad but the most painful moment for me is a greaser-jock fist fight in a malt shop) and to establish that our hero has aged a bit, they basically abandon both themes pretty quickly.
There are a number of what I'll call cameos in this film that are really painful and at time gratuitous. Apparently subtle nods to previous installments might be missed and have the seemingly idiotic audience that we are taken to be won't get it if we aren't reminded constantly. Which now that I think about it seems to be a real theme, as Nick mentioned. They constant need to remind us Indy is old or its the 50s and on and on. Throw in a handful of attempts to "explain" bits of the story which only raise more questions and you have much of the disaster that is this movie.
And into this mess, Harrison Ford is barely treading water. He seems to be lacking that amused joy he had in previous films despite not having lost a step in his ability to take a punch, fall from great heights and other feats. His latest side kick is Mutt (LaBeouf) and honestly he just isn't that interesting nor does he really click with Indy in the way that past sidekicks have. John Hurt is put in a role that requires almost nothing of him and is more sad than fun. And the long missed Karen Allen returns joyful and pleased (although decidedly sexless) but her character doesn't really mesh well with who she was in Raiders nor does she do much after her initial introduction.
The only one who appears to be having any fun and who is constantly fun to watch, is Blanchett. Yes she chews scenery but if she wasn't doing that then the whole movie might be worse than it is. She's carrying a heavy burden of keeping us from yawning between action sequences that although get bigger and longer as the film progresses also get more tedious and had me thinking "enough already".
To be fair (or at least in the interest of disclosure) I wasn't thrilled when I walked out of the theater but I wasn't as disappointed as I am now. With a few days to think about it all of the problems I noted (and those which Nick addressed as well) just started piling up. Again this is disappointment more than hate. Spielberg does shine at orchestrating an action sequence but the story falls flat and his attempts to conceal that with some boring and obvious plot twists and overly long action sequences.
I'm going to choose to remember Indy as he was in Raiders and pretend that the sequels never really happened.
-Rory
A Summary:
What's the old saying? Too many cooks spoil the broth? Too many chefs add too many spices and then the meatloaf tastes less like meat and more like loaf? Something like that? Well, on "The Crystal Skull", as you stated, Rory, you've got a lot of cooks adding their ingredients to the hotdish and, yeah, it feels like it.
I wonder if writers never really receive proper due regarding action movies. I think about what I would consider to be the best action film thus far of the decade, "Batman Begins". Yes, the movie looks good, and the action scenes are done well, and the acting is nearly uniformly outstanding, but the immense quality of the writing is what pushed it up into the realm of greatness. Every piece was crafted to fit in its place and so it built to something whereas "The Crystal Skull" felt like everything was tossed in a bowl and sloshed around. It gained no momentum. The stakes never increased. It just whirred along on one plateau, never kicked it up a notch.
Or perhaps action movies are starting to run out of places to go. Anymore I find myself entertained the most in action movies by things not typically thought of as action, like in "The Crystal Skull" when Indy winds up in the place about to be done in by the thing (I'm still not giving it away) or the look Cate Blanchett gives Ford when she's standing up on the back of the jeep during the extended chase in the jungle.
We all want different things from movies and I've stated and re-stated my dislike for getting exactly what you expect and a lot of "The Crystal Skull" is precisely that - exactly what you expected. Do with that information what you will.
-Nick
